“That wasn’t—”
“I can’t wait for us to be done.” I snapped cruelly and ended the call, feeling the immediate guilt at being rude that wasn’t part of my psyche. My former husband had lied to me, stole from me and then to add insult to injury, he’d slept around behind my back. I had every right to be angry with him, but there was that guilt, and I fired off a text. I signed them. Sorry.
What is it with me that I can’t even be rude to an asshole who ruined my damn life?
I scrolled to the list of people whom I trusted. Five. That was all that was left. My mom, dad, and my three siblings. I’d fired the hopelessly useless management team that Marc had hired to manage 3B. Then the two bakers that had worked with me, both of whom it turned out had slept with Marc, not that I imagine much sleeping had been done. Next I dismissed my idiot of a bookkeeper, and lastly, I’d changed banks. I did my own bookkeeping. I managed 3B and as she was my sister, I trusted Lacey to manage the coffee shop attached to 3B. There was no way in hell I would let anyone else in.
I had a circle of trust, and there was only a handful of people inside it. And right now, there was only one person I wanted to talk to. I hoped to hell Adam was available, or that he had felt my stress through the twin connection because I needed to tell him about things.
About what exactly? About my stupid head and its inability to form trusting relationships? Or the fact that months of therapy hadn’t made me feel any less stupid about what I’d allowed to happen. Anyway, even if I did tell him, what could he do all the way from Corning? Breathe. Just breathe.
After a few moments, I sent a message to the family group.
“Good first day, blind bake rescued from disaster, more later.”
Just as usual, the phone rang immediately, and I connected the call as soon as I saw Adam’s name.
“Hey, little brother,” he said, and I could hear he was in the car. He was only older by five minutes, but just like every set of twins I’ve met, the oldest always made it clear they had been first. I had a standard reply about him reaching thirty before me, but nothing came out of my mouth apart from a strangled hi. After a pause he sighed. “Okay, tell me everything.”
“Everything? The bake was—”
“No, tell me the stuff you’re not putting in the family chat. I’ve been feeling wired all day, so you’re clearly stressing.”
I didn’t even attempt to lie. “It’s hard being back. I messed up a couple of times. I can’t stop thinking that Marc will be out there watching this when it’s aired and laughing at me fucking up, and I asked Justin for a coffee, and then he was laughing at me I think, and I don’t know who to trust. Then Marc just phoned, and I told him that I couldn’t wait for us to be over, and I was cruel, and I’m fucked up.” I said all that in one breath. I sat on the edge of my bed, realizing too late that it was in front of the closet mirror, and I got an eyeful of me in a padded coat, my head appearing tiny as it poked out of the extra hood space.
“Okay then,” Adam said.
“Worst of all, what if I still love Marc? What if the hate I have for him and wanting to be successful where he can see me is still some kind of love?”
Adam cursed loudly, then I heard the click of the indicator and the road noise lessened. He’d clearly pulled over.
“First, Marc was an asshole. He stole from you, slept around on you, made you feel like shit, and horrifically broke your heart. You do not still love him.”
“How can you tell? I married him, there must be—”
“He’s not worth your time. Are you listening to me, Brody?”
“I am, but then there was the thing with the coffee.” I had to be honest because Adam would know. I told him everything about Justin. The fake-flirting, the advice, and the camera footage. I even explained about Jeremy our frosty snowman. He made all the appropriate sounds. Only when I stopped did he talk.
“Okay so, cute and sexy Justin, whom you haven’t shut up about since you signed up for this charity show, is going with you to coffee?”
“He said he was, and I was pathetically happy but then there were the photos, and now I just feel wrong.”
“Back up a minute, you said you were happy, and that’s a positive. You haven’t dated for two years.”
I placed the phone on the bed and put it on speaker, taking off my coat as Adam kept talking.
“You’re worried about what Marc will think when this airs so what better way to get back at him than have this showmance-bromance-fakemance thing that Justin suggested?”
“I’m not doing that.” Although the sudden thought of proving to Marc that I’d come out of our relationship unscathed was a nice one.
“Not even a couple of innuendo—”
“No,” I was decisive. “I’m here to bake.”
Adam was quiet for a moment. “Marc didn’t just break your heart, Brody. He took your self-confidence, and you can’t let him keep it. You’re going to have to trust someone sometime, and if you think that Justin is being honest with you now, then go for a coffee, ignore the show and fake anything, and see what happens. You could have a fling, just enjoy being you, have sex and—”
“I’m not talking to you about sex!” I stood up and turned sideways, pressing my shirt against my belly where it was softly rounded. Marc had gone elsewhere because he said I was slowly becoming old, married, and boring.
Adam chuckled. “Okay, no sex talk, but you need to not have every decision you make be colored by Marc and what he did to you. He was an asshole of epic proportions, and if I ever saw him again I’d push him into a lake.”
We finished with our usual exchange of brotherly insults, and then I sent love to Christie, his wife, and to their twin daughters. When the call ended I felt better for talking to him, even if I felt lonely as soon as I finished the call. I’d been leaning too much on my siblings, asking them to put up with my moods, and worse, my seeming inability to work my way through everything. Justin said he wasn’t going to share the wrong things, and that we weren’t doing the flirting thing for the cameras. Maybe I should listen to Adam and give Justin the benefit of the doubt and assume he was a good guy instead of another Marc, who was all about the lies and deception. I’d become nothing to Marc but a name to drop at parties and a way to meet celebrities, plus it turned out, also an endless money well for him to steal from.
I headed for the shower. Dinner first and then bed.
I was exhausted.
Chapter Eleven
You’ve left your nuts quite big. I must admit I was worried about your unfeasibly large nuts.
Justin
The water was hot on my back, and I lost myself in those kinds of thoughts that I could only have in the shower. Erotic images of what I would love to be doing with Brody warred with the fact I wasn’t the kind of person that people trusted. Maybe Brody was one of those who could see through the fancy covering to the person below. I had no intention of betraying his trust after I said I wouldn’t, but how would he know that?
“He sees the crap I endorse. He knows I’m a liar.”
The shower gel didn’t answer me back, and I was glad about that because I knew what it would say. Something about how I was a fake person who did fake shit and should expect mistrust in return.