Donut Leave Me (One of the Boys)

by Teresa Crumpton

  “Charisma? What the fuck does that even mean?” I stood in the middle of our colossal master bedroom watching in horror as my life turned upside down in front of me.

  “See! You don’t even know what I’m talking about! How do you expect me to stay with you when someone like him is interested in me? He can at least find my damn g-spot.” Skye was fucking laughing, and that was the worst part—she thought all of this was a damn joke.

  “Fuck it. Go be with that roided-out, piece-of-shit college dropout! Once you walk out that door, you’re never coming back!” I opened the door for her.

  “Good, because I don’t want to ever fucking come back to this shithole again.” Skye ambled over to the dresser, dragging her large bag behind her. Taking off her wedding ring, she set in on the dresser while smiling—such a kick in the damn teeth. Her smirk slapped me across the face. Silently, I followed as she triumphantly marched barefoot through the house.

  As she reached the front door, Skye turned and frowned at me. “I never loved you, anyway. This is for the best, Jack.”

  “Get the fuck out of this house,” I responded.

  Noah and Izzy stood frozen in the living room as she bent down, grabbed her stilettos, and tossed them into her enormous handbag.

  “I’ll send you the address where I’m staying so you can send the rest of my things,” she muttered.

  I didn’t say anything, just endured the bullshit in the middle of the room trying to not make my two best friends more uncomfortable than they must have already been.

  To my horror, Skye opened the door and there was Brock, waiting for my wife like a damn puppy. It took everything in my power to not beat his punk ass, but really, what would have been the point? He grabbed her bag and Skye was out of my life. Just like that, she was really gone.

  “Everything good, brother?” Noah called over to me. He knew it wasn’t, but he probably had no idea what else to say. I sure as shit was at a total loss for words.

  Without even thinking, I rushed into the master bedroom. I ripped open the door to Skye’s closet to find every hanger bare, every drawer empty. I fell to the floor and screamed. It wasn’t a bad dream, and I hadn’t just hallucinated all that shit—it was real.

  “Jack? What’s…” Izzy dropped to the carpeted floor with me, a stunned look taking over her normally bubbly smile.

  “Oh, fuck it all to hell!” Noah exclaimed as he joined us. “Shit, man. What do we do?”

  “What did I do?” I didn’t know what to say or even think. I didn’t want to force someone to stay with me if that wasn’t what she wanted, but the entire situation was flat-out cruel.

  Standing, I ran my fingers through my short hair. Anger boiling up, I looked down at my two friends, who were frozen in place and staring up at me. “I’m changing the damn locks.”

  Chapter 1

  Just about a year later

  Jack

  Another day…

  Another boring fucking day sitting in front of a computer, coding my life away.

  I was good at my job, but there was nothing interesting or exciting about writing software for a jerk boss who didn’t give a rat’s ass about his employees. Paul Alfonsi was a money-hungry slave-driver that cared about his bank account and how good we all made him look for the board of directors, nothing else mattered.

  As I stared out the window of the high-rise commercial building, gazing at the bustling city streets of downtown Chicago, a soft tap sounded on the thin glass of my office door.

  “Come in,” I called, turning in my rolling chair to see the meek smile of the newest blonde in the office.

  “Jack, a courier just dropped this off for you,” Tina muttered as she laid a manila envelope on my desk.

  “Thank you.”

  “I hope it’s what you have been waiting for,” she giggled.

  “I have a feeling that it is.” I shot my assistant a kind smile before she waggled her hips out of my office and shut the door. She was a dime a dozen, the typical corporate sweet-butt my boss had been trying to nail against the copier ever since she started a few months back. Tina knew her looks were the only thing that had gotten her the job, and she used them to her advantage as often as she could.

  I gripped the thick package in my hands as an elated smile spread like wildfire across my scruffy face. Mediation had been a long, drawn-out process, most of it consisting of Skye fighting for the house and anything else of value she could get her amoral hands on. It took a while and a lot of maneuvering on my lawyer’s part, but she got jack-shit from me when everything was said and done.

  Finally, I had the divorce papers in hand. I ripped open the envelope like a kid on Christmas morning and signed next to each of the yellow arrows as fast as I could. It was the last step. I was fucking free, and I couldn’t have been happier.

  Picking up the office phone, I called Noah.

  “This is Noah,” he answered.

  “It’s done. I just signed the divorce papers.”

  “Heck yes! About damn time!” he hollered.

  “Drinks to celebrate?”

  “See you at Mountain Breath around seven?”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  “Cheers, man!” Noah raised his Sazerac high in the air as he continued, “To breaking free of that worthless ball and chain. It’s only up from here.”

  I laughed. “Thanks. I really can’t believe it is finally over.”

  “Free at last!” Noah sang out. “Thank God almighty. You, my friend, are free at last!”

  “Amen to that.” After taking a hefty swig from my old fashioned, I called over to the bartender, “Marty! It’s perfect, as always.”

  Smiling through his gray whiskers, the older man nodded over to me. “Glad to hear it, Jack.”

  As I set the short rocks glass on a coaster, I pointed up at the large black and white picture of The Hysterics that was framed behind the bar. “How’re the boys doing?”

  Pride emanated as Marty’s chest puffed out. “They’re on a world tour right now. Talked to Mav the other night while they were in Edinburgh—sounds like they’re having the time of their lives. They even opened for Oasis in Loch Lomond a few days ago.”

  “That’s incredible,” Noah chimed in.

  Marty’s son was Maverick Steele, the bassist of The Hysterics. They were taking the rock industry by storm. Mountain Breath had basically become a shrine to them and was where they got their start. It felt like just yesterday I was meeting Skye for our first date, an open mic night in that very bar with Maverick stunning the audience with his acoustic rendition of “25 Or 6 To 4” that brought then entire joint to their feet.

  Marty wandered down the bar to help a new customer as I turned to Noah. “Where’s Izzy tonight? I can’t remember the last time just the two of us hung out.”

  He thumbed the straw in his drink as a huge grin lit up his face. “We weren’t going to tell anyone yet. It’s still a little bit early, but Izzy’s about six weeks pregnant. Besides, she thought it would be better if we just had some guy time.”

  “Holy shit! Congrats, man!” I jumped off my barstool and wrapped my arms around his neck.

  “You can’t tell Izzy you know. She made me promise we would keep it a secret until we told our parents. You know how Lidia gets when she isn’t in the inner circle.”

  Noah’s mother was one of the biggest busybodies to ever grace God’s green earth. I’d never forget in high school when she ranted on and on about Noah not telling her he was dating Izzy right away. I couldn’t blame him for trying to keep her wrath at bay by any means necessary.

  “So, I shouldn’t send her a bouquet of congratulatory roses with a card calling her grandma just yet?” I teased.

  “For the love of all things holy, please do not do that. You’d have Izzy’s hormonal ass to deal with, and that wouldn’t work out for either of us.”

  “Touché.”

  A few hours passed by quickly, fueled by multiple perfectly crafted cocktails. “Fuck that
damn arm candy. How the fuck can someone like Skye really leave me for a piece of shit like that?”

  Noah smacked his hand down on the bar. “It’s time for you to get back on the horse and spread some wild oats. I know you haven’t gotten any since that two-timing bitch stormed off.”

  “Try forever before that—we hadn’t fucked in months. I should have known she was sleeping with someone else. She sure as shit never wanted to fuck me.”

  “She’s a cunt, and you will find someone ten-times better and hotter.”

  “I don’t even know where to start,” I admitted. I hadn’t dated in over a decade, and there was no social media and no dating apps the last time I was single. The game had changed and I had missed kickoff.

  “Fuck if I know. A buddy of mine at work keeps talking about all the dates he’s been going on from dating sites. Maybe start there?”

  “What ever happened to the good ol’ days when you just met people in bars?”

  “It’s a digital age, my friend.” Noah shoved up from his stool, announcing, “Gotta drain the snake.”

  Right after Noah headed to the men’s room, an overly sloshed redhead sank into his seat. Her makeup was smudged all over her face and her teal blouse was wrinkle and hanging off one shoulder. Her eyes were half open as she awkwardly winked at me. “How’re you doing tonight, handsome?” she slurred in an annoyingly high-pitched voice.

  Ask and you shall receive, but be careful what you fucking wish for.

  I didn’t know what the heck to do. She was obviously way too intoxicated to flirt with, and I definitely didn’t want to be some drunk chick’s morning regret, but I didn’t want to be a dick to her either.

  “Good, just out celebrating my divorce with my buddy. I’m Jack.” Introducing myself seemed like the polite thing to do.

  “I’m Starla.” Her nails roughly raked over my arm. “You’re a tree I’d love to climb.”

  I stifled a laugh at her awful pickup line.

  “Oh, babe! Thank you so much for getting me another drink.” Before I knew what was going on, a gorgeous woman’s arm was around my neck as she leaned into my side. After pecking my bristle-coated cheek, she turned to the drunk girl, who was slumped over, listing on the bar as her head bobbed from side to side. “Thanks for keeping my man company while I was in the bathroom, sweets,” the gorgeous stranger cooed.

  Starla huffed and scurried away, mumbling, “Damn it. The cute ones are never fucking single.”

  Taking Noah’s seat, the woman took a sip from my drink. “Oh! That’s a good old fashioned. Marty is a wizard bar master. Marty, I’ll have a Manhattan, please and thank you.”

  “Extra cherries coming right up,” Marty responded as I made eye contact with my rescuer.

  I quickly took in her beautiful features: high cheekbones, slender face, piercing blue eyes, jet black hair, plump strawberry-coated lips, subtle hourglass shape, perky boobs that were popping out of her tight white tank top. In short, she was stunning.

  “What was that?” I finally stammered out.

  She giggled a little. “You looked like you needed to be saved from that barfly.”

  “Thanks. I honestly didn’t know what to do.”

  “I’m Kelly.” She put her hand on my shoulder. “I’m glad I could be of some service.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Kelly. I’m Jack.”

  “That’s fitting—you’re as tall as a beanstalk.” Her laugh was captivating and her smile made my knees weak.

  “Do you rescue guys often?” I asked as she thanked Marty for the drink.

  She shook her head. “You’re the first. Let me guess, newly single?”

  I could feel my cheeks burning. “Is it really that apparent?”

  She pursed her lips as she speared a cherry at the bottom of her Manhattan with the tiny black straw. “A little. Take it from someone who has been perpetually single for-fucking-ever: you’re better off.”

  The cherry went to her lips and I had never been more jealous of fruit in my entire life.

  “Why do you say that?” I naïvely asked.

  “Because a guy like you, with that smile, the salt-and-pepper look you’re rocking, and your innocent demeanor—you’re going to have a field day in this crazy dating world we have found ourselves in.”

  “Why do you think I’m so innocent? You have no idea why I’m newly single.”

  “If you were a scumbag, that drunk chick would be on her knees in the bathroom right now.”

  My phone buzzed in my pocket and I pulled it out to see Noah’s name.

  “Sorry, I have to check this.”

  She waved me off dismissively. “Do you.”

  Noah: Get it! I’m going to take off so I don’t cramp your style. I want details in the morning.

  I locked my phone without responding. The fact that Noah had left was good and bad. On one hand, he was being a good friend in supporting the fact that I was talking to someone, but I also felt abandoned. I was like a lion who’d been raised in captivity and was trying to integrate into the wild.

  “Apparently my buddy took off.”

  “I got stood up by my friend who was supposed to meet me tonight. To being ditched.” Kelly held her drink in the air and I gently tapped mine to hers.

  “Who needs ’em? To being saved by a beautiful stranger.”

  “So, Jack, what do you do?” she asked with a goofy grin pulling at the corners of her lips.

  I rolled my eyes. “I don’t want to bore you with how lame of a job I have.”

  Her face instantly got serious as she put her hand on my shoulder. “If it’s so lame that you won’t even talk about it, why do you do it at all?”

  I guess I had never thought about that before. I went to school for computer programming during the tech boom, got my job right after graduation, and never considered doing anything else. I had always been of the mindset that you work because you have to pay bills and take care of your family, simple as that.

  “Dunno, really. It affords me the ability to have nice things?” I shrugged theatrically.

  “That’s not living. That’s existing,” she stated before popping another cherry into her mouth.

  “All right, what do you do?”

  “I bake,” she stated with pride.

  “Like, cakes?”

  “Among other things. I am the owner and head chef of a commercial bakery not far from here. I supply the desserts for this place, actually.”

  “You’re the owner of O’Donnell’s Bakery?” I asked in awe. Her company was a local legend and had been around for longer than I could remember.

  Light crimson dusted over her cheeks as she nodded. “My dad started the company when I was a little kid and I took it over when he passed a few years ago.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  Kelly smiled sweetly. “Don’t be. He was a great man and I get to keep his memory alive every time I use one of his recipes.”

  “So, question.” I laughed a little as her name registered in my brain.

  “Shoot.”

  “Has anyone ever used this pickup line on you: it makes sense that your initials are KO because you’re a knockout?”

  Kelly busted out snickering. “I can’t say I have ever heard that one before. That’s a good one.”

  I chuckled. “That’s a real shame. Such a missed opportunity.”

  It wasn’t long until last call. As Marty started to clean up the bar, I threw my card down and Kelly followed suit.

  “Don’t worry, I got you.” I picked up the blue plastic in front of her, trying to be a gentleman.

  “I see chivalry isn’t lost on you, but I kind of insist on paying for myself.” She took the card from me, making sure that Marty took it.

  Marty ran our payments then we scribbled our signatures on the receipts and said our goodbyes to our bartender.

  “Well, this was a very interesting evening.” I helped Kelly off of her barstool.

  “Saving you was fun. Thanks for being such
good company tonight.” Kelly giggled as we started to make our way out to the quiet street.

  “So, can I…” Before I could finish my statement, Kelly’s hand was on the back of my neck, pulling my lips down to meet hers. Instinctively, I cupped her soft cheeks in the palms of my hands. I felt like a kid getting kissed for the first time as fireworks erupted in the pit of my stomach.

  “We don’t have to say goodbye just yet,” she whispered as our lips parted.

  Continue Reading Donut Be Easy by Kristen Hope Mazzola