“I saw Logan at the bar with Hunter and figured you might not be far behind,” she said.
“Hi, Camilla.”
“Hi, Ava,” she mocked.
“Mature. It really suits you,” I said.
“I see you still aren’t respecting girl code.”
“No girl code when I don’t have a girl to respect.”
She snickered and shook her head as I closed my purse.
“You know, you really are something else,” Camilla said.
“So are you, actually. After all the years I’ve known you, I never would have believed you could be so cold-hearted if I hadn’t seen it myself.”
“At least I wasn’t cold-hearted enough to fuck around with Michael after the two of you broke up.”
“I wouldn’t have cared. Michael didn’t mean anything to me.”
“And Logan didn’t mean anything to me.”
“Then you shouldn’t have an issue with it,” I said.
“Like I said, it’s the principle of the thing.”
“Then you can take your principle and go be with your boyfriend, and I’ll go back to enjoying my night with Logan.”
“You mean my ex.”
“No. I mean the man who owns his own business and has a set moral code I agree with.”
“You think that makes him a man?”
“I think it makes him a good man,” I said.
“You know, I had you pegged for many kinks, but I didn’t think you’d get off on being controlled.”
“He isn’t controlling. He has expectations of me considering the relationship we’re developing, but they’re not unlike expectations any man would have of me in any other kind of relationship.”
“And you’d know that how?”
I gritted my teeth as Camilla stepped up and stood beside me.
“I don’t even care that you’re with Logan, Ava. I don’t care because I never loved him. I could have never loved a man like that. What I care about is that you didn’t tell me. You didn’t have the decency to come to me and tell me that you were slobbering all over my pathetic sloppy seconds, and you actually thought you could hide it from me.”
“And if you would have actually come and sat down in that restaurant to speak with me, you’d know exactly why I didn’t have the chance to call you before something happened between us,” I said.
“Don’t act like that restaurant thing pissed you off, Ava. You had the money to cover it.”
“It’s not about the money, Camilla! You stood me up! I sat there for almost two hours waiting for your pathetic ass to show up!”
“And it served you right for hiding something like this from me. I thought we were friends, Ava.”
“Says the woman who lied to me about the breakup because she’d been fucking around with her damn boss for months. It took you over a week to call me up and talk with me about it, so you don’t get to throw the friend card in this fight.”
“The friend card?” Camilla scoffed. “Ava, we were never friends.”
I cocked my head and slowly turned my body to face her.
“What?” I asked.
“Seriously? A prude like you and a woman like me? I can’t talk with you about anything. Why in the world would I have discussed hooking up with my boss when I knew you’d make me feel like a slut for it? I can’t help that my boss makes me happy, that he makes me feel beautiful. Logan was nothing but a long-term hookup. And now you know why firsthand. He’s good at what he does, and I didn’t want to let that go, but I never loved him.”
“You love your boss though, right?” I asked.
Camilla flexed her jaw, and I shook my head.
“You have some seriously messed-up priorities. You know that?” I asked.
“I really don’t. I didn’t tell you about my boss because I knew you wouldn’t be able to handle it. You’d turn your nose up at me like you’re doing right now, and the only thing you would have ever seen was Camilla the cheater.”
“Because you were cheating!”
“And you have no right to judge me for that! Don’t you see? You’re so quick to poke at the stick in my eye that you can’t even see the log in yours. So, no, I didn’t tell you about what was going on in my life. In fact, the last couple years you’ve gotten really bad at turning your nose up at every aspect of my life.”
“I have not.”
“Yes, you have. You always said you supported me, but when I told you I got the job the club, what did you say?” she asked.
My lips opened and closed, but silence took hold of my throat.
“Yeah. Exactly. You gave me a ten-minute lecture on how I was above all that or some such bullshit, even though I wanted that job and have always loved bartending. You knew I adored that type of atmosphere, but none of that mattered. Since it didn’t fit your mold of what I should have been, you didn’t approve.”