“Learned from the best,” he fires back. “And I wasn’t jealous. I just didn’t want another man’s dick near my baby’s head.”
I snort. “That’s why you volunteered for labor-inducing sex?”
“Obviously. I’m a doctor, I know it helps.”
“Denial. I recognize it. Lived in it.” There’s a pause—softer, honest. “For what it’s worth, you’ve… helped me. Especially with Tessa.” Her name tastes of rust. My grip on the steering wheel tightens—too tight—old anger rising like it’s been waiting under my ribs for an excuse.
“It’s fucking crazy that you figured out how to get her fired,” Julian says. “Should teach her not to mess with someone’s job.” The speakers crackle, his tone impressed.
“Well—” I exhale, shifting into park. “From her boss’s standpoint, she got herself fired. You can’t work in marketing and start online smear campaigns. Publicly attacking a physician while they market hospitals. Her boss saw the legal liability from a mile away and fired her as soon as I shared the screenshot.”
“What a dumbass.”
I shrug. “I guess that’s Tessa for you. I just wanted her to get a taste of her own medicine. She could have really fucked things up for Robyn.”
“Dude, one hundred percent. What Andrzej commented on her profile was a bit—” He clears his throat. “Unhinged.”
I nod. “What gave him away? He was very satisfied with ‘Hinge only works if your personality isn’t as dry as your pussy’.”
Julian snorts so loudly it distorts the audio. “For me, it was that GIF he posted. A tumbleweed with her name on it.”
The corner of my mouth lifts despite myself. For a second, the tightness between my ribs loosens. Then it returns because it doesn’t make my own shortcomings more tolerable.
“I don’t want her ever thinking of fucking with Robyn again, dude.” I rub a hand over my jaw, feeling the scrape of stubble. Just remembering it has my pulse ticking faster—not pride, not exactly. More like the afterburn of fury that hasn’t fully cooled yet.
“Robyn can handle herself against Tessa. That socialmedia stuff was good for comeuppance. Everything else you’ve done?—”
I don’t need Julian to sing my praises over staying in Chicago rather than chasing after Robyn. “Maybe,” I say, with the heel of my palm pressing into my chest. “Still, it was too little, too late.”
When Tessa’s boss responded to my screenshot with a simple “Done.” Andrzej insisted we celebrate at the dive bar where everything started. When Julian arrived later, looking worse than the last time I’d seen him, Andrzej fed him his “my people believe vodka’ll make everything better,” and Julian, clearly smarter than me, shook his head and ordered Scotch. Vodka was out of the question for me, so I took a shot of the same thing Julian had.
“What’s gotten into you?Someone kill your puppy?” Andrzej asked.
“Something like that.”Julian downed his second shot.“Someone killed my fucking single life.”
I frowned.“You getting hitched or something?”Then I drank my shot. If fuckboy of the year got married before I did, I was even more of a disaster than I thought.
“Something,”he said, gesturing to the server for a third shot and a beer.“I’m having a baby. And she already hates my fucking guts.”
Andrzej smacked the counter and laughed.“Your unborn baby hates you?”He scoffed.“That’s hilarious.”
Julian rolled his eyes.“No, dumbass. The mom hates me.”
“Oh.”He shrugged.“Well, at some point she must have not. Unless it was a hate-fuck. Hate-fucking’s the best.”
“Yeah, probably ’cause it’s all you know.”Julian exhaled and downed half his beer.“Nate…”Julian turned to face me, cutting Andrzej out of the conversation, his blue eyes swirling with annoyance.“You need to shut him up, or I’m going to punch him.”
Andrzej lifted his hands, palms outward.
“Nate!”
We all turned to the entrance of the bar to find Tessa standing with her legs squared with her hips and an unmistakable box of her belongings.
“Sweet,” Andrzej said behind me.“Show time.”
Tessa came to where the three of us stood.
“Tessa,” Andrzej exclaimed, “I thought we’d cleared up that stalking is bad.”
