Be Good A New Adult Romance (RE12)(27)

“Don’t worry,” Brett said as I stroked my cheek. “We’ll see each other in Las Vegas for Sarah and Sean’s wedding.”

I nodded even though I felt sick at the thought of waiting another week to see him again.

“Have you ever been to Las Vegas?” he asked.

“Once, with my family. I was like ten, so I don’t think I got the full experience. I haven’t been there since I turned twenty-one.”

“It’s fun. I already know a few places I want to take you.”

I nodded. “One of them wouldn’t happen to be a garden, would it?”

He grinned. “You know me too well.”



***



Brett left early Sunday morning. He said he needed to get back because he was working on another big project and had fallen behind. I immediately felt guilty that I might have contributed to his falling behind at work.

I sat in my room and did a lot of thinking. One phrase kept playing over and over in my head. There needs to be more consistency between who you are and what you do.

What was I doing? Was I trying to be a better person? Was I trying to fix the broken parts of myself?

None of the above. I was still a hot mess, who didn’t deserve someone like Brett. But I wanted to be with him. I wanted to be better for him. But I wanted to be better for myself even more.



***



On Monday morning, I found myself walking into my brother’s office.

“What’s up?” he said when he looked up from his stack of papers.

I cleared my throat. “Um, I thought I remembered you saying something about us having access to an EPA counselor.”

He grinned. “You mean EAP counselor, Employee Assistance Program? It’s part of your health insurance. You have six sessions. Why? Do you want to go to counseling?” He actually seemed a little excited to hear me mention counseling. Was it that obvious that I needed help?

“I thought I’d check it out,” I half-mumbled trying to act casual but failing miserably.

“I think you should.” My brother’s eyes were warm.

I was surprised when a smart-ass comment didn’t pop out of my mouth. I just said, “Thanks” and headed back to my cubicle.



***



The counselor made me take what she called an inventory about my drinking. When we talked about some of my responses to the questions, she asked me straight out if I thought I had a problem and if I thought about quitting.

“I definitely have a problem,” I admitted. “But I’m not sure I’m ready to quit.”

“Thanks for being honest. Admitting you have a problem is a big step but you’ll only be able to give up drinking when you’re ready.”

“How will I know when I’m ready?”

“When you’re sick and tired of being sick and tired.”

I sounded like a cutesy cliché but it made a lot of sense.



***



I didn’t hear much from Brett through the week. As usual, he said he was busy with work, busy with another major project, busy with the things that didn’t include me.

I spent my time reading self-help books that Winter brought home from the New Age bookstore. Some of them dealt specifically with overcoming addiction and some of them were about building self- esteem. Although I was never much of a reader, I devoured all of them.

By Thursday night, when I hadn’t heard anything from Brett, I decided to phone him. We were supposed to be meeting late Friday afternoon in Las Vegas and I wanted to finalize our plans.

“Hey,” Brett said when he picked up the phone. He sounded tired.

“I’ll be in Vegas tomorrow at about four in the afternoon.”

“Okay,” Brett responded. He sounded funny but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

“Your flight gets in at eleven?” He had already told me he got in early. Apparently it was much cheaper than the afternoon flights.

“Yeah, then I’m meeting an old friend for lunch.” There was something about the way he said old friend that made me feel like he was holding something back.

“Is everything okay?” I asked.

He didn’t respond right away, which made me nervous. “Yeah, I’m just tired.”

“I can’t wait to see you.”

“Me, too,” he confirmed but it wasn’t as enthusiastic as I expected or wanted.

“Okay, then, see you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow, Anna.”

And that was it. He hung up and my heart sank. I felt like I was getting the brush off. But why? It seemed like we had worked things out the previous weekend. He even told me he loved me. But I had gotten drunk and thrown myself into the arms of another man. Maybe he was having second thoughts about being with me. I couldn’t blame him.

But I felt like there was something more. Something I was missing. I fired up my laptop and hopped over to Facebook. I froze when I saw Brett’s profile page. There was a post on his wall from Sweater Vest: Looking forward to seeing you in Vegas!

I felt my stomach clench when I realized Becca was the old friend he was having lunch with the following day. I wondered if Sweater Vest was going to make a move to get back together with Brett. That would explain why he was so busy all week and why he brushed me off on the phone. The only way I would know the truth was to see Brett for myself. She may have been the better match for him but I at least deserved to be told the truth.



***



It was two o’clock by the time I got checked into my hotel room. I set my alarm a few hours earlier than I had planned because I wanted to get to Las Vegas as quickly as I could. I needed to confront Brett and get to the bottom of whatever was going on. Now I was about to find out.

I headed down to the lobby and was about to make my way down to the myriad of restaurants and shops when I caught sight of Brett walking out of a well-known Chinese food chain. And Sweater Vest had her elbow interlocked with his. They were both talking and laughing. They were so into each other, neither one of them noticed they were headed right towards me.

I made sure to stand right in their path so they had to stop and confront me. When the two of them finally stopped and turned to look at me, all of the color drained out of Brett’s face. He looked like he was going into shock.

Sweater Vest gave me a look like I had just stepped out of the bottom of a trash bin. “Who’s that?” she cooed to Brett then batted her brown puppy dog eyes at him.

I was so angry and hurt I felt like my heart was going to leap out of my chest and explode.

Brett’s face was now beet red. I noticed he made no attempt to remove the arm that she was holding. When she saw me looking at their locked arms I noticed she gripped him tighter. He winced but didn’t let go of her.

Brett cleared his throat. “Becca, this is Anna. Anna, this is Becca.”

Sweater Vest made no motion to shake my hand and I didn’t bother with the formality either. I just looked at the two of them. They looked so perfect together, like they were made for each other. And the ease with which I saw the two of them interact made me want to vomit.

I wanted to tear Sweater Vest’s plain-Jane face right off.

Sweater Vest Looked up at Brett and said in the sweetest voice I may have ever heard, “And how do you know Anna?”

This was going to be good. I put my hands on my hips and waited to hear what Brett had to say about me and about us.

That is, if there still was an us!

Brett cleared his throat again. “Well, um, you know Anna went to college with us.”

Sweater Vest gave me the once over in a way that was so condescending, I could have punched her. “I don’t think we ran in the same circles,” she finally managed to say.

“We had Economics together. You sat right next to me.”

She blinked her puppy dog eyes at me. “Sorry, I don’t recall that.”

Bitch.

I glared at Brett and waited for him to say something about our relationship but he couldn’t even look me in the eye.

I gave Brett one chance to redeem himself. “Aren’t you going to tell Sweater Vest here how we really know each other?”

“Why did she call me that?” Rebecca whined.

I was now glaring at Brett. When our eyes finally met, he looked lost but he didn’t say anything. Since I consider inaction an action, I let loose.

“Brett and I f*cked each other. More than once. He was one of the best lays I ever had.”

I looked at Sweater Vest and she was gaping at me. Brad looked like I had just slapped him in the face. Good.

I turned to Sweater Vest and got right into her face. “Every time he f*cks you, I want you to remember that he was inside of me and he loved it.”

Then I turned on my heels and hurried away. As soon as I was sure they could no longer see me, I ran as fast as I could back to my hotel room.