The Absolutely True Story of Us (4 page)

Jack is laughing at me, over the phone. "You're a national treasure, do you know that? Please never stop making terrible decisions for my entertainment."

I scowl. "I wouldn't be in this mess in the first place if you'd just agreed to help me out."

"This again." He's still laughing. "I promise you, the mess would've been a thousand times worse with me involved. I'm also a walking disaster; the difference is that I know how to avoid the situations that are gonna make it worse. You're better off with Shithead. Just don't fall in love with him again."

"Right," I snort.

"Don't laugh," he warns. "Much smarter people than you have done much stupider things."

"Thanks," I groan. "Great pep talk."

"I'm just trying to nip this in the bud. You fell in love with him for a reason, and you're gonna start remembering those reasons the more time you spend with him. You're gonna start forgetting all the very good reasons why you ended it, and then you're going to put your mouth on his mouth..."

"None of that is going to happen," I promise him. "This isn't you and Christine all over again."

"Shhh!" he hisses. "Don't invoke her. For fuck's sake, woman."

"I am over him. Trust me," I tell him. "And more importantly than that, he's over me.
He's
the one who left, remember?"

"I'm just saying," Jack replies, mildly. "If you were over him, you would've moved on."

Of course, he defines
moving on
a little differently than I do. It's true I haven't really dated anyone since Dean left, but that doesn't mean I'm still in love with him.

"For your information," I blurt out before I can stop myself, "I
have
moved on."

"You mean the epic drought has ended, and you didn't see fit to tell your bestest friend about it?" he drawls. "I'm hurt."

"Occasionally, I like to keep things to myself," I tell him, forcing my tone to sound casual. I haven't breathed a word of this M situation to anyone, naturally, and it's making my pulse pound just thinking about it. "It's a very informal thing. I couldn't ask him to lie to my family for me. That's why I called Dean. Also, because you're no fun."

There's a few muffled clanking noises on Jack's end. He's probably trying to figure out a way to make ramen more interesting, as usual.

"You know why Dean agreed to do this, right?" he says, finally.

"Because he feels guilty."

"Wrong," Jack replies, right before a loud clanking sound almost deafens me. "
Ow
. It's because he still loves you, idiot."

I roll my eyes at no one. "Sure. That makes a lot of sense."

"Think about it," Jack says. "You're not going to ask your boy-toy to do it, because you know he won't. Because he's not in love with you. And I wouldn't do it, because I don't indulge in total fucking insanity for friends, no matter how much endless entertainment they provide. That's something you only do if you love somebody like you're in a damn Nicholas Sparks book. I'm not saying he's trying to win you back, but nobody thinks this kind of thing is a good idea unless there are some serious hormones in play."

One of Jack's more charming qualities is that he always believes he's right. Sometimes he actually is, but this isn't one of those situations. He never met Dean. He didn't see how things fell apart, the way Dean's eyes went empty, whatever light had drawn me to him in the first place slowly extinguishing.
 

"You could not be more wrong," I inform him.

He just chuckles. "Mark my words, Warden."

***

Before I knew my parents were planning a visit, I agreed to do a book signing downtown during the same week. Of course, they wanted to come and see all the excitement. I promised them it would be boring to hang out there for hours if they weren't actually interested in getting autographs from the signing authors. But they demurred and insisted, so here we are.
 

Dean acts as my assistant, but everyone knows why he's really here, and everybody wants to meet him. He plays the part so well, smiling and ducking his eyes down when people pay him ridiculous compliments. Most of them are just very sweet, but a few of them brush a little too close to flirting. I mean, I don't really care, but
they
don't know that. They think we're together. It twists in my stomach a little; how can people be so brazen?

The longest line in the room is for Adrian Risinger's table. Of course. I can't see him very well from this side of the room, but I can see the six-foot-tall banner advertising his presence. He's always the celebrity at these things, one of the few male romance authors who's revealed his true identity:former CEO, current billionaire, and basically the only reason he comes to these things is pure ego. It's irritating on principle, even though all his book sales go to charity.

But now that I see him interacting with his fans, how engaging and genuine he seems, and how they're all glowing when they walk away from his table - a grudging respect starts to form in the back of my mind.
 

There's a social hour for the authors after this, and I don't really expect Adrian to show up. I managed to get passes for my parents to attend, and my mom's sipping champagne and giggling to herself while my dad just surveys the room and tries to figure out what the hell is going on. I grope for my phone in my purse, hoping for some kind of distraction, and it's not until I hit the button a few times that I remember it died a few hours ago. I forgot to charge it last night.

"
All those people
wanted to see you!" my mother marvels as Dad rolls his eyes.

"She already told you how many thousands of copies she sold, how is this more impressive?" he grumbles.

Mom shakes her head stubbornly. "I don't know. It's just different when you can actually see their faces." She beams at me. "How are you handling it, honey? I know you're not such a big fan of being social."

"She's great with them," Dean cuts in, handing me something that I hope to God has a high alcohol content. I take a sip and make a face. Not high enough. But it'll do.

"Very gracious, they absolutely love her," he goes on.

"Not as much as they love you," I tell him, with a forced smile. "How does it feel to be a rockstar?"

"Pretty damn good!" he says cheerfully. He's refusing to pick up on my subtext. Which is a positive thing if I'm mostly concerned about people buying the lie, but slightly less so if I'm trying not to kill him.

There's a little murmur from one end of the room, attracting my parents' attention. At least that reduces the risk of them noticing the steam pouring out of my ears. A moment later, I realize what the cause of the commotion is.

Adrian Risinger just walked in.

I didn't get a good look at him before, but I certainly do now. He's a tall drink of water, with dirty-blond hair, expensively cut, and a neatly trimmed beard. He's slightly too handsome for real life, but only
slightly
. There's something about him that's sharp, I can't quite put my finger on it - not his clothes in particular, not his features really, but an overall quality that makes me want to sit up a little straighter and listen to what he has to say.

The voluptuous redhead beside him is also tall, I realize after a moment - just not nearly as tall as he is, but she'd almost stand eye-to-eye with Dean, and her heels aren't
that
high. I have to admit that I'm surprised. About the curves, not the height. My heart twinges a little to see a man like him with a woman like her. I know it happens, in theory, but
seeing
it is an entirely different thing. When I used to go out with Dean, I felt like everyone was staring. Wondering.
What the hell does he see in her? Was she skinny when they got together?

There's no room for wondering with Mr. Risinger's girlfriend. I can picture him falling in love with her.
I'm
a little bit in love with her. It helps that he's obviously still smitten, smiling and glancing at her and showing no indication he's aware of anyone else in the room.

He shakes a few hands when people manage to get his attention, but he's clearly making his way towards the bar, and therefore towards us.
 

"Who's that?" my mom hisses, her eyes nearly bugging out of her head.

"Adrian Risinger," I murmur, keeping him in my peripheral view. Is he actually going to come talk to me? "He's a real-life billionaire who writes romance novels about billionaires."

"
What
?" My dad looks like his head's about to explode. And not in a good way, like my mom's.

"Lana," says a voice, and I turn around to see Adrian's girlfriend approaching me rapidly. "It's so great to finally meet you! I loved your book."

"Thank you." I sort of gape at her for a second as she shakes my hand.

"I'm Meg," she informs me.
 

"Right," I say. "Of course. The muse."

Adrian smiles, flanking her. "And then some."

Meg's eyebrows jump slightly, in a way that tells me that he
probably
just grabbed her ass. The body language fits. It's a bold move in a room with so many glances wandering in their direction. I'd be pretty pissed if Dean ever did that to me in public, even at our closest.

"It's not as glamorous as it sounds," says Meg, and Adrian's eyes suddenly widen as her arm slides behind his back. "Trust me."

She returned the favor. Because, of
course
she did.

"Tell me about it," says Dean, and a sudden understanding dawns on Meg's face. She untangles herself from her lover and steps towards my fictional one.

"So you're the famous Damien," she says, shaking his hand with a smile. She's referring to him by his book-name, of course. I'm still not quite used to that. "Well done."

"Way to raise the bar," says Adrian. "We're all fucked now."

"Let's face it,
you
were fucked in comparison to most serial killers," says Meg. "And some of the lesser demons."

He winks at her.

"You're welcome," says Dean, grinning. The urge to roll my eyes is powerful, but we're supposed to be
in love
. Then again, Meg and Adrian are very obviously
in love
, and also very obviously balanced on a knife's edge of biting sarcasm that seems like it might suddenly tumble into something that's very inappropriate for a public setting.
 

I'm insanely jealous.

This is, if I'm being perfectly honest with myself, the kind of relationship I could picture having with M. Not that I do. Not that I ever
would
. But they look so happy.

You don't know him.

But it doesn't feel that way. It never really has. I suspect I know him better than I ever knew Dean, at any rate.

I shake my head in a valiant effort to dismiss the insanity that seems to have taken hold. I have to pull myself together. Once this whole mess is over, I'm breaking things off with M. Right now I need it for my sanity, because it's the only part of my life that makes any kind of sense. But after I've managed to delicately end the situation between me and Dean, and convince my family that I'm not dying of a broken heart, I'm moving the fuck on.

At least I learned something from him. Now, I know what I want, and I can go after it. He's hardly the only dominant man in the world, and I doubt he's even the one I mesh with the best. Right? I mean, what are the odds?

After I introduce Meg and Adrian to my parents, we say a few polite goodbyes and the power couple starts making their rounds in the room. I meet a few more authors, some I've heard of and many more I haven't, and Dean charms every single person he meets.

I almost forgot how charismatic he could be. The first time he walked up to me in the park, I was sure it was the setup for a prank reality show. Guys like him don't go after girls like me.
 

Except, of course, when they do.

We'd passed each other plenty of times before. I'd noticed him, of course, the way you notice handsome well-dressed men when they cross your path. But I never expected to look up and see him sitting down beside me on the bench, offering me a snack-size apple pie.

"They gave me an extra one," he said with a grin. "Figured I might as well share it with somebody."

I'd like to say it took me a couple of weeks of cautious, demure flirting and casual coffee dates. But he asked me out for dinner that night, and I said yes. It was wonderful. I had just enough wine to get a little giddy, and I kissed him in my front hallway until I could hardly catch my breath.

He said he'd noticed me, too. The books I was reading on my lunch break, the way the wind ruffled my chestnut-brown hair. After Andrew, I meant to be cautious. I wasn't going to let myself fall too fast and too deep. I had to keep my wits about me.

I invited Dean in for coffee after our third date. Never got around to making that coffee, but he did spend the night. From that moment, I never hesitated, never doubted, and never looked back.

After two back-to-back betrayals, I really am starting to wonder what the hell is wrong with me. Not that it's my fault, per se, but I must be doing something to attract these types. What is it about me that beckons to the liars, the cheaters, the emotional vampires who feed off of my blind devotion?
 

Plenty of people would say it's my waistline, but I refuse to accept that. Maybe I'm an easy target because I still have soft curves where so many other women have sleek, tanned skin and lean muscle. But look at Meg. Sure, her boyfriend can obviously be a bit of a pill, but I saw the way he looked at her. She practically has him on a leash. As much as I'd like to bitterly predict the inevitable demise of their relationship, I can't even lie to myself.
 

So what is it about me? What vibes am I putting out into the world that say, "please, betray me! Please lie to me!" It can't just be a coincidence.

I'm staring blankly at the picked-over offerings on the buffet table when I notice Meg and Adrian having a slightly hushed conversation in the little recessed doorway area behind it. I'm not trying to listen, but they're not trying that hard to be quiet, either.