That Man 2 (11 page)

I dumped the colorful bags on our coffee table and headed straight to the kitchen to make myself some hot chocolate. A mug full of the hot rich beverage along with some Christmas music was just what I needed to get into the mood for wrapping presents.

With “Jingle Bell Rock” playing in the background and the hot chocolate on the coffee table by the bags, I started wrapping the presents with the festive paper I’d bought. I was very pleased with my purchases. With the money I’d won in Vegas, I could afford to be a little indulgent. I’d gotten Libby a new pair of fuzzy slippers plus a DVD box set of the entire last season of
Bones;
her brother Chaz, a beautifully illustrated book on mid-century fashion, and Bradley, an expensive Italian designer silk tie—one he’d never spring for. It was going to be our first Christmas together as an engaged couple. He was flying home with me to celebrate the holidays with my parents. My mom and dad had met Bradley only once before—at a homecoming weekend—and they seemed to like him. That he came from a good family and had a good future ahead of him sat well with my overprotective parents.

I was also pleased with what I’d purchased for my parents—beautiful lambs wool scarves from Ireland and each a book—for Mom, a California cuisine cookbook, and for Dad, a limited annotated Shakespeare collection. The only present I was unsure about was the one I’d bought for Blake. I mean, I hardly knew the man, and I wasn’t even sure if it was appropriate to give your boss a gift. I doubted he was going to get anything for me, but I wanted to be on the safe side in case he did.

My first thought had been a cock warmer. I’d seen a goofy one with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer at a gift shop in the Farmer’s Market adjacent to The Grove. I was tempted to buy it to send him a message. The jerk had e-mailed me that he was spending time with that bogus affiliate manager, but I suspected he’d stayed longer in Vegas to play with those blond bimbos. I was still smarting from his actions. In the end, my rationality triumphed over my emotions, and I decided the gag gift was inappropriate. And it was probably way too small for his big dick anyway. Instead, I settled on a snow globe that had a hammered gold Christmas ball—reminiscent of a matzo ball—inside it. I’d noticed he had a collection of these magical spheres on his office credenza and was sure I couldn’t go wrong with it.

It took me an hour to wrap up all the gifts, label them, and finish them off with glittering bows. I placed all of them under the small Christmas tree Libby and I had purchased and decorated. The fresh pine scent filled the air and made Christmas feel alive.

I thought about calling Bradley—I felt bad that he had to work such late hours—but decided to check my e-mails first. Blake had a habit of sending me odd requests all night long—including at some at ungodly hours. I wondered between fucking and working if the man ever slept. Instead of heading to my computer, I conveniently pulled out my cell phone from my nearby purse and went to my SIN-TV inbox. No emails from Blake. I was partly relieved and partly disappointed. There was only one new e-mail. Sent earlier in the evening, it was from some producer named Charles Palmer III. Since being mentioned in
The Hollywood Reporter
, I’d received a lot of e-mails from producers and writers wanting to pitch me ideas for SIN-TV. I’d made it a policy to check and answer all of them. As Blake’s father had said in my class at USC, “You never know where the next great idea will come from.”

Sure enough, Mr. Palmer wanted to pitch me. His letter was to the point and included a short video presentation of the reality show he was developing.
Dickwicks.
I rolled my eyes. The name of his show was right up there with some of the other ideas that had come my way—
Balling for Dollars, Make Me Come
, and
Suck at It,
among them. With skepticism, I clicked open the attachment and hit play. All air left my lungs and my jaw dropped to the floor.

Oh. My. God. It was Bradley—all over his hygienist, Candace. My free hand flew to my mouth while the other one shook with the phone. My heart beat so hard I thought it would leap out of my chest. Tears poured down my face as sobs gathered at the base of my throat. How could he do this to me? How could I be so, so stupid? All those cancelled dates. All those late nights at work. Waves of nausea swept through me. About to puke, I leapt up, grabbed my bag, and stormed out the front door.

*

I swear, I don’t know how accident-prone me managed not getting into a major accident. Tears blinded my vision as I drove down busy Ventura Boulevard to Bradley’s condo in Sherman Oaks. He’d been able to buy it with the money his affluent parents had given him upon earning his dental degree.

Bradley’s unit was located in a guard-gated community. I wiped my teary eyes with the sleeve of my sweater just before pulling up. The guard at the gate recognized me and smiled. “Good to see you, Miss McCoy. Happy Holidays.”

Happy holidays were not in my foreseeable future. Holding it together as best I could, I wished him a Merry Christmas before another torrent of tears poured down my face. My voice quivered. “I have something to give to Bradley.”

Oh yeah . . . I had something to give him all right. More precisely, to give
back
to him.

“Dr. Wick just got home. I’ll let him know you’re here.”

A little panic button went off inside me. “Please don’t let him know I’m here. I want to surprise him.”

“Got it.” The guard winked at me and clicked open the massive steel gate to let me into the complex.

The lights in Bradley’s condo were on. The colorful, bright lights on the Christmas tree we’d decorated blinked in the front window. My heavy heart thudded as I jumped out of the car, and tears pooled in the back of my eyes. Though we’d decided not to live together before we got married, this is where we were going to spend the next years of our life once we did. Until we had kids.

The temperature had dropped. The now crisp December air ripped through me as I furiously pounded on the door. Shivering, I didn’t have to wait long. Bradley came to the door quickly. He was still sporting the same blazer and trousers. The poisonous floral scent of Candace assaulted me and set my tangle of emotions into a tailspin. Wearing his preppy horn rim glasses in lieu of his contacts, my soon-to-be ex was surprised to see me.

“Hi, Jen. What are you doing here?” His voice was on edge. “Is everything okay?”

Fuck no.
I whipped out my cell phone from my bag. I clicked onto the video and shoved the phone into his face.

“What were
you
doing here?” My voice shook with rage.

In tandem, his face blanched, his eyes rounded, and his mouth quivered. Then to my utter horror, he flashed his big toothy smile and chuckled. “Oh, it’s nothing. Just a little Christmas smoo—”

I bitterly cut him off. “Don’t bullshit me, Bradley. You’re fucking Candace. And you’ve been doing it for months.” His eyes lowered. I’d called him on it. Victory fueled my rage. “When were you going to tell me? After we got married? Or maybe you expected me to drop in on one of your little late night work sessions?”
Fillings, my ass!

Bradley chewed down on his bottom lip and shifted nervously in place. “Do you want to talk about it?”

A familiar voice sounded in the distance. “Braddie Waddie, what’s going on?”

Candace. That’s all it took. I did something I thought I’d never do in my life. With all my force, my free hand whipped across his face. I slapped him. Hard. The sound of the sting echoed in my ears.

Bradley winced with pain. Guess he could give it but couldn’t take it. His hand flew to his face and rubbed the large red welt I’d left behind on his cheekbone. I noticed for the first and last time how small his fingers were. Just like his roaming dick.

“Why’d you do that?” he moaned.

“For the same reason I’m going to do this,” I shouted. Without wasting a second, I tore his engagement ring off from my finger and flung it at him. It bounced off a lens of his glasses and then landed with a ping somewhere on the front step.

“Bitch!” shrieked Bradley, his hand flying to his eyes. “You fucking broke my glasses!”

“And you fucking broke my heart,
Dickwick.”

With that, I stormed back to the car. Scorching tears streamed down my ice-cold cheeks. My hands still shaking, I deleted the incriminating e-mail. And in my heart, I deleted Bradley. It was officially over for us.

*

When I got back to my house, Libby was home. Her Mini Cooper was parked in the driveway. I pulled up behind it and wearily made my way through the front door.

Libby was curled up on the couch drinking some wine. “Hi,” she said brightly until she caught sight of my tear-stained face. “Sheesh. What the fuck is wrong? You look awful.”

I’d cried so many tears I thought I had no more to shed. Wrong. A fresh batch sprung from my burning eyes. “I broke up with Bradley,” I wailed.

“Oh my God.” Libby jumped up from the couch and curled her arms around me. I wept on her shoulder. “Sit down and tell me everything,” she said softly as she led me back to the couch.

Facing her, sitting cross-legged, I launched into the story of how I discovered Bradley was cheating on me with Candace. I paused occasionally to catch my breath or swipe away my tears.

Though never one to hold back, Libby listened intently and silently as I, blow by blow, told her what happened. Her hazel eyes blinked rapidly as she digested everything. Libby begged to see the footage, but I told her I’d deleted it. That I couldn’t bear to watch it again.

When I got toward the end of my woeful tale, my bestie’s freckled face lit up with surprise. “You seriously slapped his face?”

With a sniffle, I nodded. “And then I threw his ring at him and cracked his eyeglasses.”

Libby burst into laughter and gave me hug. “Good for you. I never liked that dickwad. Trust me, it’s meant to be he’s out of your life. Just think if you’d married him.”

“You’re right,” I conceded before taking a much needed sip of her red wine. The cheap Burgundy seeped through my veins and warmed me.

“What am I going to tell my parents? He was supposed to come home with me over the holidays. My mother was so excited. She even wanted to start planning the wedding.”

Libby pensively knitted her brows together. “The truth. That you broke up with him. It wasn’t working out. Less is best. They don’t need to know all the details.”

Libby was right—the truth was the only way to go. But I was going to wait till I got home to break the news to my overprotective parents. Why worry them sick now? I took another gulp of the comforting wine; it was beginning to dim the pain. My tears subsided.

“Lib, do you think it’s weird that some strange producer sent me that footage?”

“Yeah, it’s definitely a little random. But most likely, just a weird coincidence. You should take his pitch. Maybe he’s some cute single guy.”

“Shut. Up.” Only Libby could make me laugh when all I wanted to do was cry.

“Sorry.”

“I’m going to go call it a night.”

“Maybe you should take a day off from work tomorrow. Sleep late and treat yourself to a massage.”

While Libby’s suggestion was so tempting, I didn’t want to miss a day of work, having so recently started my job. I only hoped I could hold it together in front of Blake. The last thing I wanted was to let him see me blubbering like a child. It was bad enough he’d seen me make a drunken fool of myself in Vegas.

Fifteen minutes later, I was tucked in my bed. The footage of Bradley and Candace replayed in my head as if it were on a loop. Tears singed my eyes. We’d been together almost five years, and now in five minutes, it was over. Just like that.

In the morning on my way to work, I was going to drop off his Christmas present at the Salvation Army. Yes, I could return or exchange it, but I didn’t want to touch or see anything that reminded me of Bradley Dickwick.

My tears succumbed to sleep.

Blake

I
got to my office super early; I couldn’t wait to get there to see if my little ruse had worked. When I walked past her office, she wasn’t at her desk yet. She was late. This could be a good sign or a bad one. Either she’d had a brutal breakup or major make-up sex with Dickwick. Shit. I’d never thought about the second possibility, and I didn’t like it one bit.