The best thing you can do in any heartbreak situation is lean on your friends.
—Lana Parker, “Top Ten Ways to Survive a Broken Heart”
I don’t bother to put up a fight as the gang steers me over to the long white coworking table in the middle of the office. Corey pushes me into a chair before hopping up on the table next to me. The others find actual seats, watching me with expressions ranging from curious to downright salacious.
Corey opens her mouth, but Tessa shoots her a look and she quickly closes it.
“Lana, are you okay?” Tessa asks quietly and calmly from my right-hand side.
I look at her, her bright-green eyes kind and open. And I burst out laughing. For the second time in this shitstorm of a day, uncontrollable giggles overtake me. I have to push back my chair because I’m doubling over with laughter.
“Am I okay?” I repeat when I finally get my laughs—which are on the verge of morphing into sobs—under control. “Let’s see. First, my boyfriend of four years dumps me when I was expecting a proposal. Then I get the drunkest I’ve been since a misguided tailgate party freshman year of college. And this morning my hungover ass gets the full-on hit-and-run of learning that my other ex-boyfriend is now my new coworker.” I hold up both hands, just in case any of them thought that was the end of it. “And NOW—and please hear that in the all caps it is meant to be in—my boss, who I thought actually cared about me, decides to pit me against said ex in some kind of masochisticHow to Lose a Guy in 10 Daysdating fucktastic challenge extravaganza.”
Complete and utter silence echoes throughout the room.
“So, not okay then?” James pairs his sarcastic question with a cheeky smile.
I let my head fall to the table, the thunk reverberating from my skull through the rest of my worn-out body.
“Okay. Let’s take this one step at a time.” Tessa’s voice remains calm and measured, which almost makes me feel worse. “I think we can go ahead and cross off last night’s proposal-turned-breakup fiasco, yes?”
“Yes,” I mutter into the cool white surface of the table. “Literally the least of my problems.”
“Okay. So now on to ex-boyfriend number two.”
“Wait, Seth Carson is your ex?” Rob doesn’t even try to hide the awe in his voice.
I sit up and glare at him. “Why are you saying his name like he’s LeBron James?”
He holds up his hands defensively. “I mean, he’s no King James, but the guy is an amazing journalist.”
“Yeah, well, he’s also a huge butthead and we hate him.”
James rolls his eyes. “Why do we hate him?”
Corey looks up from her phone, and she better not be live-tweeting this whole situation. “It doesn’t matter. Lana says we hate him, so we hate him.”
Rob shakes his head. “That’s ridiculous.”
“You know I love you, Lana, but you gotta give me more than he’s a butthead.” James crosses his beefy arms, leaning on the table and giving me a pointed look.
I press my lips together, weighing my options. I can either tell them the whole ugly truth, risking losing some of my closest friends to the enemy camp, or I can give them the SparkNotes version. I let out a long, dramatic sigh and decide to land somewhere in the middle. “Seth and I were close friends as kids, and we started dating when we were fourteen. We were more than just high school sweethearts; we were best friends. His home was essentially my home.”
Tessa reaches over and squeezes my hand, maybe the only one who can understand the true depths of what that means to me since I’ve actually shared my mama drama with her.
“We broke up when I went away to college, and it crushed me. Eventually I was able to get over it and we were on okay terms. Stayed connected-ish over the years, mostly on social media. But we had a run-in at our recent high school reunion and it didn’t end well.” That’s putting it mildly, but I’m pretty sure if I spill the whole story, I’ll lose whatevertiny bit of dignity I might have left. “He crushed me, again. But it was even worse the second time around.”
Another silence falls over the table.
James claps his hands. “Okay, fair enough. So we hate him. Now, what is this fucktastic challenge extravaganza you speak of?”
I groan, resting my elbows on the table and letting my hands do the hard work of propping up my head. “Natasha is pitting us against each other in a dating competition.”
“I thought those only existed in rom-coms,” Rob says.
“Can she do that?” Corey chirps.
I shrug, still unable to wrap my head around it, but also too mentally exhausted to examine it much further. “Who knows, but she’s doing it. We each have to come up with ten tasks for the other one to complete, then the readers are going to choose a winner and that person gets their own column at theChronicle.”
