Game Changer

by Beth Orsoff

  Chapter 91

  Samantha

  My phone pinged and I lunged for it, hoping it would be Jake. It wasn’t. It was a text from Jenna: What are you doing tonight?

  Working, I texted back.

  On a Friday?

  It’s not like I have anything better to do.

  I could’ve told her I planned to spend my evening sitting on my living room couch, watching TV, and feeling sorry for myself, which was what I’d originally intended to do, but I didn’t want to take a chance that she’d stop by to cheer me up. In fact I had very different plans for my evening—plans I knew she wouldn’t approve of. And I knew if I told her what those plans were, she would try to talk me out of doing it; and I had no intention of being dissuaded.

  Need to run. I’ll call you tomorrow. I shut my phone and double-checked my appearance in the mirror. Low cut V-neck dress showing maximum cleavage, impossibly high heels, and my hair teased to within an inch of its life. The lacy teddy with the built-in garter belt wasn’t visible from the outside. That would be a surprise for Jake. Along with all the tricks I’d gleaned from speed-reading 101 Ways to Please Your Man in Bed. I couldn’t gain experience overnight, but I could read a how-to book. I’d always been a quick study.

  And since I was turning myself into Slutty Samantha, who was obviously the woman Jake really wanted, not boring, inexperienced Good Girl Samantha, I decided to go all the way. Slutty Samantha wouldn’t call first and ask permission to stop by. Slutty Samantha would just show up at Jake’s apartment and tackle him.

  Chapter 92

  Jake

  “This has never happened to me before,” Jake cried. “Not ever. Not even once.”

  “I believe you,” Lydia said, though it was clear from her tone that she didn’t. She leaned across the bed and grabbed her phone from the nightstand. “You know, a lot of guys use those little blue pills now,” she continued as she scanned her messages. “They’re not just for old farts who can’t get it up.”

  “I can get it up!” He couldn’t at the moment, but he’d had a lot to drink.

  “I know, baby, I know. I’m just saying it improves performance for everyone.” Then she slid out from under the covers and reached for her bra.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I told a friend of mine I’d meet up with her later tonight. Didn’t I mention that?”

  He knew a lie when he heard one. Or at least he knew that lie. He’d used it himself on many occasions. But he played along to save them both from embarrassment. “No, I don’t think you did. Where are you headed?”

  “Lux,” she said as she slipped her feet into her high-heeled shoes. “Ever been?”

  Of course it had to be Lux. As if he needed another reminder of Samantha. “Yes, great DJ. I’m sure you’ll have a good time.” After he zipped up the back of her dress without her having to ask, he offered to walk her to the door.

  “Oooh, aren’t you the gentleman tonight?”

  He would’ve preferred stud, but his body had betrayed him. He left his pants and shirt on the floor as he walked her to the door in his underwear.

  At least Lydia eyed him appreciatively before she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Give me a call when you’re feeling better,” she said and glanced down at his briefs, where a bulge had suddenly appeared.

  He placed one hand on her bottom and pulled her to him so she could feel that he was getting hard, finally. “How about giving Sergeant Bishop another chance? He appears to have woken up.”

  She ran one long red fingernail down the trail of hair snaking from his chest to his waistband. “Tempting,” she said and gave the elastic a quick tug before letting it snap back into place, “but I really do have to go. Rain check?”

  “Count on it,” he said and kissed her pouty lips before reaching for the door.

  His eyes practically popped out of his head. At first he thought he must be hallucinating, then she said his name.

  Chapter 93

  Samantha

  I hadn’t even positioned myself yet—I was going to go with one arm above my head leaning on the doorframe and the other hand on my waist, because that was what Slutty Samantha would do—when the door suddenly opened. Jake was standing before me in his underwear (those same black boxer briefs I still wanted to lick off of him—presumably he owned several pairs), but he wasn’t alone.

  “Samantha, what the hell are you doing here?”

  What the hell was I doing there? What the hell was she doing there? Although it was obvious. The woman standing next to him was fully clothed, but her hair was disheveled and her lipstick was smeared, so I knew what they’d been doing—the same thing I’d planned on doing with him too! Bastard!

  “And how did you get up here?” he continued. “I didn’t buzz you in.”

  That’s what he was concerned about? Not that I’d caught him cheating on me, but that I’d managed to sneak up to his apartment without him buzzing me in?

  “The door was open,” I lied. I’d had to buzz three of his neighbors before I found someone who was home on a Friday night and who believed my story that I lived in the building but had lost my keys. Surprisingly my savior never asked how I was going to unlock my front door.

  The long-legged brunette with the dark red fingernails smiled at me. “Hi, I’m Lydia.”

  I knew that name. Lydia aka Ms. Occasional Booty Call.

  “You wouldn’t happen to be Whitney, by any chance, would you?” she asked.

  “No, Samantha. Whitney is my sister.”

  Lydia turned back to Jake. “Another personal chef?”

  Jake didn’t answer, but Lydia didn’t seem to care. She just shook her head at him and laughed, then slipped past me to get to the elevator, her high heels click-clacking on the marble floor. Since I’d just ridden it up, the doors opened as soon as she pushed the call button, and a few seconds later, she disappeared.

  I spun back around to face Jake. “Who was that?” I said even though I already knew. I just wanted to see if he was going to try to lie his way out of this.

  “A friend,” he said, “not that it’s any of your business.”

  “None of my business? I think after what we did last weekend, it’s very much my business.”

  I expected an apology, or at the very least, a civil response, but all I received was belligerence. “Why are you here, Samantha?”

  “Why am I here?” I would’ve thought that was obvious, especially considering the outfit I was wearing. I couldn’t compete with Lydia, but I thought I looked sexy, at least for me. “You couldn’t even wait a whole week before you fucked someone else? Or were you sleeping with Lydia the entire time you were pretending to be interested in me?”

  “I think you should leave.”

  “I’m not leaving until I get some answers.” He owed me that much. “Or are you afraid to admit you’ve been lying to me since the day we met?”

  “Oh, that’s rich coming from you.”

  “I haven’t lied.” At least not about anything important—like sleeping with someone else while I was sleeping with him too.

  “I don’t do scenes, Samantha. You can show yourself out.” Then he pushed me back a step so I was standing just outside his apartment instead of in the vestibule, and he slammed the door shut in my face.

  “Just like you don’t do marriage?” I yelled into the ebony-stained wood. “Or relationships? Or honesty?” I waited for a response but received none. I wanted to curse at him or slap his face or drive a stake into his heart like he’d done to me, but I already felt like an idiot. I wasn’t going to demean myself further by spending any more time yelling at a locked door.

  I walked back to the elevator and punched the call button, but unlike Lydia’s clean exit, I had to wait for the car to rise up from the lobby again. I slammed the button a few more times, which I knew was pointless but gave me something to do as I silently fumed. Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it. Leave with at least a scrap of dignity. But I could
n’t help myself. I stomped back over to his closed door and kicked it as hard as I could, which didn’t even make a dent in the wood but succeeded in knocking me on my ass. Then I pounded it once with my fist and screamed, “Fuck you, Jake!” before the elevator mercifully pinged its arrival and I could slink away.

  “The good news is, he probably didn’t hear you,” Jenna said.

  I’d called her from my car in tears, and she’d arrived at my house twenty minutes later with a bag of lemons in one hand and a bottle of vodka in the other. “When life gets you down, make lemon drop martinis!”

  I took another sip from my very strong drink. Jenna was encouraging me to get drunk and forget the whole incident, but I knew it wouldn’t be that easy. I’d be obsessing over this night for the rest of my life. “He probably didn’t hear me? That’s the best you can do?”

  She stirred her martini with her finger, then sucked it dry. “Sorry, Sam, but you’re not giving me a lot to work with here.”

  True. “At least he never saw the teddy.” Or the garter belt. I hadn’t told Jenna about that part of the outfit even though I knew she’d worn much more risqué accoutrements to her “playdates.”

  “Excellent,” she said. “You’re thinking positively. That’s the first step.”

  “The first step to what?” It felt like this misery would never end, although I knew from my mother’s death that that wasn’t true. The heartache would eventually subside into a dull pain that would never completely disappear.

  “Forgetting Jake Jensen ever existed.”

  If only I could.

  “I don’t want to say ‘I told you so,’” Whitney said when she called me the following day blissfully unaware, until I filled her in, that my life had imploded.

  “So don’t,” I replied. It was two in the afternoon, and I was still lying in bed. I wasn’t hungover, although I wished that I were. If it was just a hangover, I knew I’d feel better by the end of the day. Depression took much longer to cure.

  “But I did warn you,” she continued.

  “Are you trying to cheer me up? Because if you are, you’re failing miserably.”

  “Actually I called to invite you to a party.”

  “You’re having another party?” I didn’t care if it reflected poorly on Jake, but the owner of the house deserved to have it returned to him in still-standing condition.

  “Not me, my neighbor.”

  “Would that be your broke-up-your-marriage neighbor?”

  “He didn’t break us up. Michael completely overreacted. All we did was dance.”

  After debasing myself to Jake last night, I wasn’t in a position to judge. “You’re right, it’s none of my business. And thanks for the invite, but I’ll pass.”

  “Why? I’m sure there’ll be lots of single guys there.”

  “Whitney, the last thing I want right now is another guy.”

  “Jake didn’t wait. Why should you?”

  “You know you really suck at this cheering up thing.”

  “I’m sorry, but you know it’s true. I’m not telling you to sleep with someone else, not unless you want to, but it wouldn’t hurt to flirt a little. It’ll make you feel better.”

  Flirting was Whitney’s tonic, not mine. “Thanks, but no.”

  She sighed. “You’re not going to come no matter what I say, are you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Fine. I’ll give you one weekend to wallow in self-pity. But only one. Next weekend you’re coming out with me even if I have to drag you by your hair.”

  That was not going to happen, but I was too depressed to argue.

  “And since I have you on the phone,” she continued, “did you talk to Michael yet?”

  Shit. I’d been so busy obsessing about Jake this week I’d forgotten I’d promised to contact Michael. “No, I’ll call him today.” Hopefully he wouldn’t answer his phone.

  “Thanks. And if you change your mind about the party, let me know. I hate the thought of you moping around the house all weekend over that stupid dickhead who doesn’t deserve you and never did.”

  There would be no moping around the house. I had no intention of leaving my bed.

  But because I was having the unluckiest weekend of my life, when I called Michael intending to leave him a voice mail to call me the following week, he answered his phone and suggested he stop by on his way home from the hospital. Not only did I have to get out of bed, I had to brush my hair and teeth too.

  “Wow, what happened to you?” Michael asked when I opened my front door, still in my pajamas from the night before.

  My eyes were so swollen from crying that I could barely open them. I considered donning a pair of dark sunglasses, but then I’d just look like a freak. “Rough night,” I said. “Come on in.”

  I didn’t bother with pleasantries. I wanted this over with as quickly as possible so I could return to my misery. I led Michael into the living room and said, “Whitney asked me to annul the marriage, but I can’t. You don’t qualify.”

  “A six-week marriage doesn’t qualify for annulment?”

  I shook my head. “There are very specific grounds—incest, bigamy, fraud. ‘I rushed in without thinking’ isn’t one of them. You’ll need to get a divorce.”

  He sighed.

  “But it doesn’t need to be adversarial. I can act as your mediator and handle the whole thing. Or you can hire your own attorney if you prefer. It’s really up to you.” I’d told Whitney I’d suggest mediation, but I couldn’t force Michael to accept it. He could make her life miserable if he wanted to.

  “What does Whitney want?” he asked.

  “To make it as painless as possible for both of you, or as painless as divorce ever gets.”

  “And you can represent both of us? That’s legal?”

  Not advisable since I was related to one of the parties, but legal. And despite the fact that Whitney was my sister and I felt duty bound to represent her, I considered Michael the wronged party and wanted to help him too. Not that right and wrong mattered, legally speaking. California was a no-fault divorce state. The court didn’t care who got screwed.

  “Yes, I can mediate a settlement that’s in both your best interests. But if you want your own attorney, you should definitely hire one. I only offered because I’m trying to make this easy on you, both of you.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “I appreciate that, especially after what I did to you.”

  “What did you do to me? Force me to plan a wedding with my crazy sister? It was bound to happen sooner or later.”

  His brow furrowed, then he stared down at his shoes. “Shit, I assumed you knew…”

  “Knew what?”

  Chapter 94

  Jake

  He couldn’t believe Samantha had the nerve to show up at his apartment. What did she think? That he’d be sitting home alone on a Friday night pining away for her? Then he remembered that he had done exactly the same to her a few weekends back. But still … she should’ve called first, or at least buzzed him from the lobby. What was the point of a secured-entry building if people were just going to leave the security door wide open? It was one of the reasons he lived in a high-rise building instead of a house—he wanted control over who had access to his front door.

  And yes, he’d spied on her through the peephole. What was he supposed to do? Allow an enraged crazy woman to rant outside his apartment unsupervised? He’d felt the jolt when she’d kicked the door and caught a glimpse of the garter belt when she’d fallen on her ass. And of course Sergeant Bishop had woken up for that.

  He looked down at his shorts. “Traitor.”

  His penis jumped in reply.

  “Save it for the bedroom, buddy.”

  Not that he would be seeing any action tonight. Jake poured himself three fingers of scotch, downed it in one gulp, and returned to his king-sized bed, alone this time.

  His mood was no better when he returned to the office Monday morning, despite forcing himself to go clubbing with fr
iends on Saturday night. Several women had flirted with him, and he’d seriously considered bringing a couple of them home with him, but he’d been drinking heavily and was afraid of a repeat of the night before. Once was an anomaly. Twice was a condition. He didn’t want to risk it. Not until he’d excised Samantha from his brain. But that was proving more difficult than he’d imagined. He still thought about her all the time.

  “Coffee?” Caroline asked him as he strode into his office without even bothering to return her “good morning.”

  “Yes.”

  And that was his last civil exchange of the day. It seemed like every phone call, every meeting, every innocuous chat in the hallway spiraled into a heated argument. He couldn’t close one deal all day. He knew it was his fault—comments he would normally let pass he responded to, the good-natured ribbing he normally accepted from colleagues he now perceived as slights. It was as if he were standing outside of himself watching as an entirely different person acted on his behalf. I’ve got to get a hold of myself. But short of contracting amnesia so he could forget he’d ever met Samantha Haller, he had no idea how.

  It was almost seven o’clock when Caroline dared venture into his office again. “If I ask you a question, are you going to bite my head off?”

  If she kept asking stupid questions like that one, the answer would definitely be yes, but he was trying to rein himself in. “What do you need?”

  “I’m supposed to be meeting some friends tonight. Should I cancel or will we be leaving anytime soon?”

  He wouldn’t be leaving, but there was no reason to ruin her evening. “You can go.”

  “Thanks.” She took a few steps toward the door, then turned around and walked back.

  Now what? “Yes?” he asked without looking up.

  “Maybe if you told me what was wrong, I could help. I’m very resourceful, you know.”

  He threw his pen down and looked up. “Thank you, Caroline, but no.” He wasn’t sure if he needed a prostitute, a drink, or a therapist. Maybe all three.