The blonde girl barks out a laugh, using one long pink fingernail to brush a single stray lock of hair back from her face. She purses her painted, enhanced-looking lips at me.
“Tina” she says curtly, not offering a hand. “And congratulations.” She sneers the word out sourly, curling her upper lip and arching a brow as she gives me this look.
“Uh, thanks.”
She rolls her eyes and shakes her head. “Yeah, great catch you’ve got in there.” She cocks a hip and sucks on her teeth, glaring at me like she’s waiting for me to respond somehow.
“Who were you with before?”
I wrinkle my brow. “Excuse me?”
“Which player, honey,” she says pointedly.
I shake my head. “Oh, uh, none?”
She scowls and then rolls her eyes in an exaggeratedly bored way. “Well, I don’t know how you did it then, but honey, you got a good one.”
I channel my years of etiquette classes and smile pleasantly at her. “Well, thank you, he’s-”
“Oh yeah. Rich, handsome-” She snorts a bitter laugh, her eyes narrowing at me and her lips curling wickedly. “Great lay.”
My face goes bright red, and I frown as I quickly look away from her. “Oh, I-”
What am I going to say, ‘I wouldn’t know’?
I can feel the flush blooming into my face when I suddenly realize I’m not embarrassed, I’m mad. I don’t for the life of me why, but there’s this possessive thing that comes roaring up inside. Because without really knowing why on earth I should be, I’m mad that this girl apparently knows that.
And I don’t.
God, what am I, jealous? I mean this is Austin, the famous player, the infamous womanizer, the legendary man-whore. Of course there are pretty - if not trashy-looking - girls in LA he’s slept with.
I just want to be anywhere in the damn world but standing right in front of one of them right now.
“Oh, honey, the things he can do with that mouth?”
She’s grinning wickedly at me, baiting me, waiting for a reaction I can’t - and won’t - give.
“Yeah, Austin’s-”
“Oh Lord,” She steps even closer as she cuts me off, getting right in my face with that bitchy little smile on her face. “And that thing he’s got between his-”
“Oh, sweetie,” my words are dripping in honey as I smile as sweetly as I can at her. “I know.” My lips curl into a big smile as I wink and suddenly hold the giant, glittering, gaudy diamond ring on my finger up to her face.
“I married him, remember?”
Her Botoxed lips snap shut as she goes quiet, and her eyes flash jealously over the ring on my finger as I gloat and smile sweetly at her.
Take that, bitch.
Because two can play this game, and I’ve been around enough catty, biting, awful socialite-type girls in my day to know exactly how this game plays out.
So, one of Austin’s ex-skanks wants to play? Game on, honey.
“Guess a guy as great as Austin just couldn’t get pinned down until he found the best girl for the job, huh?” I smile a big toothy smile at the bitch in front of me as her face goes dark.
“Yeah, well-”
“So listen girl, I’d love to talk more and maybe hear all about the time Austin never called you back or whatever, but I really need to get inside and say hi to my husband, ‘kay?”
Tina scowls at me as her lips purse tight, before she abruptly brushes past me and clip-clops her way across the cobble-stone driveway in her heels to the Honda parked to the side.
I wave brightly as she slams the door. “So good to meet you!” I call out cattily as she starts up the car and starts to pull down the driveway, leaving me with the smug look on my face.
And it’s stupid, and I know it’s stupid as I turn and stomp into the house. But that doesn’t change the scowl on my face. Yes, we’re not really a couple, and he’s not “mine” or anything like that. But God, at least make an effort to hide it from me.
And all of a sudden, I’m thinking of Vince, and that stupid secretary of his - laughing at me, humiliating me.
I quickly shake my head, rolling my eyes at myself. No, this is nothing like that. However classless it is for Austin to have girls over like this when we’re supposed to be married, I’m not mad, because there’s nothing to be mad about. He and I are just-
The car comes screeching to a halt, and I turn to see Tina stepping out of it and fixing me with a wicked look.
“Oh, and hon?” She smiles sweetly at me. “So good hear that you’re married and all, but just thought you should know something else.”
I roll my eyes as I shake my head “Look, Tina, I-”