I could barely believe what I was hearing. The little flip-phone sat in front of me, its screen dark. A symbol of something. Something big.
“We want you, Lauren,” said Brody. “Me, Corey, Mason. All three of us.”
He brushed the phone aside with one hand as he swept me into his arms. He squeezed me tightly, driving away every last one of my fears, as Corey closed in on the other side.
“We only want to be with you.”
Fifty-Four
LAUREN
I spent the next two days parading my boyfriends around Manhattan. Showing them the sights, the sounds, the very best parts of New York City.
And of course, parading them around my bedroom as well.
We talked about everything, from the excitement of their new thrilling venture to the bitter end of my career at the firm. I told them all about Lilith. About how she’d eroded away at my every day responsibilities, before gleefully changing the locks on my office door and giving me the boot.
All this took place while my phone never stopped ringing, or at least beeping with new alerts every minute or two. It was nearly impossible, evading my friends again. Fending off text-messages and phone calls and pleas on social media, all of them having found out by now that I’d been fired. The first day wasn’t so bad — everyone took my silence as a sign I just needed my space. By the second however, it was getting to the point where I knew someone would show up at my door.
I just never expected that person to be Rob.
I walked out of the bedroom, in nothing but a long terrycloth bathrobe. Rob’s bathrobe to be more precise, which probably made the whole thing a heck of a lot more awkward.
“There’s a guy at the door,” Corey said. “Says he’s here to pick up his stereo.”
My eyes darted over to Rob’s outdated stereo equipment. He hadn’t listened to it in years. Maybe for more than half our marriage, and certainly not since the first year or so we’d moved into the apartment.
“Should I give it to him?”
I stood there dumbfounded for a minute, wondering what the hell Rob wanted with the stereo in the first place. And then I smelled it: the cologne he always thought I liked. The shirt he was wearing was one that I’d bought him for his birthday, that I always told him he looked handsome in. And then I knew.
This was just his latest attempt at hooking up with me.
“Yeah,” I laughed, loud enough for Rob to hear. “Go ahead. Give it to him.”
Brody was still at the door, holding it half open, keeping my ex out in the hallway. I could see him now, just standing there looking awkward. His gaze shifting between my two strapping young boyfriends, who were only half-dressed themselves, and then back to me, standing there with my hair still wet from the shower. Totally naked, except for his bathrobe.
“Is that all you came for?” I asked, arms folded.
My ex-husband stood speechless for a good five seconds before nodding slowly. “I—I guess so, yeah.”
Corey handed me a freshly-poured glass of wine. I thanked him as he kissed me on the cheek.
“Good,” I said, my eyes still locked on Rob. “Be sure to let me know if there’s anything else that’s still yours.”
We were staring at each other as Brody thrust a large metallic box into my ex-husband’s chest. Rob looked down at his stereo, as if seeing it for the first time in his life. Wires dangled everywhere, from where Brody had pretty much just pulled it out of the wall.
“Might want to come back later for the speakers,” my gorgeous blond boyfriend said. Then, more confidentially: “much later.”
Rob stood with his mouth open for a few awkward seconds, before finally nodding and turning around. Still clutching his outdated electronics, he trudged back down the hallway in ignominious defeat.
“That was your ex, wasn’t it?” asked Brody, closing the door.
“Yes. Yes it was.”
“No offense,” chuckled Corey, “but it looks like your taste in men has greatly improved.”
“It has,” I agreed wryly. “By leaps and bounds.”