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One
DAKOTA
Brian dropped into his chair, but not before swiping something on his phone and sliding it deep into his front pocket. His smile was perfunctory. His expression, as always, read like his mind was somewhere else.
“Sorry I’m late,” he non-apologized for the twenty-minute delay. “Damn. You ordered a whole bottle, huh?”
I grinned sweetly, pouring him a generous portion of deep red merlot. He was paying for it, after all. And once he saw the price of the bottle I’d picked out, he’d want to drink every last drop.
“Thanks babe.”
“You’re very welcome,” I grinned, raising my glass. He toasted me awkwardly. “Can’t have my man thirsty. Besides, you’ll need it for all the double-talking.”
“Double what?”
I’d muttered the last part into my glass, while tipping it back. It was a miracle he’d heard me. “Oh, nothing.”
He wore his grey shirt, the one that shimmered to black in an almost ombré way. It clashed violently with his purple tie, but at this point who was really keeping score? As we picked up our giant menus, it seemed suddenly odd how attracted I’d once been to the man sitting across from me. It was hard to believe I’d ever considered a future with him, even briefly, during the past year we’d been together.
“What’s that?”
Brian’s gaze was fixed on the empty glass off to one side, in front of an empty chair. He chuckled. “You planning on doing some double-fisting?”
“I probably should be, but no,” I told him. “That’s for our guest.”
He laughed again. “We’re having a guest?”
“Oh yeah.”
He shook his head dismissively, as his attention dropped to the menu. If he cared, he might’ve noticed the small red dot at the bottom of that glass. Or the merlot residue still clinging to the side of it, had he really looked.
But Brian didn’t reallylookat anything. He wore the blinders of someone so selfish and truly self-centered, nothing else really mattered unless it pertained to him.
God, he’s so oblivious.
I took an emboldening sip of wine. Not that I needed emboldening, really. I made a hand signal, and my accomplice approached the table. She slid into the empty chair while Brian was busy behind the wall of his menu, and I poured her a new glass of wine.
The payoff came when my boyfriend finally dropped his menu. The look on his face was so priceless, so abruptly panicked, I wished I could’ve bottled that look and kept it forever.
“Hello, baby.”
In the span of less than three seconds, Brian had gone as white as a ghost. Every ounce of color was now drained from his face.
“What’s the matter?” Naomi chuckled musically. “Nothing on the menu you like?”
My soon-to-be ex-boyfriend’s mouth opened, closed, then opened again. He almost actually said something, but whatever it was got stuck in his throat.
“This isn’t quite the threeway he wanted, is it?” I laughed, and Naomi laughed with me.
“No,” she agreed. “Itdefinitelyisn’t.”
Brian finally dropped his head into his hands. The comically oversized menu flopped to the table.
“That’s too bad, too,” I shrugged, turning to Naomi. “If he’d been the right kind of boyfriend I might’ve gone for it. I’m actually pretty adventurous.”
“Oh totally!” she agreed. My newfound friend jerked a thumb in our victim’s direction. “But withhim?”
We both broke into hysterical laughter, and the laughter felt cathartically good. It was such a relief to finally be through. To be putting an end to all the lies, all the scheming, all the deception.
