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“Sure couldn’t. Her job in all the years I was around was to keep you in line. She was your family’s watch dog. How did she have time to get knocked up?”
“Right?” Austin snickered himself.
Austin’s cousin, Ginger, was a little more than five years younger than he was but had been very close to him. Almost everywhere Austin went, so had Ginger. She wasn’t mean to me exactly, but she wasn’t as inviting and warm as many of his relatives had been. Although her energy for me hadn’t changed in all the years Austin and I were together, I never took it personally.
She was reserved with mostly everyone outside of their family—even some inside. She wasn’t violent or heavily attitudinal, but she annoyed me when I was in celebratory moods and wanted to dance and take pictures for social media. If Austin, my friends, or someone cool from his camp weren’t around during an event I attended with him, Ginger’s four-foot-eleven frame would stand stoically with folded arms and a cold regard. She spoke only when needed to communicate important matters.
Sometimes, I thought she was depressed. Then there were times I honestly believed her to be socially retarded. Either way, Ginger made sure Austin communicated with his family and manager. His assistant, Loni, couldn’t stand Ginger, but it was useless; Ginger wasn’t going anywhere. Austin got along with her, and their family valued her role in his life.
“I can’t believe Ginger’s pregnant.” I shook my head against the folded towel I rested on. “It shows how fast the world hasmoved—”
“Infouryears,” Austin added.
“Right.”
“Remember that time she caught us fucking?”
The memory didn’t take long to render itself. “We were drunk,” I dismissed the thought.
“Fucked up, but it was one of the best times,” he chuckled in my ear.
Drunk sex. I missed that. I missed sex. Incredible sex. After sex. Pre-sex. But intoxicating sex was a special feature. With Austin, the handful of times we engaged under the influence, it was fun. The one time with Jas was…mind-blowing. An experience filled with fiery passion and just as many orgasms as the number of times Austin and I had during drunk sex. But none of those times with Austin did I cum.
My thighs rubbed together in the water.
“I guess.”
There was a pause before he asked, “Can I tell you a secret?”
My face folded, and I didn’t know why. After all that time, I was game to talk with Austin. “I guess.”
“I fucked up with you.”
I wheezed dramatically. “You think that’s a secret?”
Austin laughed. “No. That’s not exactly what I mean.”
“I hope the hell not!” I playfully scolded.
Thinking of his betrayal with Brielle no longer stung. That era of my life felt two lifetimes ago.
“What I mean is…I should have fought harder to tell you I was wrong and so, so, so sorry for what I did. I fucked up, and it was easier to passively seek you out when you were hurting.”
Was I hurting?
I really had to think about that. The first few days after learning Austin had been fuckingtheeBrielle for an unspecified amount of time stung like a motherfucker. We’d been together for three years; the last thing I worried about was Austin cheating. That had never been a thing for us. But honestly, I couldn’t recall much of the burn after those few days.
“If it provides any consolation, I was good, Au. I was dealing with it as best I could, and having you around, apologizing, would have only exasperated the breakup period.”
“Because you were with ol’ boy?” His voice dipping an octave raised my hackles.
Jas…
“I played the cards dealt to me the best I could.”
“You’re dancing, Shi-Shi. I’m trying to talk finally, and you’re not participating.”
I readjusted myself in the tub then asked, “How can I participate?”
