she’d somehow learned something vital, thus saving herself. But I know she’s hurting. She thought they were going to get married, for God’s sake.” Ivy shook her head, brows drawn with concern. “I’ve always hated him, but now I could rip his face off and shove it down his throat like baloney.”
“How long were they together?” I asked carefully, hungry for details and shocked that any man could be so ungrateful.
“Two years. I always thought he was a douchebag, but I never suspected he’d sleep with a girl who couldn’t even drink—and right there in their apartment.”
“And what makes him such a douche? He sounds like a stupid asshole, but not exactly a douchebag.”
“Let me count the ways,” Ivy said, ticking off points on her fingers. “He’s a poor little rich boy, obsessed with status. Constantly talks about himself. Tells bad jokes. Didn’t give my sister the orgasms she so clearly deserves. Wears too much cologne. Cheats on her with reality TV stars. His name belongs to a weatherman—Brock Bancroft,” she scoffed. “Should I go on?”
I chuckled, imagining some weatherman type with a booming voice and too many teeth. I couldn’t picture Lila with a man like that. She was too immaculate, too enterprising to settle for anything less than equal to her. Not that I knew her, I reminded myself once again. But the woman she chose to show the world was solid and unflinching. A woman who took no shit and accepted nothing less than the best.
How she’d ended up with some shitbag who didn’t even give her orgasms was beyond me, a nonsensical concept with no grounds in reality.
To have something end like that was brutal, unforgivable
Ivy continued on her teardown of Brock the Cock, as she lovingly called him. Lila’d moved in with Ivy for a little while, I learned as Ivy went on, and was sleeping in the nursery. Last night, she’d gone back to get her things, and it hadn’t gone well. Ivy didn’t know what had happened though, and Lila hadn’t clued her in. This was apparently Lila’s modus operandi—she gave nothing away, played it close to the vest.
Several pieces of the puzzle clicked into place as I turned the knowledge over in my mind. When we’d met at Skylight after her tumble into the black-eyed Susans, she’d looked like she hadn’t slept, and now I knew the who of it. Her ideas about love and liars, the fury with which she spoke about relationships, all made sense. And now, Lila Parker was single—and heartbroken, if Ivy was to be believed.
A familiar sense of protectiveness bloomed in my ribs, common when I came across someone being mistreated. Lila seemed indestructible, and to think that someone had found a way to hurt her felt obscene, sacrilegious. I wondered how she might ever mend her heart, knowing time would help, distance. But her job required her to be around the very object of their demise—Natasha Felix. I could only imagine how painful seeing her would be, and to have to bottle it all up in order to perform? It seemed too much burden to carry, though I had a feeling that Lila shouldered it with grace and determination.
“What she needs is a rebound,” Ivy said to the tops of the zinnias. “Somebody to pound her into oblivion, but someone disposable. Someone who she won’t catch feelings for. Somebody to make her forget Brock the Cock ever existed.”
A lightbulb flashed over my head, and I blinked at its brightness.
“When in the world does she even have time to meet someone like that?” Tess asked. “She works eighty hours a week. I’m not even convinced she does such human things like eat and sleep.”
Ivy sighed. “I don’t know. She doesn’t believe in dating apps.”
Good, I thought to myself. Because I knew a guy who might fit the bill, someone who checked all the boxes.
Pound her into oblivion—check.
Make her forget Brock existed—check.
Disposable—check.
There was no danger of Lila Parker catching feelings for me. I couldn’t be convinced she didn’t actually hate me. But maybe I could help her move on.
She deserved to be appreciated by a man. She needed to know her ex was the anomaly, not the norm.
And if she was interested, I might just be the man to prove it to her.
9
A Good Smiting
LILA
I woke the next morning with a renewed optimism and Brock firmly in my rearview mirror, and for a full week, I maintained that attitude with the white-knuckled will of a Spartan.