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But wait, he had met my best friend. He knew her face was Rose’s profile picture, but he hadn’t known I was the one to put it there.
Irrational jealousy and anger started to build inside of my chest.
Had he still been chatting with Rose after meeting Cassie?
Fuck.
I picked his phone back up and quickly unlocked the screen again, pulling up the TapNext app within seconds. My heart threatened to thrash its way out of my body as I found the lone conversation in Ruck’s message box.
I felt insane, completely off my rocker, as I found the last few messages and scrutinized the timestamps.
Relief robbed the breath from my lungs as I met the realization that the last message Ruck sent Rose had been before we had met up at The Raines Law Room.
Before he had met my best friend.
The edges of my anger, my jealousy, still shook my hands. I couldn’t deny I felt betrayed over the fact that he had been chatting with another woman, while dating me.
But I breathed through it, slowly talking myself off the illogical ledge as I set Kline’s phone back on the nightstand.
How could I be mad at him when I had been doing the exact same thing?
Of course, I was upset he had been chatting with another woman, not really knowing that woman was me. It hurt. A lot. But I couldn’t deny it made sense. It made sense why we would continue to talk, even though we were dating other people. We were drawn to each other, in every possible way.
I was filled with this odd feeling of relief, but it was quickly pushed aside when I started to realize the consequences of my decisions.
My world had officially turned on its axis. I was in the Twilight Zone and playing the star role in a weird, modern remake of You’ve Got Mail. The only difference was that I wasn’t Kathleen Kelly in this scenario. I was Joe Fox.
Holy. Fox.
And I had gone off script. I hadn’t planned a big grand gesture where I would unveil it had been me the whole time.
No.
Not only had I given my best friend free rein to message my boyfriend, I had all but forced her to do it.
Holy. Foxing. Shit.
Finding my phone on my desk, I dialed Cass’s number and went into the bathroom, shutting the door and sitting in the bathtub fully clothed.
“Hey, sweet cheeks, how are the parental units?” she answered, her voice too goddamn cheery for the shitstorm that was my life.
“Do not message Ruck ever again.”
“Huh?”
I shut my eyes, resting my head on the edge of the tub. “I fucked up, Cass. I fucked up big time.”
“Whoa, slow down, Susie. What’s going on?”
“Thatch isn’t Ruck. Kline is Ruck.”
The phone was dead silent.
“Do you hear me?! Kline is Ruck!” I shouted, my voice echoing in the bathroom. I clamped my hand over my mouth, realizing anyone walking by my bedroom would be able to hear me screaming like a lunatic.
I listened closely for any sign I wasn’t alone and was relieved when I didn’t hear anything but my erratic breathing.
“Okay,” Cassie started. “I’m officially confused, so please, spell it out for me in slow, clear sentences.”
I rambled on for a good two minutes, giving her the step-by-step details of how I had discovered my boyfriend was Ruck.
“What are the fucking odds?” she asked, sounding just as shocked as I felt.
“I know. I should probably buy a lottery ticket today,” I muttered.
“You realize what you’ve done, don’t you?”
“Screwed up big time?”
“No, you catfished your boyfriend.” She laughed. “Holy shit, G, he catfished you too.”
“This is so messed up,” I groaned.
“You’re like two fucking catfish, sitting at the bottom of the lake, doing fish shit and stuff.”
“Okay, enough with the fish,” I snapped. “I’m freaking out here, Cass. What have I done?”
“You haven’t done anything wrong,” she placated me.
“Oh. M-my. God,” I stuttered, panicked and overwhelmed over the entire fucked up situation. “How do I fix this?”
“Jesus, Georgia, relax,” she sighed. “Stay calm. Act completely aloof. I’ll send him another message and nip this crazy-town shit in the bud.”
“What? What are you going to say?”
“For fuck’s sake, stop panicking,” she chastised. “I’ll say something along the lines of ‘I’m happily involved with someone else and I can’t continue our conversations. Have a nice life.’”
Okay, that would work. It would put an end to the confusion. Rose would message Ruck, they’d stop chatting, and the world would be right again.
Would it work? And is this even the right way to handle this mindfuck of a situation?
