Maybe she’ll grow jaded too and realize love is overrated and a fucking joke. It’s not meant to have and to hold. To cherish or fucking keep. It’s meant to tear you to shreds and swallow you before throwing you right back up.
Love is weakness.
It’s my retribution.
It’s my burden.
It’s my death sentence.
The entire way back up to Joey’s and my suite, I think of how much I hate her and what she’s done to me. I thought Lo was bad, but fucking Joey? She’s like a decomposing stab wound that will never heal. The knife dug in, leaving a forever stain on the tissue and muscles, forcing them to keep the memory of the action. Replaying it with each remembrance of the word.
I’m so fucked, and I did this to myself.
Why am I such a lost cause?
When will I learn?
Was I ever worthy of love?
The bottle gets lighter and lighter as the elevator dings on the sixtieth floor, letting me know the entire floor that’s mine and mine alone is waiting. Maybe Joey is in there. Did she invite that cocksucker back here to pleasure her?
He can’t please her like I can. He doesn’t know how to flick her clit the right way or how to squeeze her nipple too hard, just the way she begs for. And fuck, there’s no way his cock fills her like mine does.
Does she let him come in her? Taint what’s not hers to offer him?
Fuck. I hate her.
Hate him.
Hate me.
Hate every-fucking-thing.
I drink and drink until the bottle is as barren as my chest. Funny how that works. Items representing ourselves. Alcohol is mine. Not just my vice, but my descriptor. Hurts like a bitch, takes and soothes momentarily.
Lie.
Lie.
Lies.
Fuck.
Getting to my door, I hit the black pad with my wallet and watch as the light flickers. When I twist the handle, my vision blurs, revealing my worst nightmare. My stomach squeezes at the sight in front of me.
She wouldn’t fucking dare.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Present
Joey
As I wallow in self-pity and attempt to drown my sorrows, my phone chirps. Reaching above me on the counter to get it, I tighten my fingers around it, realizing it isn’t the man I’m desperate to hear from. My eyes land on Francis’s text. Ma coccinelle, are you okay? It’s been a few days since we last spoke, but he keeps me grounded. Not in a way Toby used to, but in a way that shows he cares. Or at least, I hope he does.
Yeah, just dandy. How’s Gray?
I can imagine his disapproving glare and the forehead wrinkling as he shakes it.
Deflection doesn’t work on me, sweetheart. He’s good, I’ll give him that. Toby thinks I find comfort in Francis. I do. It’s just not sexual. It hasn’t been intimate in any way since that kiss we shared. Once Toby and I were together, Francis became strictly a friend. Hell, he’s my best friend’s dad. I wouldn’t break that trust for anything. Not even if he was good in the sack.
You’re ignoring what matters, Frankie. How’s my best friend?
When everything between Toby and I imploded, Gray was going through something herself, and she hasn’t quite recovered. If I didn’t witness it myself, I wouldn’t believe a single guy could wreak as much havoc as Ace did on any given day.
Why do men hurt the ones they love? I ask myself this daily. Regardless of how much Toby tells me he hates me, it’s a lie. It shows in the way he always comes home. Even if he spends nights with other women, he always comes home. It’s a silent promise, like no matter what, he will always come back to me. How he used to constantly fuck me after he’d fuck other women is telling too. Coming home after being inside them, then being inside me. Dirty. Depraved. Diabolical.
He purposely doesn’t shower. It’s his punishment to me, making me smell them on our sheets, on him, and everything in between. If he knew I’d never fucked Francis, would he hate himself more? Not that he could feel a single fucking thing. He drinks so much it’s a miracle he could see at all, let alone think enough to hate himself. How he works every day, fully functioning while polishing off bottles in his office, is beyond my understanding.
Alcohol is his medication, his loaded gun, and he continues to fill the chamber with bullets, pulling the trigger on his personal roulette game. He hurts himself more than I ever could. But