Just One Inch

But I charged ahead.

“Did you see a brunette there? Maybe 5’5”, curly hair, plaid shirt, and those eyeglasses that hipsters wear? She looked like she could be a law student.”

“Why?” the blonde asked curiously. “She someone to you?” Jenna queried.

“Nah,” I laughed nonchalantly. “It’s just that Cade met her and thought she was cute, he wanted to get her number,” I lied through my teeth.

“Oh,” said Jenna. “Well, I have no idea who that was,” she waved her hand dismissively. “Sounds like no one. Why would your brother be interested in someone like that, anyways?” she asked. “He’s got mega-bucks to his name, can’t he do better?”

I shrugged, unwilling to say more. “Just thought you might know. I mean, you knew a lot of folks at that party, you and your law school friends. How did you even hear about the event?” I asked casually. There had been a lot of randoms that night.

“Oh you know, word gets out,” said Jenna. “We’re just poor students and when one person gets invited to a rockin’ party in the city, it’s kind of like an invitation to all of us. We drive up en masse and see what we can crash. Worst comes to worst, we’ll just drive back down or find a bar in the City to party at,” she added.

Yeah, these “poor” students. I’d been on campus once to give a guest lecture at the law school, and that place was a palace for rich kids. There was wi-fi in every room, every student had a laptop, and the campus was gorgeous – like a giant country club, if you ask me. Of course, that doesn’t mean that there weren’t people on scholarship but at the same time, I could tell a lot of these kids were headed to lucrative careers as lawyers to companies that can pay … like Manning Pharma.

I dropped the issue. Jenna could be a jealous bitch and I didn’t want to pique her suspicions with more probing into the whereabouts of my missing brunette. It was sad, but sometimes I lay awake nights thinking back to our explosive coupling, the curvy body, the feel of Tina cushioning me between her virgin flesh. I shouldn’t have left her alone after fucking that delectable body. Damnit, what had I been thinking?

But it was too late to cry over spilled milk. After several more fruitless attempts to identify the brunette, I gave up and now here I was, months later, engaged to be married. The sparkler on Jenna’s finger was a total shocker, for one. I’d seen a charge on my credit card statement from Harry Winston and thought what the fuck? Jenna bought herself a piece of jewelry costing a cool hundred thou? I was going to speak with her about it, but she beat me to the punch. At a dinner party that night, she pulled it out during appetizers, the females oohing and ahhing like a fucking Greek chorus. I’d practically choked when I saw what it was.

“See?” she said proudly, letting the lights bounce off a five-carat diamond, blinding almost everyone in the room. “Isn’t it gorgeous? Jake picked it out, I knew he’d been eyeing it,” she cooed, winking at me.

I didn’t say a word because it just wasn’t the place or time. The guests fawned over our hostess some more before turning back to the food. I was steaming under the collar but what was I going to do? We were in the middle of a fancy dinner party, and I could hardly stand up and stalk out, leaving a gaggle of gossip in my wake.

Instead, I was an automaton going through the motions, bidding goodnight to my friends as they left with Jenna at my side playing the gracious hostess. I knew it looked right on the outside: we were the handsome couple with a beautiful San Francisco penthouse. We were perfectly matched, with my dark looks complementing her light, and everything appeared to be in sync. But I felt oddly hollow. It’s just a ruse, I wanted to roar. Everything you see is fake. Look at her tits! This chick has the fakest fake tits, rubbery and heavy, and if you punched her in the face I bet your hand would come glancing back at you because her cheeks and lips are so full of filler.

But I was silent and miserable, with no clue how to dig myself out of this hole. It sounds perverse, I know. I was a CEO with multitudes of employees at his command and an empire to run, and I couldn’t shake this blonde who dogged me like bad hand.

“Brother,” said Matt, “If you’re not feeling it, just call off the wedding. Fuck the deposits, fuck the flowers, who the fuck cares? If it ain’t right, it ain’t right.”