“It’s doing you no good staying here and getting drunk. It’s upsetting you. Just because you booked the room and had your luggage delivered here doesn’t mean you should have left my apartment,” Claudia says with a comforting tone.
I had spent last night at Claudia’s house. When I woke up, I asked her to bring me to the hotel. There was no way I’d go home. What if Darren was still there? I walked out on him while he was groveling and spewing excuses about his behavior. There was nothing he said that I wanted to hear, and I never want to see him again.
My spine stiffens. “And let Darren and his new girlfriend use it? Because he probably wants to shack up with her here too. No way! This-s i-is my room.” I point my glass toward Claudia. Alcohol splashes onto my hand, and I suck it off my skin. “I hosted a party for her. I taught her how to make swans out of table napkins!”
“Penny, give me your glass before you spill champagne everywhere.” Claudia reaches for the glass. I hold it up over my head so she can’t take it. A few drops land in my hair.
“It’s mine.” I quickly lower it to my mouth and gulp the rest down before she can stop me.
Claudia shakes her head.
I slide off the bed, stumble on wobbly legs to the ice bucket, and pluck out the Dom Perignon. Popping off the cork, I don’t bother with a glass this time, just drink straight from the bottle.I hold it out to Claudia. “Want sum?” I hiccup and sit back on the bed.
Claudia frowns. “Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” I can see the concern on her face, but my life is too much of a shitshow to care right now.
“Nup. I’m drinking until I forget about Darren and Karen.” I slap my hand over my mouth and giggle. “DarrenandKaren. Their names rhyme! Oh, they are so meant for one another.” A second later, my laughter turns to sobs. “They’ve ruined my life. How am I ever going to face everyone again? My followers think we had the perfect relationship. We were filming a Netflix series about our wedding. They were getting set up to film the finale—our wedding day. I’m such a fraud.”
As I start to lift the bottle to my lips, Claudia leans forward in her chair and snatches the champagne from my hand.
“Hey, when did you become a ninja?” I ask. She had moved so fast she blurred.
“The alcohol has slowed your reflexes. Another reason you need to stop.”
“I need it to numb the pain.” I shoot out my hand to grab the bottle.
With her ninja-like moves, she hides it behind her back. “What you need is to get out of this depressing hotel suite and sober up. Let’s book another room.”
Flopping onto my back, I splay my arms out wide and stare at the spinning ceiling. “She’s a supermodel. Of course he’d screw someone who is in his league.”
The mattress dips next to me as Claudia sits on the bed. “What are you talking about?”
The spinning ceiling is making me feel sick, so I close my eyes. “I always wondered what he saw in me. I’m not what big, muscular, popular, sexy football players usually date.” In the past, he was known for dating models. All tall, slender, andbeautiful; not five foot five, curvy women like me. Early in our relationship, the media made it clear they were surprised he’d chosen a woman like me too.
“He saw a beautiful, sexy woman. A woman he loves,” Claudia says.
I snort and turn my head to look at her. “If I were those things, he would have never had sex with another woman. God, how many times has he been with her? And in my house!” Nausea rolls around in my stomach.
“This could be a one-time thing. A mistake.”
I throw Claudia what I hope is a dirty look and not some drunken, cross-eyed grimace. “It doesn’t matter if it’s one time or one hundred times. He screwed up. Big time. He went to the trouble to star in his own porno. This isn’t some ‘I was drunk and my penis accidently fell into her vagina’ excuse. Who got hold of the video? Why did they air it at my show? Who hates me that much to do such a thing? Was it Darren?”
Claudia gives me another sympathetic look. “Will you talk to him about it?”
My body stiffens. “No way.”
“You might get the answers to your questions.”
I shake my head; pain shoots through my skull and I regret it immediately. “I’d rather get hit by a bus.”
Claudia grins. “A little dramatic. It’s probably for the best you don’t speak to him. He’ll only lie about it.”
I agree. I’ll believe nothing he says again.
Claudia’s shoulders sag on a heavy sigh. “I wish I knew how to help you or make this better.”
Nothing can make this better. He’s ruined everything.
I lift into a sitting position, hold my arms out for a moment to steady myself, and wait for the room to stop spinning. “You can give me back the champagne. That might help.”
