Beautiful Stranger (Beautiful Bastard 2)

With shaking hands, I held up the paper. “I need you to explain what I’m seeing here. Is this just gossip? Who is this woman?”

She stepped closer, handing me her phone. She had the browser open to Celebritini, which apparently had broken the story. At the top of the page was a picture I’d seen weeks ago, on the rooftop with Max. It was a picture of my hip, with his hand spread across my skin.

Beside the picture of my obviously naked body was a picture of a woman’s face. She had dark hair and I would have no way of knowing what color her eyes were because her head was thrown back, eyes closed. At the bottom of the photo was a hint of hair of the man whose face was pressed against her neck.

She was very obviously having an orgasm.

“This photo was on his phone.” I scanned the story that outlined just how many women Max had pictures of. “Apparently there were a lot of pictures of other women.”

Chloe reached for the pair of scissors on my desk. “I’ll be back later; seems I have an appendage to remove.”

“He’s out of town.”

She paused, taking a deep breath. “Well, at least that will save me from prison.”

“What did Bennett say?”

Chloe flopped down on my couch. “He said we should try to be circumspect. That we didn’t know the entire story. That there is a lot of bullshit in the press. He reminded me I thought he was sleeping with everyone in the office before we hooked up.”

I pointed to the picture of his Spanish Starlet. “This story says this was the most recent of his photos leaked and that there were many others. And the one of me, the other one, was taken earlier this summer. So he’s been with her since then.”

She didn’t respond. I stared at the wall, considered putting my fist through it, and then almost laughed at the image. Max could put a fist through a wall. I wouldn’t even leave a mark, and would probably end up with a broken hand.

“I’m tired of feeling like an idiot.”

“So don’t be. Kick his ass.”

“This is exactly why I didn’t want to get involved with anyone. Because I want to see the best in someone, and am totally shattered when I’m wrong.”

Chloe still didn’t say anything, just watched me from across the room. Max didn’t even have a phone or a laptop. I couldn’t call to find out anything.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to. I picked up my phone and powered it off.

“What do we have on the calendar today?” I hit the spacebar on my computer to wake up the screen, and glanced through my appointments. I looked up at my friend.

She reached over and turned off my monitor. “Nothing pressing. George! Cancel everything and then get your stuff. We’re getting day-drunk.”

By noon I was hammered, thrilled that the seedy bar we hit up in Queens had a jukebox, and even more thrilled that the proprietor seemed to love eighties hair bands as much as I did. It was my mom’s guilty pleasure music and playing Twisted Sister over and over strangely made me feel like I was home.

“He was brilliant in bed,” I mumbled into my glass. “Well,” I corrected, holding up a heavy hand, “that one night we actually did it in a bed. My bed. And in that bed he was brilliant. I think we had sex like seven thousand times that night.”

“You only did it in a bed once?” George asked, standing next to the table and leaning on a pool stick for support.

Chloe sighed heavily and ignored him, popping another few highly suspect peanuts into her mouth. “I hate that you feel like you have to give that up. Nothing keeps a relationship together better than amazing sex. Oh, and honesty. I mean, that’s important too.” She scratched her cheek, adding, “And just, like, having fun together. I mean, sex, honesty, and fun. Secret of success right there.”

“We had the sex and the fun.”

Chloe looked like she was headed into the nap zone. “BB is f**king stellar in bed, too,” she mumbled.

“My complete lack of a sex life is also fantastic,” George groaned. “Thanks for asking. Do women really sit around talking about sex all the time?”

Chloe said, “Yes,” just as I said, “Not really.”

Then I changed my mind and said, “Kind of,” right when she said, “I guess not.”

We fell into each other giggling, but my laughter quickly dissolved when a tall shadow stepped into the bar. I sat up, heart pounding. He had broad shoulders, the same light brown hair . . .

But it wasn’t Max.

My chest felt like it was too small for everything inside it.

“Ouch,” I moaned, rubbing over my heart. “Last time I was so far beyond feeling sad I was just mad. This just hurts.”

Chloe threw an arm around me. “Men suck.”

Her phone rang and she answered it after barely one ring. “I’m at a bar.” She paused, listening, then said, “Yeah, we’re getting day-drunk . . . She’s sad and I want to castrate him . . . I know. I will . . . I promise I won’t throw up all over the new carpet, settle down. I’ll see you later.” She ended the call and gave the phone the finger. “Such a bossy ass.”

And then she slumped against me. “You deserve a guy like Bennett.”

George bent down, inspecting us and shaking his head. “You two are a mess. Tomorrow night we’re doing Buck Up Sara Time the g*y way.”

Tuesday night, George took us to a g*y bar, packed wall-to-wall with people, pounding with music. It was exactly the kind of place I wanted to go with him in happier times, but now it only reminded me of how miserable I was. And the truth was, I didn’t really want to go out and party. I didn’t want to be in the middle of a fifteen-man grindfest. I wanted to find a way to just skip time, and get to that point where Max didn’t matter anymore.

What scared me was that it had taken almost no time to stop loving Andy; I’d met Max within a week. I suspected that it would be a lot longer before I’d get over this one.

I finally turned my phone back on Thursday morning to find seventeen missed calls from Max, but he hadn’t left a single message. He’d sent me about twenty texts on Monday and Tuesday, as well, and those I read:

Call me.

Sara, I saw the Post. Call me.

More variations on the same thing: call, text, let me know you’re getting these. And, just when I was going to call, I saw the last one and it tripped an instinctive wire caging my heart.

Sara, I know it looks really bad. It isn’t what you’re thinking.