The Love Laws

by Tamara Larson

  Hot tears started trickling down her face. She hated herself for her weakness but couldn’t help it. She began to turn away, needing to escape before Clay reached them and told her he was done with her. But it was too late. Suddenly strong arms were peeling her away from the door and wrapping around her protectively.

  “James. Where do you think you’re going?” Clay’s soft voice murmured in her ear. “I hope you weren’t thinking you could get away from me. Because no matter what fucked up thing you do, I will always be here for you. Don’t you know that, you crazy broad?”

  With a strangled cry of relief Jamie turned into his embrace and breathed in his familiar expensive scent. They were nearly the same height so she was able to bury her hot face in his warm neck. “Aren’t you pissed off at me?” She mumbled against his shoulder.

  “Me? Of course. I live to be pissed off at you. We give each other a hard time. That’s our thing. But at the end of the day I know you better than anyone and there’s obviously something very wrong in your world. Otherwise you wouldn’t have written that whole man-whore rant. So, I’ll leave the righteous indignation to my sister and I’ll just be here to listen when you need it, okay?”

  That was all it took. Jamie finally let go of her iron control and let the sobs flow. Her shoulders heaved and she was getting Clay’s immaculate chartreuse silk shirt all wet but it didn’t matter. In fact, it felt amazing. She was crying in front of her friends and the entire world and she didn’t care. It was such a relief to let her emotions out for a change. As ridiculous as she must look to a casual observer, she knew she needed to release all of the anger, frustration and fear she’d been holding onto since her store began to fail.

  Clay held her tightly and murmured words of comfort as Cathy looked on, holding the tray of coffees and watching in complete confusion as the normally self-contained Jamie had a complete and utter meltdown.

  Jamie sobbed once more and then laughed. “You’re not going to give me a hard time about the article? Are you serious?”

  “Of course. When am I not serious?” He smoothed back her hair and nudged her chin up so he could look at her tear-stained face. “You may have gone a little scary man-hater, but you didn’t actually castrate one as far as I know. And whoever you were trying to geld probably deserved it. So give me the details and Cat can get over herself.” He grinned when Cathy squawked in indignation behind them. “Now, can we move this pity party inside?”

  *****

  Ten minutes later Jamie and Clay were comfortably situated on the lounge in the observation area of Hidden Treasures. Cathy had left under the pretense of going to the paper to beg Jeff to remove Love Law #7 from the website again. In reality, Clay had practically shooed her out the door.

  Now he was eyeing Jamie over the rim of his coffee cup. “Ok. Now that my sister’s evil clone has vacated the building, why don’t you tell me what made you spew venom all over her precious articles?”

  Jamie, still shaky from her earlier panic attack, was able to summon a weak smile. “Clay. Honestly. She had every reason to be pissed. I did go behind her back and publish that piece of crap.”

  “Oh please. Like the other articles were journalistic gold? I don’t think so. They’re fluff. Entertaining fluff but hardly ground-breaking,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “She’s taking this thing much too seriously. And the bottom line is that you’ve helped her so much over the last two weeks. Even if you started spouting Nazi propaganda she’d still owe you a huge debt. So, she needs to get hold of herself. Can’t imagine what she was thinking, coming here and trying to make you feel guilty. Couldn’t she see that you were having some kind of conniption fit out there? I honestly wanted to slap the smug right off of her.” He shook his head in disbelief. “I think you’ve created a monster. I liked her better when she was scared of her own hair brush.”

  “Clay. You don’t mean that. You have to be proud of Cathy. She’s made so much progress in the past few weeks. And her articles have been really amazing. She’s a great writer and you know it.”

  “Maybe. But that still doesn’t make it ok for her to ignore what’s really going on with you.”

  Jamie tried for a blank look. “Going on? I’m just a little stressed. With the articles and selling the house and everything.”

  Clay sighed. “Seriously? After that article? And the sobfest? You’re going to pretend some cowboy didn’t take you for a ride and then leave you at the stable with your saddle all askew?”

  “That is the weirdest metaphor I’ve ever heard.”

  Clay gave her a withering look. “I was trying to be delicate. Fine. What I should have said was you finally got some cock but the dick-head attached to the cock wasn’t interested in more than getting fucked. Am I close?”

  Jamie widened her eyes in shock at his raw language. “Wow. That’s really beautiful. You should write poetry.”

  “I know. It’s a gift. Now. Am I close?”

  She looked down at her coffee for a moment. “It’s a bit more complicated than that. But something along those lines. Yeah.”

  Clay sighed and drew her into his side. “James. I know it sucks to be the one left wanting more but it happens to the best of us. Even me, if you can believe it.”

  Jamie had to hide her smile at Clay’s statement. “Well, actually it was me who left. Him. In the back seat of his car. Mostly naked.”

  “No way. The writer? You left that fine ass buck naked? In public? Nice one.” He held his hand up for a high five which Jamie returned with a giggle. “So what’s the problem? Seems like he should be the one writing whiny-ass articles about the cold-hearted, yet dead-sexy, red-head who used and abused him.”

  She set her coffee down on a nearby table and turned to look at her friend. “God. You make it sound so calculated. But that’s exactly what I did, isn’t it?” She covered her face with her hands. “I finally rejected him too many times and he gave up.”

  “People do have a tendency to do that eventually.” Clay said with a dry chuckle. “The ones who don’t fall into the stalker category anyway. But the question is why did you hump and dump anyway? He’s hot, smart, hot, successful, hot and into you. Why throw that away? And don’t tell me it’s the whole man-whore thing because I know that’s just an excuse. You’re not that close-minded. If you were you certainly wouldn’t be best friends with me. I make your writer look like a debutante.”

  Jamie rolled her eyes. “Clay. You know why. I’ve got too much going on right now to even think about getting involved. Especially with someone like him.”

  He made a ‘tsk, tsk’ sound and gave her a sympathetic look. “Oh. I get it. The sex was bad. That would explain why you hightailed it. Hetero sex isn’t really my thing but maybe I can help. Feel free to describe everything in detail. Draw a picture if necessary. And I’ll give you my expert’s opinion on where you two kids went wrong.”

  “I am not drawing you a picture of his equipment, you perv.” She slapped his tight mid-section. “And the sex was fantastic. I tried to sabotage it so he would lose interest but he wouldn’t allow it. He just took over and I loved it. Really loved it. So much it was almost scary.”

  Jamie blushed as she recalled just how much pleasure she had found in Kevin’s arms. She thought she was too emotionally drained to feel anything at this point today but reflecting on him and the back seat of that car still had the power to arouse her. She sincerely hoped Clay wouldn’t notice her suddenly very erect nipples.

  Clay studied her for a long moment, lingering much too long on her chest region. “I don’t see the problem. Unless it’s your questionable sanity. Because I’m definitely starting to question that. Who in their right mind sabotages sex? Especially when you’ve been dating your vibrator steadily for almost two years.”

  Jamie slapped his arm this time. “I told you. I thought if I gave in and had sex with him he’d lose interest. And it worked because I haven’t heard from him in almost two weeks.”

  “Wait a second.
This happened when he followed you out to White Rock, didn’t it?”

  She nodded.

  “I knew it. You minx. You totally lied about meeting up with him. I feel so betrayed.” He pinched her thigh in retribution, causing her to retaliate with a poke to his shoulder.

  “Ouch.” He cried and moved as far away from her as the chaise would allow. “And you haven’t heard from him since? That’s why you’re pissed off, isn’t it? You expected him to keep chasing you? Oh girl. That ego of yours is going to make you a permanent resident of spinster-city. You know that, right?” He shook his head in disgust.

  Jamie turned sideways and stretched her feet out on the chaise until her heels were pressed against Clay’s finely pressed trousers. She sighed with contentment as he yanked off her pumps, pulled her feet into his lap and began massaging her insteps. “Well. He also sent his new fiancé here to buy lingerie. That’s kind of what caused me to go all poison pen on man-whores in general. He told me he was single and yet it turns out he’s practically engaged to this black-haired witch who came into the store yesterday.”

  “Black-haired witch? You mean Kerry?”

  Jamie stared at him. “How did you know that? You know Kerry?”

  “Just from her profile picture. Oh. Fuck me raw. Cathy didn’t mention the whole YouTube nightmare then?” He rubbed his smooth cheek and rolled his eyes heavenward. “Figures she’d leave that to me.”

  She yanked her feet out of his hands. “What YouTube nightmare, Clay?”

  “You’re not going to like this.” Clay pulled out his iPhone and flipped through various screens until he found the video he was looking for. Then he reluctantly handed the device to Jamie with a grim look.

  Jamie watched as a familiar scene played out before her eyes. It was a short video, poorly shot, of the last half of her interaction with Duncan’s ex-wife yesterday. All of Kerry’s comments were edited out so Jamie looked like an advertisement for poor customer service.

  When it was done playing she pushed the phone back at Clay and held her hands up in disbelief. “I don’t understand. Where did this come from?”

  “Well, apparently this Kerry person posted some pretty scathing comments about you and your store on the Star webpage. She also inserted a link to that video.”

  “Oh crap. I expected the comments but not this.” She leaned forward and put head in her palms. “She had her phone in her hand the whole time I was talking to her. I didn’t clue in. Theresa actually saw her in the dressing room trying to get the camera to work. God. I am so stupid.” Jamie herself had an ancient flip-phone. Clay called it The Dinosaur because he said it was practically pre-historic. She always meant to update it but never got around to it. As a result she wasn’t all that familiar with the many impressive features of the more sophisticated phones. Like Kerry’s.

  “No. Not your brightest moment. But it does explain why you were so snarky to her. You were jealous.”

  “I was not jealous. I was pissed off that he’d send her here.”

  Clay’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Did she say that?”

  “Yes. I thought he was trying to send me some kind of cruel message. Rub my nose in the fact that he was already with someone else. That’s when I lost it and wrote that article. I wanted to let him know that I didn’t give a damn if he’d moved on or not.”

  “Yeah. Obviously you don’t care. That’s why you insulted that witch, sabotaged your Love Guru status and alienated Cathy. Because that’s what people do when they don’t care.”

  Jamie rubbed her temples with the fingertips of both hands like she was getting a headache. “You’re not helping Clay. You’re making me feel worse if that’s possible.”

  “James. I swear on a stack of lubricated condoms that I am just trying to get to the bottom of this. Now. Think carefully. Do you really think Kevin is capable of orchestrating something so nasty? ‘Cause I can’t really see it. I mean, unfortunately, I don’t know him as well as you do, but he never struck me as the vindictive type. More the laid-back, drunken surfer type crossed with a ridiculously hot nerd.”

  Jamie paused. It did seem out of character for Kevin to do such a thing. She’d been so blinded by jealousy and disappointment it was just possible that she’d jumped to the wrong conclusion. “But Clay. Why else would she come here unless Kevin mentioned it to her? There’s a hundred lingerie places in this city.”

  Clay shrugged. “I don’t know. Perhaps she reads the paper? Your designs are all over the articles. Maybe she has some taste?” He gave a doubtful snort. “The real question is why did she come here to trash you? She must have planned the whole thing, otherwise why would she have started filming?”

  Jamie shrugged. “I have no idea. Clearly she was trying to goad me into making an ass of myself.”

  “But why? And how did she know what to say to get you all worked up? Unless you always comment on your customer’s weight like that?”

  Jamie glared at him. “Clay. You’ve been visiting me at work for years. Have I ever reacted to a rude customer like that before?”

  “Hmmm….No. Not even when you’re PMS-ing or caffeine-deprived. You’re disgustingly friendly and polite. I kind of hate that about you.” He took a deep slug from his own coffee. “So, the question is, why does this Kerry-hag have it in for you? Do you recognize her? Did you steal her lunch money in grade school or something?”

  “Never seen her before. But Duncan has. She’s his ex-wife. Theresa confirmed it yesterday.”

  Clay nearly choked on his coffee. “Kerry? She’s that Kerry?”

  Jamie slapped him on the back. “I’m afraid so.”

  “Well, then that sort of explains it. The original Mrs. Groinhold wasn’t happy when Jessica and Duncan got together. She was hoping to squeeze some more cash out of Duncan. Maybe this whole thing was some kind of lame revenge thing. She saw the pictures of you. Realized that you were Jess’ twin and decided to sabotage your success. It makes perfect sense.”

  “What? That makes no sense at all. She may not be crazy about Jess but why take it out on me? I’ve never even met her.”

  Clay shrugged. “I didn’t say it was sane. Just that it makes sense. She can’t do anything to Jessica without turning Duncan into a rabid Doberman, so she’ll go after you instead.”

  “I don’t think it’s that simple. We’re missing something.”

  Clay straightened his tie and shook his head. “Sometimes people just do mean things for their own entertainment. Not like it matters. It’s a done deal. She’s played her twisted little game and made you look like Satan’s Sales Associate. Now, what are you going to do about it?”

  Jamie stared at him blankly. “Do? What do you mean, do about it? What can I do? Sue her? I can’t afford that. Or should I just have her whacked?” Clay rolled his eyes at this. “No really. What are my options? This isn’t a bad soap opera. I think the best thing to do is to forget it ever happened and hope for minimal collateral damage.” She smoothed her hand over her tightly-coiled hair, tucking one escaped curl behind her ear. “You know, it’s weird but I actually feel like a huge weight has been lifted. I’ve been so worried over the articles and losing the store that it’s kind of a relief that it’s finally imploded. I don’t have to stress anymore because the worst has already happened. In a weird way, that psycho-chick may have done me a favor.”

  Clay gave her an incredulous look. “Seriously? This bee-yotch stole your man and took a dump all over your store and you don’t want a little payback?”

  Jamie sighed. “No. I really don’t. But just out of curiosity, what did you have in mind?”

  “A sex tape! Leaked on the internet. Something really degrading,” he cried, clapping his hands with glee.

  “Of Kerry? And Kevin? No thanks. I really don’t want any part of filming that.” Her stomach turned at just the thought of Kevin with that woman. Or anyone for that matter.

  “No. Not them.” He said in disgust. “How would that be vengeance exactly? She’d probabl
y love it. No, I meant me and Kerry. I’d track her down, work my magic and do unmentionable things to her. Then I’d make an anonymous Comment on The Star’s website with a link to the video. Quid Pro Quo. It’s perfect. Kevin would dump her once he found out and she’d look like a giant Ho.”

  Jamie felt a huge wave of affection well up in her chest. “Honestly? You’d do that for me? Sleep with and humiliate Kerry?”

  “Of course. Isn’t that what friends are for? To commit unnatural acts with strangers in the name of revenge?”

  He really was very sweet in his own bizarre way. “As much as I appreciate your diabolical plan, I wouldn’t want Kevin to get hurt any more than he has been already. If that hyena he’s engaged to sleeps with you then he’d be devastated and publicly humiliated. He doesn’t deserve that.”

  Clay raised one fine eyebrow. “Oh. I get it. You don’t think I can seduce a woman. Is that it? You doubt my manly abilities. I’ll have you know that the two women I have been with didn’t have any complaints. In fact, I rocked their worlds.”

  Jamie held out her hands in supplication. “I’m sure they saw God, Clay. Really. You are a stud among men.”

  To her shock and amusement he began loosening his tie. “I don’t like your sarcastic tone,” he said, giving her a disapproving look. “Now. If I must prove myself I will. Prepare to be mounted.”

  Ten minutes earlier Jamie thought she’d never smile again. Now she felt huge peels of genuine laughter bubbling up in response to Clay’s less than romantic offer. “You want to mount me?” She gasped between giggles. “Now that’s hot. Who could resist that?”