My gaze whips to hers. “What happened between us was years ago. I haven’t seen him in ten years, Jinny. Surely, he’s over that by now.”
“I’m sure he is, too, but that’s not what I mean. You’ve been sleeping with his archrival ever since. This has nothing to do with sex, my friend. This has everything to do with power.”
“Are you saying that he’s just doing this because he needs to show that he has power over me? That he can choose not to give me what he wants just to prove a point?”
“No, he’s proving that he holds the cards. He’s not a child, Bowie. A man with that much success has to behave like an adult.”
“Better than he did when he was in high school.”
Jinny points at me and glares. Her voice is firm. “There. That’s it right there.”
I’m confused. “What?”
“You maintain that you’re over it, but you’re not. And he sniffs that out like a fucking Rottweiler. You need to let that shit go, Bowie. God, you just said so yourself that it’s been years. He was a kid. You were a kid. Get the fuck over it and let that shit go or good luck getting over what fucking Boston did to you.”
I swallow and rake a hand through my hair. As I sit down slowly, I draw in a deep breath and release it. “Do you wanna know something strange?”
“What’s that.” She says, and then she licks her lips.
“It was like a switch.”
“What was like a switch?”
“When you told me about Boston and that slut. It was like one minute I was in love with him and the next minute I wasn’t.”
“But you’re still not over what happened. I mean, you lost your partner in business and in life, you lost your stake in the business that you worked hard to build, and you lost your fucking house, Bowie. Don’t tell me that you’re all over that, because I’ll tell you that you’re full of shit.”
I bite my lip. “The more I think about it, the more I realize how unhappy I was, Jinny.”
“Are you saying that you’re happy now? Homeless, jobless, manless? Not buying it, sister. Not even a little bit.”
“Okay, fine. I’m not pissed off about being manless, but the jobless and homeless thing is a little displacing.”
“A little displacing?” She says, her voice raising an octave. “You have no home, Bowie. You have no job. It’s just you and me and our bank accounts.”
“Is that so bad?”
She scoffs, shaking her head. “You’re fucking crazier than I am.”
“Well, you’re not at all upset about being out of a job, either, you know.”
A frown and a head tilt. “True. But then I’m flexible. And I don’t mind change. Plus, my functions are transferrable. The only thing that’s really going to change is my fucking office. My assistant dealt with the day-to-day shit from current employees. I just dealt with the hardasses and the newer hires. My functions were top level. I can do that anywhere.”
“Well, my skills are transferrable, too.”
“Sure, but CEO is something every company advertises.” She’s facetious. “Those jobs are always on Indeed.com.”
I turn the tables. “How do I know that someone won’t call me?”
“Is your phone ringing yet? The whole fucking northern hemisphere knows about the split by now, Bowie.”
“Well...not yet. But it’s still new, Jinny. It’s not going to happen overnight.”
“Why don’t you call Axl Lennon?”
“The train wreck? Sure, there’s a reliable source of employment.”
“Fine. I suggest you start sniffing around then. Because I can sit on my little lily pad for a while, but you, my dear, can sit still for a minute, and that’ll be it. I know that you’re already ready to crawl out of your own skin, Bowie, and don’t try to deny it. I know you too well.”
