Page 68 of Fake Shot
My eyes flick from him where he’s lying on the bed, to the hotel phone on the nightstand. Room 712. I still don’t know where I am, exactly, but at least I have a room number. And at least I’m fully clothed, unlike him. He’s in nothing but boxers, eyes transfixed on the ceiling.
“That was the sound of someone whose girlfriend is going to kill them.”
“You have a girlfriend? Seriously?” Of all the things I should be upset about right now, I choose to focus on this?
“Yeah.”
“Then what the fuck was last night?” I can feel the bile sloshing around in my stomach, threatening to come up at any minute as I continue to press on my forehead because it feels like if I don’t, my brain might explode.
He glances over at me like I’m trash that got stuck to the bottom of his shoe and ended up on his hotel room floor. “Iwas just trying to piss your brother off.It didn’t mean anything.”
“Piss Jameson off? Why?”
“None of your goddamn business, Jules.”
Who is this asshole, and how is he so entirely different from the man I was with last night? “So everything last night...it was all just an act? A lie?”
The bile sloshes around more, burning as it creeps up into my esophagus in waves that mimic the shame and anger flowing through me.
He looks toward the floor-to-ceiling windows of what I’m now noticing is a pretty nice suite—not the kind with a separate bedroom, but there’s a couch, chairs, and a table over in one corner of the spacious room, and a kitchen with an island and several chairs in the other corner.
Then he looks back at me, his eyes sweeping up and down my body. Given how hungover I am, I can imagine what I look like standing there in my sparkly dress from last night, my hair a mess, my makeup smeared from the tears.
“Honey,” he says, like I’m the most pitiful creature in the world, “guys like me don’t go for girls like you.”
I grab my phone off the nightstand, then sprint for what I hope is the bathroom door. Luckily, I guess right, and I shut and lock it behind me, then collapse, my knees crashing onto the tile floor as I lunge for the toilet and empty the contents of my stomach. It’s probably at least a half an hour before I stop retching, even though it’s been nothing but dry heaving for most of that time.
Brock hasn’t come to check on me, but I also appreciate that he’s not kicking me out of the room in my state. Howsad is it that my standards are so low, I’m thankful my husband isn’t throwing me out into the hallway?
Finally, I open the map app on my phone and check to see where I am. Not in my own hotel, as it turns out. I try to stand, but my legs are shaking like crazy, and I collapse back onto the floor. I can’t ask Brock for help. I don’t even want to go out there and see him again, and I don’t really feel safe in his presence after the way he reacted to finding out we’re married.
Pulling out my phone, I text Jameson the hotel name and room number I noted on the phone earlier.
Jules
I need you to come get me.
I think about what Brock said about wanting to piss him off, and it makes me wonder what bad blood exists between them. Suddenly, I’m terrified that Jameson will kill him, and it’ll be my fault.
Jules
You should bring Colt with you.
Second only to Brock, Colt is the last person I want to see right now. But he’s generally level-headed and never gets truly upset about anything. More than once I’ve seen him calm my brother down.
Jameson
What the hell are you doing there? You’re supposed to be in your hotel room.
Jules
Well obviously I’m not. Just come get me and I’ll explain when you get here.
And then I set my phone on the floor and dry heave into the toilet a few more times. If this is what being hungover is like, why would anyone drink? It makes me think of all the mornings my dad was bleary-eyed but cracked a beer for breakfast anyway because he claimed it chased the hangover away.
That’s the model Dad set for us: alcohol and bad decisions.
I watched him go down a dark path. His heartbreak while my mom was dying led to heavier drinking, the drinking led to bad decisions that nearly bankrupted his company and broke our family apart, and the inability to control that drinking led to him walking away.
