The Day I Stopped Falling for Jerks Read online

  “A little hot? Satan turns on the AC when hell gets this hot.”

  “Don’t be so dramatic, Lucky.” She laughed and rolled her eyes at the same time. “If my memory serves me right, last week I attended that god-awful speed dating extravaganza with you, and I’m still dealing with phone calls and text backlash. Not to mention, my husband isn’t too keen on random men calling me.”

  I grimaced. She had a bit of a point.

  Not that I admitted it to her. We’re close enough that my silence was all the confirmation she needed.

  She hummed her victory and forced her long, blond locks into a messy bun.

  My hair was the least of my concerns at that point in our day. It was already up, and it was beyond a frizzy mess.

  My skin, on the other hand? Well, it needed my full attention.

  Where Allie is blond with tanned skin and a badass Aussie accent, I’m a native Long Islander with freckles, wavy red hair, and a skin tone that rivals Casper.

  Come to think of it, it’s no wonder I care enough about my relationship with the sun to go off on a weird tangent about her need for anger management.

  I grabbed my sunscreen out of my purse, and my best friend giggled when I squirted a healthy dollop into my hands.

  “What?” I asked, smearing the white cream across both of my arms and shoulders. Her face said it all, and I rolled my eyes. “Don’t mock the pale-skinned girl.”

  [audible sigh]

  Sunscreen is such a foreign concept to Allie, she probably doesn’t even know what SPF stands for.

  “Not all of us are tanned goddesses, ya know.”

  “Like you should talk! The guys at work call you Christina Hendricks because you could literally be her doppelgänger. Trust me, honey, you may not be tan, but you’ve got nothing but goddess vibes coming off you.”

  “Christina Hendricks, my ass.” I rolled my eyes and slid the bottle of sunscreen back into my purse. “I’m certain she has an easier time with men than I do.”

  Sidenote…I’m not sure if you know this, but Christina Hendricks is a famous Hollywood actress. A total bombshell by beauty’s standards. I, however, have nothing in common with her besides red hair and porcelain skin.

  [muffled interjection from producer]

  Ha! Well…thanks. But I don’t see it.

  Anyway…

  [clears throat]

  Allie’s eyes turned serious at my words, and she reached out to put a gentle hand to mine. “How are you doing, by the way?”

  And, just like that, it was time—time to fill the masculine stadium space with a load of hormonal garbage. If her words were a dart, she would’ve hit a bull’s-eye right between Tiago’s eyes.

  “I’m okay.” I shrugged. “I mean, it’s not like it’s my first breakup, and Lord knows, with my track record, it definitely won’t be my last.”

  She frowned at my words. “Don’t say that, Lucky. You’ll find someone. The right someone. I’m sure of it.”

  Let’s face it, this is the typical line that every person in a stable, committed relationship says to their single friend. Of course, they mean no harm, but when you’ve been through as many failed relationships as I have, it starts to sound a lot like a broken record, hideous scratching and all.

  Obviously, I love Allie to death, but she hasn’t been single for years, and all of the happily married vibes were clearly clouding her judgment. My future with relationships looked pretty damn grim from where I sat.

  Still, I refused to drown her in my pessimism. Just because misery loves company doesn’t mean you should call ahead to the restaurant and make a damn reservation.

  “Did you see a future with Tiago?” she asked.

  “Honestly? I’m not sure.”

  I wasn’t sure about the future, but I knew my breakup with Tiago felt harder than all the ones before.

  I’d really liked him, and at one point, I’d even allowed myself the faux pas of picturing little Brazilian babies somewhere in the distant future. I mean, it was a really far-off future, but every woman knows, once you open the latch on Pandora’s Box of Future Planning, time morphs into a vacuum.

  Nevertheless, he was a freelance photographer who traveled a lot and had decided to move his home base back to Brazil. It was easier to cut ties before attempting to make an impossible long-distance relationship work.

  Whether I’d started the proverbial journey into the pool of love or not didn’t matter.

  He’d made his decision, and I’d done too good of a job at pretending to support it.

  “Did you like him more than Josh?” Allie asked with a little smirk, and I rolled my eyes.

  “Uh, yeah,” I said with a snort. “Josh was a total dick.”

  “And what about Ronnie or Mac? Was Tiago higher up on the boyfriend list than those two?”

  “Yeah, how about we not reminisce on all of my ex-boyfriends?”

  She smirked. “You know what I think you need to do?”

  “What?”

  “Stop falling for jerks.”

  Dun-dun-duh-dunnn!

  And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. The magic words.

  Stop falling for jerks.

  I knew she was right, and I still know she’s right. But sometimes, it’s way easier to avoid the truth than face the painful facts head on.

  If only I were better at confrontation. Maybe I would have been able to spare you all from this podcast.

  [sardonic laugh]

  “Tiago wasn’t a jerk,” I retorted. “The rest of them? Yeah, you’re definitely right. But Tiago was different.”

  “I think if he’d hung out for a couple more months, you would have found he wasn’t boyfriend material either. I mean, if you really felt like he was The One, don’t you think you would’ve at least tried to make the long-distance relationship thing work?”

  I didn’t have the words to respond, nor did I want to find the words to respond, so I did what I do best and ignored the question entirely.

  “What time is our meeting with Vanessa today?” I asked instead. Allie’s lips curled up into a knowing smile.

  “Okay, I’ll raise the white flag…for now.” She gave in with a wink. “And we have to be back at the offices by four.”

  I checked the time on my phone and realized it was a little after two.

  I only had to risk sun poisoning for one more hour, and then we’d head out.

  Thank God for that.

  Allie lifted up her binoculars to her eyes and pointed them directly toward the Yankees’ dugout. “I really hope Crew’s publicist will follow through next week. An exclusive interview with him would earn me some serious brownie points with Vanessa.”

  Vanessa is our editor in chief at Scoop. And while she’s a Miranda Priestly in the Devil Wears Prada kind of badass bitch, I actually really like her. She gave me my start, and since I was hired on as an in-house writer and didn’t have to handle her schedule or deal with her complicated morning Starbucks orders, it’s pretty easy to overlook her tough as nails attitude.

  Plus, I’m one hundred percent certain she’s going to listen to this, and I’d have to have half a brain to say something to the contrary in this forum.

  [chuckles]

  Hey there, Vanessa. Love ya!

  Anyway, back to the stadium.

  “Who is Crew?” I asked because, yeah, I had no clue. He could’ve been the mascot for all I knew.

  Allie set her binoculars in her lap and looked at me with a smirk. “Your ability to know literally nothing about popular sports is inconceivable to me.”

  I just shrugged. “Whatever you say, Ms. My Family is an Australian Rugby Dynasty.”

  She, of course, laughed at that.

  Allie was born and raised in Sydney, Australia and was surrounded by rugby gods from the minute she entered the world. Her father. Her brothers. Hell, even her uncle James is a sports commentator on the Australian Sports Channel.

  I, on the other hand, grew up as a simple New York girl with
a veterinarian father and a rarely punctual dance teacher mother.

  While I had been learning how to pirouette, Allie had probably been busy attending her dad’s professional rugby games.

  The crack of the ball against the bat and the crowd’s responding cheers pulled Allie’s attention back to the game. Her yells were wild, and the feel of the seat under her ass was a memory.

  I, however, stayed put in my seat and guzzled from my bottle of water like it held the power to teleport me into an air-conditioned room.

  “This is their year,” she said exuberantly when she sat back down. “I really think the Yankees are going to bring the championship back to New York come October.”

  I snorted. “Yankees fans say that every year.”

  Allie gave me the side-eye, but the conversation promptly ended when the Yankees’ announcer prepped the crowd for the infamous “Kiss Cam” between batters.

  Now, this was more my speed. Give me couples and awkward strangers finding their way to sucking face any day of the week.

  “I wonder if someone will propose today,” I said with a grin as I watched the camera flitter over the crowd.

  She scoffed and rolled her eyes. “I would’ve been so pissed if Sam proposed to me in the middle of a Yankees game.”

  Sam and Allie have been together since we’d both started at Scoop three years ago.

  They were as thick as thieves and had just gotten married about six months prior to that day in a private wedding ceremony with just the two of them in the Bahamas.

  If I’m honest, I’m still a little pissed she didn’t invite me to the celebration and sand in the Bahamas, of all places, but in the name of being a bigger person, I’m ready to let it go.

  Or, at the very least, keep it to myself.

  I didn’t know what kind of proposal I preferred, and I still don’t. I’m perpetually locked inside the hell of step one—searching for the right man.

  Equally manic in its quest, the Kiss Cam moved around the crowd, and both Allie and I watched in amusement.

  The first victims? An older couple with matching Yankees T-shirts and ball caps. They grinned at one another and offered a little PDA-peck. The woman giggled and blushed as her husband proudly waved to the camera.

  Next up, a mother and father with their blond-pigtailed daughter sitting in between. They made theirs a family affair, and each kissed their daughter’s chubby cheeks.

  “They are so cute, I could vomit,” I said, and Allie laughed.

  The camera changed directions, moving toward the opposite side of the stadium, and I grabbed my bottle of water and took another drink.

  It stopped on a gorgeous, early twentysomething brunette woman in a tank top that revealed enough cleavage she could have been advertising for a breastfeeding gig. She smiled flirtatiously and winked at the camera before moving her eyes toward the man sitting beside her.

  The camera followed her lead until both she and her seatmate were on the screen.

  “What in the bloody hell?” Allie muttered. “Is that Tiago?”

  [sighs and then laughs softly]

  Yep. You guessed it. This is the point in the story where things really go to hell…

  Convinced I was seeing things—that even Allie was seeing things—I took a closer inventory of the man on the giant screen.

  Dark, mischievous eyes.

  Sexy, messy hair.

  Strong jaw.

  Brunette effectively attached to said jaw, working valiantly to swallow his face whole.

  Tiago.

  My next breath came at the expense of the bald gentleman in front of me. As it turns out, humans are not amphibious and cannot both drink water and inhale oxygen at the same time.

  Now, this is one of those times where the necessary f-bombs I mentioned earlier come in, and I don’t really think I have to explain why.

  The bald man was dropping them. I was dropping them. Hell, even Allie was scooping littered fucks off the ground and tossing them back up in a resourceful use of recycling.

  The crowd oohed and ahhed at the salacious display, and I choked down unsolicited vomit from its spot in my mouth. All I could do was watch as Tiago kissed the brunette woman like her mouth was the only way for his lungs to get oxygen.

  Two days prior, I’d driven him to the airport, and he’d acted like it was the hardest thing he’d ever done when we’d said goodbye.

  Hell, it’d been less than twenty-four hours since he’d called me to let me know he’d made it safely to Brazil.

  I wasn’t conscious enough to recognize the whole sordid lie immediately, but I sure as hell had my suspicions.

  I mean, there’s something about seeing your ex-boyfriend who you thought was in another country with his tongue down another woman’s throat in the middle of a Yankees game that kind of clues you in to the fact that everything is not what it seems.

  “I’m going to bloody kill him,” Allie shouted and jumped up from her seat.

  “Did you seriously just spit fucking water all over me?” the bald guy angrily questioned with a pointed index finger in my direction.

  In a matter of seconds, everything had gone tits up, and I might as well have been comatose.

  Tiago wasn’t in Brazil.

  Meanwhile, Allie was in full attack, yelling a mouthful of Aussie-accented profanity back at my drenched and now very irate victim in my honor, and with the Yankees up to bat, the crowd around us was starting to get restless with frustration at not being able to enjoy the game.

  State of consciousness in question or not, I had to do something, and I had to do it fast, or else Allie might end up leaving the Yankees’ stadium in handcuffs.

  I stood up from my seat, grabbed our shit, and with my hand firmly wrapped around my best friend’s wrist, I quickly started to guide us toward the aisle.

  I yelled an apology to Baldy over my shoulder, and he responded with I love you in a thick New York accent.

  To the untrained ear, it sounds just like fuck you, but I know better.

  I forced Allie into the aisle and all but pushed her up the steps and toward the inside of the stadium before she had the opportunity to turn the Yankees game into her own personal version of Fight Club.

  When we made it to the shaded security of the passage in front of the concession stand, all of my adrenaline flushed out of my system, and my careful composure started to deteriorate. I leaned my back up against a cement wall, out of the way of the crowd, and tried to regain control.

  My hands were shaking. My knees felt like they would buckle any second, and my heart raced. Apparently, when you see your ex-boyfriend—who is supposed to be in Brazil—kissing another girl on a giant baseball stadium screen that is, in fact, located in the fucking United States of America, even your body’s most basic instincts start to break down.

  “What the hell, Lucky?” Allie questioned as she paced in front of me. “What in the hell just happened?”

  I didn’t know the answer to her question, but I certainly wanted to find out.

  “I’m fucking calling him,” I muttered and rummaged through my purse to find my phone.

  “Do it!” Allie cheered me on. “Bloody call that bastard!”

  Looking back on this now, I don’t know that Allie was the best person to have by my side in that scenario, but by God, she cheered me on like my own personal Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader.

  With my heart pounding and Allie’s overzealous encouragement, I didn’t stop to think, I didn’t hesitate, I acted. I tapped Tiago’s name in my contacts and called the bastard.

  He answered on the second ring, the prompt asshole.

  “Luciana, how are you?” he asked, his stupid sexy Brazilian voice a muffled whisper into my ear.

  I imagined him covering the receiver with his hand in an attempt to hide the sounds of the Yankees crowd in the background. Apparently, he wasn’t quick enough to think to use his companion’s giant breasts as a soundproof barrier.

  Even though Allie was bouncing around
beside me, urging me to rip Tiago’s balls off, which, let’s face it, wasn’t exactly doable in my current telephonic situation, I took a deep breath and attempted to play it cool.

  “I’m good,” I said, my voice a combination of sugary-sweet and phony as fuck. “How’s Brazil treating you?”

  “It’s definitely good to be back home—” his voice dropped even lower “—but I do miss you.”

  I nearly gagged at his words.

  Apparently, I’m horribly averse to the rich sweetness of a goddamn liar.

  “You know, I’ve been thinking,” I smarted, really laying on the faux charm. “I have a few weeks of vacation stored up. How about I come visit you?”

  “Uh…visit me?” he asked and paused for a long moment. “Like, visit me in Brazil?”

  “Of course in Brazil, silly.” I faked a giggle. “I mean, where else would I go to visit you?”

  The phone went silent, so I took it upon myself to continue the line of conversation.

  “I could book a flight right now,” I said. “It looks like I can be there as early as Saturday.”

  “Saturday?” he questioned. “Wait…are you looking this up right now?”

  Clearly, I wasn’t actively looking up flights on my phone, but he didn’t know that.

  I ignored his question. “Oh, wait! There’s a flight Friday.”

  “That’s in two days,” he said, and I didn’t miss the nervous lilt of his voice.

  “I know,” I purred. “Only two days and then you won’t have to miss me.”

  “Lucky…I…” He paused, and like I was a lioness hunting her prey, his hesitation only urged me further.

  “Or I could just meet you by the concession stand right now?”

  Boom! You lying motherfucker! Take that!

  He paused for a good ten seconds before quietly asking, “The concession stand?”

  “Yeah,” I confirmed. “At the Yankees game. You could introduce me to your new girlfriend and maybe, you know, explain why I saw you on the fucking Kiss Cam in the middle of Yankee Stadium, when just two days ago I took you to the airport for your flight to Brazil.”