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“I bet that went over well,” he prods.
“You can guess. Carrie said some crap about AJ, and it kinda freaked me out.”
“What kinda stuff?”
“That she broke up a marriage and likes to sleep with married guys,” I mumble, my shoulders sagging with exhaustion. “She accused her of only being with me for my money and fame.”
“Direct hit. How would she know that shit anyway? It’s not like Carrie even knows where Virginia is located on the map,” he points out. Yeah, my blonde ex-wife brings every blonde joke to life with new meaning.
“She’s always had people watching me,” I confess. I knew it while we were married, but never let it bother me. It’s not like I was ever doing anything wrong or ever actually cheating like the rag mags always proclaimed.
“That’s…sick. So she dug into AJ’s past?”
“I guess.”
“And what happened then?”
Rubbing the back of my neck, I exhale deeply. “I guess I kinda freaked out. Basically sent her away to see her family and then didn’t return her messages.”
Crickets.
“Dude, you’re the dumbest asshole in the world,” my dickhead little brother says before laughing. “Let me get this straight, you like her, sleep with her, your supermodel ex-wife shows up at your house, and you send AJ away?”
“Well, I sent Carrie away first, but yeah, I guess that’s the gist.”
“Man, you are dumb,” he adds with another chuckle. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know, Dr. Phil. I need to talk to her, but I’m not really sure what to say. Plus, the longer I’m silent, the worse it’s getting.”
“You think?” Dylan clears his throat. “Okay, what you need to do is call her or go to her and ask to talk. You need to tell her all that shit about Carrie and about how she likes to mess with your head. She needs to hear the truth before you can ask for forgiveness for being a dick. Ask her about the married guy thing. If it’s true, then you can determine if you can live with that. If you can’t, move on.”
Hearing him say it just reinforces what I was already thinking. I need to talk to AJ. I need to tell her about Carrie and definitely find out more about what she said about breaking up a marriage. AJ doesn’t strike me as that type, but hell, my people-reader has been off before. Case in point: Carrie.
“You’re right,” I tell him, feeling slightly better after talking to him.
“Of course I’m right. I’m always right,” he says with a laugh.
“Whatever, dickhead. You still coming this weekend or what?”
“I can hang back here if you need time to fix the shit you got yourself into,” he says.
“No, you’re welcome here. Just bring your headphones in case things go well with the talk,” I tease, earning a loud groan.
“Please, not that again,” he grumbles.
Back when we were both in school, I had an apartment with a couple of teammates off campus. Dylan was in the dorm and came to my building for a party one of the other guys was throwing. He was crashed on my floor when I returned to my room, hot little sorority girl in tow. We fucked right there in my bed, with my brother trying to sleep on the floor. At one point, I tossed him my mp3 player and headphones to drown out the noise. Sorority girl was a moaner.
“No worries, little brother. You’ll have your own room this time.”
“Thank Christ,” he says. “Anyway, I’ll call you when I’m on my way. I’ll probably head over Friday after work, if that’s okay with you.”
“Sure. If you get here on time, we can go to the football game,” I tell him, feeling surprisingly better about my shit-storm life.
We sign off with plans to meet at my house. I also start to make plans to talk to a certain math teacher who deserves an explanation for my recent radio silence. At this point, I’m pretty sure she thinks I was only looking for a good time and nothing more, but she would be wrong. Sure, I have shit I have to work out in my head, but I’ve never thought of AJ as a one-weekend-only kinda girl. In fact, the more I think about her, the more I see her as the every-weekend kinda girl.
My girl.
And it’s time to man the fuck up and fix the mess I’ve made.
