Foolproof

by Jennifer Blackwood

  Or maybe it was just fucking pizza, and I was overthinking things again. Jules had messed with my head if I was contemplating the meaning behind pizza.

  Shit, Jules. I shoved my hand through my hair. What was I going to do about her? I didn’t blame her for kicking me out the way she did, but damn, that was harsh. Work would be interesting tomorrow.

  I pulled a couple slices of pepperoni out of the fridge, chucked them on a plate, and took it up to my room.

  My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I pulled it out and tossed my plate onto my bed.

  Who was that girl? Are you hooking up with someone else?

  I ignored her text. Lex needed a Xanax—or seven. It seemed like the wrong people cared about me, the ones who deserved to be shuttled on a one-way trip to a deserted island.

  I just had to go and screw things up with Jules and tell her I didn’t know what we were. I took one bite of pepperoni and trashed the rest. Sitting back on my bed, I put my hands behind my head and caught a flash of green in my vision. I looked down, green paint still smeared on the inside of my arm. A nice reminder of how bad I messed up.

  Uncle Gary was sitting at the dining room table when I when I came downstairs in the morning. His brown eyes lit up when I walked into the room.

  “The man of the hour. How’s it going, RJ?” He clapped a hand on my back, knocking the breath out of my closed-up throat. What was he doing here? He hadn’t said anything about visiting when I talked to him the other week.

  “Hey, Gary. Didn’t know you were coming to town.” I looked to Dad, who was oddly quiet. Was that why he’d gotten the pizza? Because he knew shit was about to go down? He white-knuckled the counter top and stared off into the corner of the room. Ever since I could remember, my dad and Uncle Gary never got along, always competing against each other. I was just another peg in their achievement ladder.

  “Decided to visit. See how your dad was doing and your grandmother. And you, of course.”

  I nodded and poured a glass of orange juice from the jug in the middle of the table.

  “We’ve been talking, Ry.”

  Yep. Pizza definitely counted as pity tactics. I looked up from my pouring, and orange juice splashed onto my hand. “Yeah?” Wiping off my fingers, I glanced from Dad to Uncle Gary. From the frowns on both their faces, talking wasn’t meant as a good thing.

  “We know you’re taking the summer to figure out career goals, but there’s an opening in the academy that starts a month earlier.”

  “You mean next week?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. I think it might be good for you to start as soon as possible, get you up and running again. What do ya say?”

  I looked at both of them, their expectant gazes boring into me. Next week? That cut dream-job searching down by three weeks. Summer would be gone. Jules and I would be…done. “I don’t know.” My fucking broken record response for everything these days.

  The more I thought about it, the more I dreaded the start date of the academy. Sure, chicks dug the uniform, but this wasn’t my calling. Same with business. I needed to come up with a plan C, quick.

  “It’s just an option.” Gary slid out from the chair and clapped a hand on Dad’s back. “Summer with this guy must be a drag.”

  Dad shook his head. “Or take the month and stay here. Office Jax needs you.”

  Fuck me.

  I turned to my uncle. “Thanks, Gary. I’ll let you know.”

  He wiped off his hands on his jeans and smacked them down on the kitchen table. “Well, I’d better get over to see your grandmother. Gotta demolish some chocolate chip cookies.” He winked and let himself out. Dad hunched over the counter, his back to me. Even though he faced the wall, I knew the vein in the middle of his forehead bulged against his reddened skin. He and Gary had this weird competitive relationship and, since Gary didn’t have any kids, he tried to be parent of the year with me.

  As soon as the front door shut, Dad said, “You don’t have to go.”

  “I know.” But what else would I do? Being a police officer sure as hell beat spending my life surrounded by office supplies.

  “We just want what’s best for you.”

  “Doesn’t my opinion count?”

  He turned, his face a deep red, the vein throbbing double-time compared to my pulse. “Don’t get that attitude with me, son. You shitted away three years of your life at that school. College is out of the equation. This is the bed you’ve made, now lie in it.”

  Damn. It was an honest question. Guess our truce had an expiration. It was nice while it lasted.

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. No use arguing with him. I pushed away from the table, my chair screeching across the wood. Grabbing a croissant, I shoved half of it in my mouth, said something that Dad would construe as a sounds good, and went to my room.

  After a few minutes, the garage door opened, and I heard Dad’s car pull out of the driveway. I spent the remainder of the day scouring those stupid career books, my final lifeline. Maybe there was an option C I just hadn’t come across yet.

  Jules was behind the Customer Service counter when I entered Office Jax later that day. Her shift ended in thirty minutes, which meant I needed to do some substantial ass-kissing in that limited amount of time.

  I stared at her the entire way as I walked to the back to clock in. She didn’t meet my gaze once. I had royally screwed this up. I rested my head against the wall next to the time clock. Shit, Ryan. What would make her forgive you? Being honest was the best I could come up with—which got me kicked out in the first place.

  I made my way back out to the service floor and zeroed in on Jules, who rung up a customer and smiled at him as he left the store. As soon as her gaze landed on me, her smile dissipated and she turned around, messing with something on the back counter.

  She jumped as I slid next to her, placing my palms on the Formica. “I’m sorry about last night. I’m an idiot.”

  She raised her hand, still staring down at a stack of papers. “I get it. We hooked up. Now I’m bowing out.”

  Ouch. I deserved that. It’s not that I didn’t want something more with her, I just didn’t know how to convince her of this.

  She turned away from me and said, “Just please go before we get in trouble with your dad. I don’t want to lose my job.”

  Against my better judgment, I decided not to argue with her. “Fine.”

  I made one more pathetic attempt at an apology by handing Jules a price tag with I’m sorry, please forgive me scrawled on it. She read the slip, crumpled it in her fist, and threw it in the trash. Yanking my hair out one strand at a time would have been an easier form of torture. What did I have to do? I’d do anything for her to give me a smile.

  A few minutes later, Jules disappeared into the back to clock out and then strode out of the store without giving me another glance.

  Good job, asshole. You really know how to talk to girls.

  What could I do to prove to her I was sorry, that I truly thought she was worth more than just a fuck?

  The magazine. Maybe it had something in that article about how to make a chick forgive you when you royally screwed up. Lord knew I needed a fucking manual on how to run my life. I strode over to my locker and flipped through until I landed on the article. Quickly scanning through each step, my gaze honed in on number five.

  Step 5: Show your soft side

  Show that special someone that you care by sharing little details. Whether it be that you’re secretly afraid of spiders or you’ve always wanted to try a new hobby but were too nervous to follow through, letting them see you’re vulnerable is key to a fun fling.

  This might have been stupid, listening to a magazine for single women, but it did have some solid advice. If I could just show her that she was worth more than a piece of ass, that I was stupid and insecure from shitty ex-girlfriends, maybe she’d forgive me. Getting her to talk to me might be tough, though. What kind of girl would give another second to an idiot who’s ex called r
ight after having sex? Hopefully her.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Jules

  Jack called Ryan and me into his office the Thursday I returned to work. My scalp prickled as I sat down in the chair in front of him. I folded my hands in my lap and fought past the urge to upchuck into his trashcan. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He probably watched the security footage of Ryan finger banging me while he was out at lunch. Dammit, I set myself up to be fired. Those long, talented fingers were a curse. Not that it mattered anymore. Ryan and I were done.

  “I’ve been looking at your sales records the past few weeks,” he said, staring over a sheet of paper he held in front of him. “Both are excellent. Some of the best numbers I’ve seen in years.”

  “Great?” Ryan’s statement came out more like a question. My thoughts exactly. Why were we both in here? I kept waiting for the but. But you’re both fired because you defiled my son in the supply closet. Or, better yet, I’m booting your ass because my son made you almost orgasm at the Customer Service counter.

  “Courtney has offered to work on the fifth. Looks like you both can have the weekend off.”

  “Really?” We both said at the same time. I didn’t bother to look at him, even if I was dying to say jinx. He so owed me a soda.

  He nodded, his kind blue eyes creasing in the corners, just like Ryan’s did. His stupid douche-bag son who I shouldn’t be thinking about. “Mike will also be here, keeping an eye on things while I take a vacation day, as well.”

  “Thank you, Jack.” I refrained from jumping up and down and fist pumping. Even if I wanted to duct-tape Ryan to one of the chairs in the back room and blast nineties music until he begged for mercy, it didn’t matter, because camping was on. I couldn’t wait to text Payton and tell her the news.

  A few days had passed, and Ryan and I still hadn’t talked. We’d probably have to speak at some point, seeing as tomorrow we were leaving to go to the Sierra Nevadas. All four of us. There would be no singing “Kumbaya” with DeShane on this trip. He wasn’t even worthy of my burned marshmallows.

  I pulled out my phone as soon as I clocked out for my second break. A text from Payton already sat in my inbox.

  P: Could you pick up some Pepto on your way home? I’m dying over here.

  J: What’s wrong?

  P: The toilet and I are bffs today.

  J: I’ll be home soon. Hang in there.

  I wormed my phone back into my pocket and took my post at the Customer Service counter. Ryan walked up to the register, another freakin’ note in his hand. I’d done my best to ignore him. What else was I supposed to do? Let him stomp on my heart some more? Not happening.

  “If you even think of handing that to me, I’m going to donkey punch you in the balls.”

  He apparently had some sort of common sense because he backed away and scuttled toward the furniture section. Ugh. And I’d be spending my weekend with this douche. The good news: I’d at least be able to roundhouse kick his ass off a cliff and nobody would know. Well, besides Blake and Payton. But I’m sure Payton wouldn’t mind.

  I got through the rest of the shift without Ryan bothering me. Even if I did want to know what he’d scribbled on that note, it didn’t matter. I’d figured out quickly that fuck buddies shouldn’t be a part of my vocabulary, something I should bring up with Dr. Ahrendt during our next session.

  Jack strolled behind the counter at the end of the night, waiting for me to count my till. “Did you dye your hair?”

  I pulled a strand in front of my face and examined it. Crap. My hair still had a tinge of red from the paint ballooning. My stomach curdled, and I had to work at pulling my lips into a tight smile. “A dye job gone wrong.” My thoughts went back to that night. The way his hands felt as they skimmed over my breasts. The feel of him inside me. The connection I thought we had made.

  “Red looks very pretty on you.”

  “Thanks, Jack.” I should probably pick up a bottle of blond dye when I went to buy Payton’s Pepto. Or maybe it’d be better to go back to my natural color. Whatever the eff that was. I hadn’t seen it since eighth grade, when I’d dyed my hair platinum blond because Joey Thompson told his friends during lunch that he only dated blondes. I shook my head and inwardly rolled my eyes. God, I’d been trying to please other people my whole life.

  After work, I stopped at the supermarket and picked up Payton’s medicine. I perused the hair product aisle, deciding between Marilyn Blond and Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Blond. Did they really have to make these names sound so…bimbo-ey? I eyed the brunette boxes and stared at myself in the mirror above the display. Would it really hurt to go back to my original color? Or something in the same range as my original, at least. What would Ryan think?

  I paused. Damn, girl. Get it together. I shouldn’t need a man’s approval to indicate my worth. Especially one that called me a nothing to his ex he obviously wasn’t over. I left the aisle, deciding that I could re-dye my hair later when I wasn’t rushed by Payton’s toilet situation. After going through checkout, I made my way back to the apartment.

  The putrid smell of puke assaulted my nostrils as I opened the front door.

  Payton clung to the toilet seat as I entered the bathroom. Her auburn curls lay sweat-slicked against her scalp, and her pale complexion ranged between cotton balls and Colgate toothpaste.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Did you bring the Pepto?” she rasped.

  I unwrapped the plastic, opened the bottle, and handed it to her. She chugged it and sat back against the tub, a pink mustache dribbling on her upper lip. I wanted to laugh, but this was so damn pathetic.

  After a few moments of her eyes closed and some heavy breathing, she said, “I don’t think I’m making it camping this weekend.”

  “I don’t think so, either. No big deal.” I didn’t mind taking care of my best friend, but where was Romeo? Holding back hair clearly fell under the relationship agreement. “Where’s Blake?”

  “He’s sick, too. He’s at the frat.”

  Yeesh. I balled up my fists at my side. No touching my face for the rest of the night, not when sickie here had the plague.

  “Can I get you anything else?”

  She shook her head, and her body melted into the side of the tub as she relaxed. Poor girl. Nothing worse than being chained to a toilet for the day.

  I went into the kitchen and poured a glass of water and sat it at her side. “You sure you don’t need anything else?”

  “I just wanna be alone. Thanks.”

  Payton had this thing about people seeing her sick. She didn’t even like me being in a ten mile radius if she was puking. I got it. I didn’t want people seeing me at my worst, either.

  “No problem. Holler if you need me.”

  I left her in the bathroom and padded down the hall to my room.

  My phone buzzed as I yanked the ponytail out of my hair and checked my reflection in the closet mirror.

  R: I know you asked for wide open spaces, but will you please just hear me out right here, right now?

  J: Cute nineties songs won’t change anything, asshole.

  R: You’re just too legit to quit.

  I rolled my eyes and replied.

  J: Not helping.

  R: Please, I know I fucked up. Give me another chance.

  J: I need more than words.

  R: I know. Will you please come on over and I’ll show you?

  I chewed on the inside of my cheek as I contemplated what to say. On one hand, I wanted to hear him out, but there was also that part of me that said screw it. He messed up, I should cut my losses and run. Then there was the part, deep down inside of me, that reminded me that he challenged me in ways that no other guy had. And didn’t treat me like a dumb girl. Without overanalyzing too much, because, honestly, I hated myself a little that I was willing to give him a second chance, I punched in a text and hit send.

  J: What about your dad?

  R: He’s on a fishing trip. Won’t be back till tomorrow nigh
t

  Should I say yes? If things went south, I could always leave. Payton hurled in the bathroom, sounding like a mix between a dying seal and a roaring lion. Ick.

  J: Hold on. Need to check on roommate.

  I walked back into the bathroom. “Hey, sure I can’t get you anything else?”

  “Can you get me a red Gatorade? I ran out last night and want something stronger than water.” Payton rested her head against the toilet seat.

  “Sure thing.” I smoothed my hand over her head and breathed through my mouth, trying not to inhale too much of the rank bathroom fumes. Air freshener would also be making its way into my cart when I went the store.

  I walked to the convenience store a couple blocks from our apartment and bought a couple Gatorades and a can of Glade. Payton’s toilet needs had subsided—thank God for Pepto—by the time I got back to the apartment, so I tucked her into bed with her drinks and a puke bucket.

  “Anything else I can get you?” I smoothed my hand over her hair.

  “I’m good. Just want to get some rest.”

  I fiddled with my hands as I sat on her bed. “Do you mind if I go out for a little bit?” I felt guilty leaving her, but she seemed to be doing better. And I’d come back the second she needed me.

  “Go for it. I’ll text you if things change.”

  “‘Kay. Love you, bitch.”

  “You too, skank.”

  As I walked out of Payton’s room, I pulled out my phone and texted Ryan.

  J: Okay. C U soon.

  Totally cool. No reason to freak out. We would have ended up going camping together anyway since we both got this weekend off. I couldn’t kick him off a mountain, but I could hide his body in his backyard if he decided to piss me off any more.

  I tried to make light of it. But after the beach and constant flirting at the store, and that mind-blowing shower sex, it was a big deal. He’d hurt me, and I wanted to know his side of the story.

  The humid July Fourth night buzzed with excitement as the sun set over the horizon. I pulled my Subaru into Ryan’s driveway and, before I turned off the engine, he swaggered out the front door, crossing the pavement, straight to my car.