Jason: I’m so sorry, Mel.
My hands shook as I struggled to think of a reply. Something more powerful than Screw You. I dug deep and decided the best response was none at all before I hurled my phone to the couch. I looked down at the wrinkled paper in my hand, the quaint beach studio calling to me. If I stayed, I’d be out hundreds of dollars, and I’d still be depressed and hurt. If I went, I could at least be depressed and hurt at the beach.
Chapter Two
The road stretched in front and behind me, the slap of the tires taking me closer to escape from all the drama back in Sacramento. Kaleidoscope had just brought on a client who wanted to double, triple, and quadruple check in on a daily basis. If I didn’t hear her nasally condescending voice ever again, it would be too soon. And then there was Jason. Apparently now that he had dumped me and confessed that the reason he hadn’t been in my bed was because he had been daydreaming about someone else, he was suddenly making up for lost time. First it was texts, one-word greetings, and rage inducing emoticons. Then he graduated to long winded apologies, lamenting how he wished things were different.
I’d gotten dangerously close to answering him, telling him to save the BS for his therapist, but I knew the moment I answered, I was giving him power over me…and he would know it. So I deleted his contact information and pretended the anonymous texts weren’t from him. It was easier said than done, but it would get easier. Every day I was getting closer to being okay. My heart hurt a little less. The anger was dying down from a raging inferno that swallowed me whole and was slowly being reduced to an ache in my chest every time my phone beeped and it was him. I could handle the ache. Maybe.
My phone sang on the passenger seat beside me, putting my willpower to the test. I gripped the wheel so tight that my knuckles bleached white. My stomach knotted as I waited for his number to flash across the radio dash, but I exhaled with relief when the name Stacia Martinez showed up instead.
I accepted the call with a smile on my face. “So glad it’s you.” My heart was still racing. Despite all my tough talk, I might have been weak enough to finally answer.
“That asshole still bugging you?”
My smile broadened. Stacia had the appearance of someone wholesome and sweet, with long ebony colored hair, baby blue eyes, and innocent cherubic features. However, she cussed like a sailor and was a beast in the courtroom. We’d met in the café across the street from my office a little over a year ago. There was this one two-piece suit, a self-important guy who always ignored the line and skipped his way to the front. Stacia had been in front of me, ripping some poor soul a new one, when the skipper strutted in ready to do his usual routine.
“Hey you,” she’d hollered, her voice rising above the espresso machine and conversations. The businessman froze and looked back, then turned back to the front, sure that he wasn’t being confronted.
“Yes, you in the overpriced Armani, with the misplaced belief that your time is worth more than ours.”
The man whipped back to her, his face turning red, steam shooting from his ears. “Who do you think you are?”
She rose to the challenge, not at all intimidated. “I’m Stacia Martinez, and apparently I need to teach you some fucking manners.”
The man left, flustered and embarrassed. Everyone applauded Stacia with whoops and hoorays. I bought her a coffee as a thank you, and the rest was history.
“You haven’t talked to him since that night, right?” she asked warily.
I nodded slowly, then remembered she wasn’t sitting beside me. “Right. Radio silence.”
“Good,” she snarled. “Good fucking riddance.” A beat passed and her voice borrowed some of the sunshine streaming in from my window. “Are you there yet? I’m living vicariously through you, remember? I need every detail, the way the air smells, how hot all the surfers are--”
“There will be no hot surfer stories.” I cut in with a laugh. “I am still firmly in the Men Suck stage of my break up.”
“Well, I’m not saying hit up Craigslist for some vacation dick. But something hot, golden, and muscled could do your body good.” I could picture her winking. She’d recently ended a long term relationship herself. She’d been with her guy for three and a half years when he told her he wanted to spice things up and bring a third into their bedroom. And then it was a fourth. And then a fifth. She loved him, but group sex was way out her comfort zone. Stacia was definitely of the ‘best way to get over someone is to get under someone’ school of thought.
“You’re single, you’re not getting any younger--”