“Yes, it is.” She sniffled and unearthed a book from within her tangle of blankets titled Why Men Marry Bitches. “This book says I’m too nice. Too trusting.”
“Fuck that book.” Dani grabbed it from her and chucked it across the room. It landed beside the radiator, pages splayed. “It’s pseudo-psychology written by an ignorant hack. Nothing you did or didn’t do made Jay into a conniving liar. This is a hundred percent on him.”
“Absolutely,” I agreed, because it was the right thing to do in this situation. But secretly, I wondered if Lia actually was too trusting. She’d believed every excuse Jay ever gave her, forgave him every time he apologized. I bet she’d never even looked him up on JerkAlert.
The buzzer blared and thirty seconds later, Whitney busted through the front door clutching a bottle of tequila. When she spotted the dead-eyed look on Lia’s face, she made a beeline for the kitchen. “Where do you keep your shot glasses?”
Lia didn’t answer, but Whit found them, anyway. She lined them up on the countertop and filled them to the brim with Don Julio Blanco.
“I didn’t have a chance to stop and get limes, so we’ll just have to do them as-is.” She balanced the shot glasses carefully between her outstretched fingers and walked into the living room, handing them off to us one by one. Lia waved hers away, prompting Whit to scowl. “Wallowing won’t make you feel any better. Tequila will.”
Unwilling to argue, Lia relented. Whit held her glass in the air. “Bottoms up, ladies.”
It went down surprisingly easy.
“Where’s that cookie dough at?” she asked. Dani procured two pastel-colored containers from the fridge, along with four spoons, and we all dug in.
“Oh my God.”
“This is amazing.”
“It was totally worth the forty-five-minute wait.”
Whit nodded toward a pile of random stuff in the center of the floor. “What’s all that?”
Lia groaned. “That’s everything Jay ever gave me.”
“Really?” Whit scooched next to it and began rifling through the mishmash of clothing, cards, and candy. A jewelry box fell off the top of the heap and she picked it up, turning it over in her hands. “David Yurman. Nice.” When she popped it open, her eyes went wide. “Holy shit. These are diamonds.”
“Ugh, I want to burn it all. Or give it away. I think the Goodwill on 8th Street accepts walk-in donations.”
“No way.” Whit slid the bangle onto her slender wrist and gave it a jiggle. “This stuff is worth a fortune. You should sell it.”
“I can’t even look at it anymore. I just want it gone.”
“Let me take care of it for you,” Whit said. “I’ve got a friend who sells stuff on eBay for extra cash. She takes a cut of everything, but you’ll still make a killing.”
Dani cleared her throat and glared at Whit, who reluctantly removed the bangle with a frown. Then she turned to Lia and asked, “So, what happened? How did you find out about this?”
Lia reached for a tissue and wiped her nose. “You know how I wanted to plan that spa day in Cabo? Well, I called the hotel last night, but they couldn’t find any reservations under Jay’s name. The only Roswell they could find was a Jeremy Roswell. I’d never heard him go by Jeremy before, but it was definitely him—the dates of our stay matched and everything. At first, I didn’t think much of it. Like, maybe Jay is just a nickname he prefers or something. But the more I thought about it, the more upset I got. I mean, at this point in a relationship, you should know someone’s real name, shouldn’t you?”
“Definitely,” I said, briefly wondering if Alex was short for something else, like Alexander or Alejandro or Alexandrios. I’d be able to Google stalk him more effectively if I knew his full name.
“Then I thought,” Lia said, “if he hasn’t told me his real name, what else has he been hiding from me? I don’t know where he works or even understand what he does for a living. I’ve never met any of his friends or family members. Maybe I don’t know him at all. So, I looked him up on JerkAlert, under Jeremy. And this is what I found.”
She held her phone out for us to see. A picture of Jay splashed across the screen, looking the same as he did in all of Lia’s Instagram photos. Same salt-and-pepper hair, same wrinkles around the eyes.
The three of us pressed our heads together to read the damning evidence:
Name: Jeremy
Age: 41 (but honestly, who knows if he’s lying about that, too)
Location: Has an apartment in Midtown but his full-time house is in Summit, NJ
Review: This motherfucker is WIFED UP. That’s right: he’s got a whole secret family out in New Jersey. We dated for a month but then he started acting shady. So one night, when he was in the bathroom, I went through his phone. Found photos of his wife, his kids, his minivan. Tried to explain his way out of it but eventually admitted the truth.
What the fuck.
“It explains so much,” Lia continued. “Like why he would never let me tag him on Instagram, or why he was always canceling at the last minute with some excuse about work.”
“What did he say when you confronted him?” I asked.
“He didn’t even try to deny it. He was just like, ‘Yeah, that’s me.’ Like it was no big deal. Can you believe that someone could be so callous?”
Whit said what we all were thinking: “Yes.”
“So that’s it.” Her voice warbled, threatening to crack. “I guess I’m not going to Cabo now.”
“Fuck Cabo,” Dani said. “And fuck Jay. Or Jeremy. Or whatever the hell his name is.”
Lia’s lower lip twitched and she crumpled forward in another sobbing fit. I resumed my patting and shushing, while Whit poured us another round of tequila shots.
“Let’s plan our revenge on this asshole,” she said, handing out the glasses. “What if we called up his wife and told her what a dick her husband is?”
“I’m sure she already knows,” Dani said.
“Ugh. Stuck in the burbs with two kids and a cheating husband. What a miserable life.” Whit knocked back her shot.
“This is my own fault,” Lia said. “I should’ve asked more questions. Demanded more answers.” She turned to me with a mournful look. “You’re lucky you found Alex on JerkAlert now, before you got in too deep.”
Funny, I didn’t feel lucky.
“How are things going with him?” Dani asked.
I downed my shot and wiped my lips with the back of my hand. “There’s another review on his profile.”