Cass
My best friend Tash drops me off in front LA Confidential, an upscale nightclub in Beverly Hills. My heart thumps as I burst through the door and scan the room.
If Dayton is here, I'll kill him.
He's a self-centered jerk for what he did. He's the king of jerks. The jerkiest of all jerkdom. King Jerk.
No. I'm not going to kill him. I'm going to play him like he played me. Let him feel the pain and humiliation of being taken advantage of.
I don't see Dayton, but my grand entrance attracted the attention of a big biker dude with long hair and a black leather jacket. He glances at me then hunches over his beer again. He's totally out of place in this club full of Sony execs from Burbank and people pretending to be somebody. This guy doesn't care what anyone thinks of him. He's here to have a beer and that's it.
I work my way through the crowd and find Dayton at the back booth. Our booth. Well, not our booth but the booth where we met. The booth where he charmed the pants off me and somehow suckered me into dating him.
He's wearing the same white button-down shirt, looking deceptively handsome and innocuous, but he's a manipulative bastard, only thinking of himself and putting on a sensitive front to convince women to give him what he wants.
How could I be so gullible to fall for his act? I'm always giving people the benefit of the doubt and always regret it!
The girl sitting next to him is blonde, petite, and pretty. She's just like me. She's the next victim in his quest to fuck all of Los Angeles.
Taking a deep breath, I slow down and approach them casually. He startles when he sees me and quickly removes his arm from around her shoulders.
"Hey, Dayton. How are you? So good to see you and your friend." I give them a fake smile. I'm dressed to kill in my little black dress and platinum blonde hair styled in lazy shoulder-length curls.
"Cassiopeia," he says without looking me in the eye. I've asked him not to call me that and he continually does it. He swallows like he's guilty, which he totally is.
"I got your lovely text."
"Uh…"
"Such a sweet text to send the day after I finally agreed to sleep with you." I hold up my phone and read it loud enough for the girl next to him to hear. "You're not my type after all. Bye."
He stands up and brushes past me. He's too embarrassed to do this in front of his new girl. Doesn't want her to see how he eats them up and spits them out.
As soon as she's out of earshot, he turns on me and his face is livid. "What the hell are you doing following me around town?"
"I just wanted to let your new girlfriend know your old girlfriend thinks you're a jerkified jackass." I hate confrontations, but he has me so angry, I don't care anymore.
"Shut up and get the hell out of here."
See? Total jackass. I can't believe I thought I loved this guy.
He walks up to the bar and signals to get the bartender's attention. I follow behind him and stop next to the biker dude.
I speak in a mocking voice to Dayton's back. "You're beautiful, just my type, looking for a girl like you all my life, I have to have you, can't wait any longer. Do you pull that on all the girls until they sleep with you and then they get the breakup text the next day? When their hopes are up that they actually connected with someone nice and you knock them down with a breakup text? Is that the true you?"
Finally he turns to me and gives me his full angry gaze. I never realized before how thick and prominent his eyebrows are. "You want the truth? My penis connected to your cunt. It was good, but not worth your crazy."
At the horrible double C-words, I gasp and the beard on biker dude's chin tilts toward me.
Dayton's blaming me for this? He created all of this. He pursued me. He screwed me then called it off with a text.
"Let's be honest, shall we?" I prop my hands on my hips and prepare to go in for the kill. "The truth is… I faked it."
"What?"
"I faked the orgasms, Dayton. All one of them." He scowls at me then glances around to see if anyone heard me. I'm pretty sure the biker dude is getting an earful, but no one else is even looking. "Where's that girl? Hey, you?" She can't hear me, but this is pissing off Dayton so I'm going to milk it and fully humiliate him. "Dayton can't figure out nature's Rubik's Cube!" I scream with my hand over my mouth like a megaphone.
"Don't you dare, Cassiopeia." He grabs my wrist and pulls me back.
The biker dude stands up and glares at Dayton's hand on my arm.
"Let me go." I struggle to pull free, but he tightens his grip. "My fellow female should be aware you can't find where the sidewalk ends."
"Shut your pie hole." He yanks my arm and I stumble into him.
"Ow." As I'm trying to regain my balance, biker dude grasps Dayton's hand from my wrist, twists it, and wrenches it back. Dayton cries out in pain. A huge warm leather-clad arm wraps around my neck and hauls me off-center until I crash into a wall of cotton.
Oy vey. This guy's chest could span the Grand Canyon. And it's hard as rocks! He's a giant and he has me in his clutches.
Then we're on the move. I can't see anything except his black tee and the zipper of his jacket. My feet are shuffling awkwardly through the bar as Dayton's cries and grunts grow louder and more urgent.
Oh shoot. Did I piss this guy off? He's mad at Dayton, right? I hope I didn't anger him with my taunts about clitori. I'm pretty sure he's mad at Dayton not me. That's good because I would not want this man angry at me under any circumstances.
I catch a glimpse of Dayton on his ass on the concrete sidewalk outside the open front door of the bar. He's rubbing his arm and glaring up at the biker dude. When the Goliath arm finally releases my neck, I'm face-to-face with a real-life giant. My gaze travels up his black tee, past his scruffy beard, and into azure-blue eyes. Wow.
Two bar employees and some random people have gathered to stare wide-eyed and curious at us.
"You okay?" his deep voice asks me.
Am I? A quick inspection of myself shows my dress is still covering all my privates, my shoes are still on, and my pocket purse is still hanging from my shoulder.
I nod but I think my mouth might be hanging open. This all happened so fast.
He flicks his fingers toward the back of the bar and the nosey onlookers scatter. "It's over. Get on with it." I don't see the girl Dayton was with anywhere. She might have left with him but hopefully she ran from him.
Big biker dude turns and stalks away from me. His shoulders are stiff and he takes a deep breath as he folds into his seat.
I sit down next to him and slam the bar. "Give me a drink. Give me several. Bring me all the drinks."
The bartender laughs and comes to me. "What'll it be?"
What will it be? That's the question. Will my heart ever be happy? Will I ever find love? Are all men jerks? "Tequila shots. Six of them."
The bartender smiles and turns away.
"That guy's an ass," the biker dude says to me in a deep rich voice.
"I'm going to kill him."
"No you're not."
"I'm going to pour fish in his car and burn his house down."