Four Letter Word

by J. Daniels

  “Gosh,” I breathed, pulling my eyes back to the girls. “That is such a sad story.”

  Tori shot me a look.

  “Told you.”

  I stuck my tongue out at her.

  She slapped the table, declaring enthusiastically, “Subject change!”

  Shay made a motion with her hand that she wanted to be the one giving us our next topic of discussion. She looked across the table at me.

  “Have you spoken to your husband yet?”

  Tori groaned and shoved Shay’s shoulder.

  “That is a terrible subject change,” she snapped.

  I couldn’t have agreed more.

  “We don’t have to talk about him in detail!” Shay argued while leaning closer to Tori. “I was just wondering if he’d done the right thing and reached out to her yet. It’s been, what, three weeks? He can’t call her and see how she’s doing since pulling the rug out?”

  Shay looked at me after she was done speaking.

  So did everyone else.

  I didn’t want to talk about Marcus. I didn’t even want to think about him.

  It hurt to do it.

  I dropped my eyes to my glass, collecting sugar off the rim with my finger.

  “Haven’t heard a peep,” I answered Shay, hearing irritated tongue clicks and a quietly muttered “asshole” I was certain came from Tori.

  I lifted my head and looked around at the three of them.

  “And I’ve decided I’m not reaching out to him. Ever. I don’t need to talk to Marcus for any reason besides what needs to be done to get this divorce final, and that hassle falls on him. This was his doing. He wanted this, so he can do all the work in getting that shit started if he hasn’t already. I’m not dealing with lawyers and spending my time getting paperwork together or paying costs if there are any. Let him eat it. Three weeks and he doesn’t even reach out once? No.” I shook my head, breathing heavily through my nose. “There is nothing I need to talk to him about anymore. Our finances have always been separate, so that’s not an issue. I took everything I wanted to take when I left so there’s nothing there I need to get from him, and whatever we bought together under the false pretense of sticking through thick and thin, for life, he can keep. I don’t want it. If it’s tied to a memory of him, I don’t want anything to do with it.”

  Tori touched my hand. “Hon.”

  “He lied to me,” I went on. “He said he’d love me forever, no matter what. He promised I’d never walk alone and then he walked away, and for whatever reason he had for doing this, one I still don’t know since he hasn’t reached out to me at all, I can’t for the life of me imagine that reason being big enough to treat someone who was in your life for seven years like a complete stranger. Like nothing. So no, I’m done. I’m not going to sit around and wait for Marcus to call me anymore. I’m going to live my life how I want to live it, and even though I’d already decided I was going to do this a week ago, I’ll say for effect that I’m doing this starting now. And you three are my witnesses.”

  Tori squeezed my hand.

  “Good for you,” Shay said, smiling favorably.

  “Yeah, Sydney. I think that’s the right move,” Kali agreed. “Screw him. He doesn’t deserve you. You’re, like, the sweetest thing ever and he’s obviously a jerk. I’m sure you’ll find someone who deserves you when you’re ready.”

  As if he knew how perfect his timing would be, my lap vibrated at that exact moment.

  My hand curled around the device. I watched Tori get to her feet and snatch her glass off the table.

  “I’m getting us all another round since my best girl just declared she’s living the life she wants to live now, and that’s worth celebrating, and also since our waitress sucks ass and decided she doesn’t want to serve four hot chicks who look better than she does on her best day.”

  “Ouch.” Shay laughed.

  Kali giggled and stood up, too, grabbing her almost empty glass.

  “I’m joining.”

  I watched the two of them walk away, then watched as Shay tugged out her own phone and started messing with it, giving me the go-ahead I was grateful for.

  You get a cab?

  Nope. I’m getting drink number 3!

  How late you staying out?

  Why? Miss talking to me?

  Yeah.

  I blinked and read that message twice. Then I read it again.

  My belly warmed, flipped, then twisted.

  God, that felt good.

  I could slip outside and call you real quick.

  Can’t talk now. Out with my boys.

  Oh.

  I didn’t hide my disappointment. I didn’t think it was fair since he didn’t hide wanting to talk to me.

  Call when you get home. I’ll be up.

  And just like that, my disappointment vanished.

  He’d be up, waiting to talk to me. Wanting to talk to me. That felt better than two going on three lemon drops, and those felt good.

  OK.

  Get a cab.

  We’re calling an Uber.

  Good.

  Glad you approve.

  You being smart?

  I’m being WILD.

  I typed this smiling so big my cheeks hurt.

  Right. Be Wild and call an Uber.

  I giggled and looked up just as Tori was walking back over with Kali, both of them laughing about something while Tori carried a tray like I’d seen her do a million times at work, kept close and perched beside her shoulder and doing it with ease, this one covered in drinks ranging in size from the four lemon drop martinis to tiny shot glasses filled with different-colored liquids.

  I was confused as to why she was carrying it. I was also confused as to why it was covered in shot glasses when I thought we were sticking with lemon drop martinis tonight.

  She slid it onto the table and wasted no time explaining herself.

  “That guy in the suit over there wanted to buy us drinks because apparently we look like a bunch of women who can’t buy our own drinks and needed his big manly wallet to come and save us,” she started, doing this while distributing a martini glass and a shot in front of everyone. “So I decided to buy us a shit load of drinks to show him none of us need a man to buy us anything, and I did this while also explaining to him that this is girls’ night and on girls’ night we buy our own drinks.”

  She lifted her shot and turned her head.

  The three of us followed, Shay even spinning around to look, and saw the guy in the suit staring at us with wide eyes like he’d just been told to go fuck himself.

  I wouldn’t have put it past Tori to deliver that message.

  “To girls’ night!” Tori cheered.

  We all toasted to girls’ night before shooting it back, and we did it loud.

  * * *

  “Oh, my gosh. Where is this guy? My feet are killing me!”

  Kali stopped walking on the sidewalk and held on to the lamppost, tugged off her heels with a groan, then continued the trek down York Street barefoot with her heels in one hand and her clutch in another.

  We’d left the bar ten minutes ago after calling Uber twenty minutes before that, expecting to see our ride waiting by the curb since that’s where he said he’d be.

  He wasn’t. Apparently the man who drives for a living got lost.

  So now we were walking down the block a little ways in hopes of spotting him so we could all get home, which I was dying to do since I knew Brian would be waiting up for me and I couldn’t wait to talk to him more about anything and everything.

  I loved our conversations. And now I knew he missed them when we weren’t having them.

  The flip and twist was happening constantly as I thought about that.

  “Maybe you should call him again,” Shay suggested beside me, giggling and dropping her head on my arm.

  She was completely loaded. I was pretty certain we were all some level of drunk, but Shay was definitely leading the way with the most shots thrown back.


  I felt great. Warm and a little numb all over. I wanted to lie on the sidewalk and gaze at the stars.

  “He might be in front of one of these other bars and be waiting for us, like an idiot,” Kali pointed out, bringing us to a halt in front of a nameless bar I couldn’t focus on because the neon lights were too bright for me at the moment.

  I squinted away and watched Tori slip out her phone and study it for a minute before dialing.

  “Yeah, it’s me again. Where are you?” she clipped into the device, looking down the street and across it while she spoke.

  “Are you kidding me? When? We stood out there for ten minutes waiting for you!”

  I dropped my head back with a sigh.

  “I’m drunk. I can’t track your location on a map! And you were supposed to text me when you arrived!”

  “I really hate to pump and dump,” Kali admitted quietly, grabbing my attention and pulling my ears off Tori’s conversation. She bit her lip. “Do you think I’m a horrible mom for going out tonight?”

  I shook my head. “No way. You’re so pretty.”

  She smiled.

  Shay giggled either because of us or something else. The girl was laughing at everything.

  “Just head north on York Street and we’ll walk back. You can’t miss us.” Tori ended the call looking irritated as all get-out, then motioned for us to spin around and instructed, “Go back. He’s been waiting for us.”

  “Ugh! What a jerk. He was supposed to text!” Shay hissed.

  “Men are such idiots with technology,” Kali commented.

  I pinched my lips together so I wouldn’t scream at the top of my lungs about Brian being awesome with technology.

  It was torture keeping his awesomeness a secret.

  We were walking back in the direction of the bar with Tori leading the way when she stopped dead without warning.

  Shay and I stumbled a little, bumping into each other since we were the two walking mostly behind her. Kali was off to the side.

  “What?” I asked, then moved in front of Tori when she didn’t react to my question, not with a response or even a jerk of her head. “What’s going on?” I pressed further.

  I followed her gaze to the parking lot we were standing in front of, and I couldn’t be sure because I was drunk and also because there were a lot of vehicles filling that lot, but it looked like Tori was shooting daggers specifically at a sleek red sports car that was taking up two spaces.

  Rude. I couldn’t stand it when people did that.

  “Tori!”

  My assumption was validated when I watched my best friend bolt down the sidewalk a few feet and follow the bend that swept into the parking lot, take to the asphalt and sprint in her four-inch heels to where the sleek red sports car was parked. She stood beside it and looked it over for a whole two seconds before attacking the passenger side window with fists flying.

  She must’ve thought it was really rude.

  “Oh, my God!” Kali screamed.

  “T! What are you doing?” Shay called out.

  I took off running after her and heard the girls on my tail. Shay’s heels mainly, but I knew Kali was with her. We got inside the parking lot and over to the car, and I wasted no time in grabbing on to Tori’s shoulders and yanking her away from the window.

  “Sweetie! What are you doing? Stop!” I yelled.

  Tori fought me, twisting in my arms and then leaping for the window again.

  “Tori!”

  “Let me go, Syd!”

  I yanked her back again and maneuvered around her, putting myself between her and the window and holding my hands up to keep her back.

  Tori rubbed the edge of her right hand like it was stinging. “Move, hon.”

  “No way.”

  “Sydney.” Tori stepped closer. It was then I saw the tears in her eyes. “Move out of the way.”

  I kept my hands up and I didn’t move.

  “Not until you tell me what the hell you’re doing and why you’re doing it.”

  “It’s Wes.”

  “What?” I asked, then it hit me.

  “Oh, God,” Kali whispered.

  “Shit,” Shay muttered.

  I lowered my hands and looked over my shoulder at the car.

  It was sleek. It was expensive. And it belonged to the man who broke my best friend’s heart.

  “First, I’m busting out his windows. All of them,” Tori started, bringing my head around. “Then, I’m going to drag my heel across his door and carve Douche Bag into the paint.” She moved closer. Her hands were balled into fists. “Then, depending on my mood, I may set fire to it.”

  “Hell yeah!” Shay cried. “Let’s do it!”

  Kali stayed silent, but she was nodding her head approvingly. She knew Tori’s motives behind this and she felt they were justified.

  Tori looked from Kali to me, tilting her head. “What do you say, Syd?”

  I watched a tear drop onto my best friend’s cheek. I didn’t need to think about my decision regarding giving Wes some hurt.

  I’d made it three weeks ago.

  I spun around and started pounding my fists on the window and doing it with all my strength, screaming and hollering because this was crazy, and not to mention illegal, but fuck it, Wes deserved to walk out and find his car demolished so I was giving it my all.

  Tori joined me a half a second later, then it was Shay’s turn.

  I beat that window with everything I had. I was determined to break it, bullheaded determined, so the longer it stayed intact, the madder I became and the harder I beat on it.

  “I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!”

  Tori was yelling at the top of her lungs, her arms flying with the punches she wasn’t landing either, but still flying all the same.

  Shay was getting creative and ramming her shoulder into her window.

  “Hey!”

  I heard a man’s voice but I kept punching, smacking, and clawing at the glass.

  “Hey, what the hell are you doing?”

  Someone tugged on my shoulder and pulled me away from the car. I looked back and saw it was Exhibit A from the restaurant a couple of weeks ago.

  “You want to go to jail?” he asked me, dropping his hand.

  I shook my head with wide eyes, then watched him stalk around the car and grab Shay. She giggled, not giving him much of a fight.

  He deposited her next to me and moved behind us, falling in beside Kali.

  He looked at her. She looked at him, smiled hesitantly, then shared, “I have a son.”

  He stuck his hands in his pockets, then muttered an indifferent, “Cool.”

  “Legs! What the hell, babe!”

  Jamie had his arms wrapped around Tori and was dragging her away from the window, her legs flailing about and her body thrashing against his.

  “Calm down!”

  “Get off of me! Let me go!”

  Tori’s feet were kicking in the air and she was twisting her head frantically.

  “Quit trying to bite me and I will! Shit!”

  He put her down and stepped back, getting between us and the vehicle to block us, a hand pushing through his hair, and his chest pulling in deep breaths.

  “Now, what the fuck?” He stared at Tori. “What are you doin’? Are you tryin’ to get the cops called on you?”

  “What I’m doing is none of your business,” she hissed. “So move out of my way.”

  “Not a chance.”

  Tori stuck her hands on her hips.

  Jamie took this moment to really look at her, letting his eyes wander the length of her body and then doing it again, finally pulling back to her face to ask, “What the fuck are you wearing?”

  “It’s eighties night,” she snapped, leaning closer. “And it’s girls’ night so if you don’t mind, go the fuck away.”

  I jerked when I felt my phone vibrate from its keeping spot in my bra.

  Oh, my. That felt nice.

  I watched Jamie cross his arms i
n defiance.

  “Not going anywhere ’til you tell me why you’re attacking this sweet ride. You better have a good reason, and by good, I mean it better be something on a government level and involving al-Qaeda, since this is a brand-new Corvette and costs a fuckin’ mint.”

  “I know what kind of car it is, loser,” she replied. “And I know exactly how much it costs, considering I was there when he fucking paid for it.”

  “So you know it costs a mint.”

  “I know you better move out of my way.” Tori inched closer.

  “Not happening, Legs. Not without your reason.”

  My phone vibrated again.

  This time I felt it all the way down to my knees and practically hummed.

  “My reason doesn’t involve you, but you can rest assured knowing it’s the best reason, and that’s all you’re gonna get.”

  Jamie tilted his head. “Not good enough.”

  “Move,” Tori seethed.

  Jamie bridged the gap and came right up on Tori, bent his head to get closer, and ordered, “Tell me and I’ll move. Why are you doing this?”

  I watched Tori take in a breath. I watched the hands at her sides go from fists to slack and submissive.

  “Hey!” another voice yelled from a distance. “You need me?”

  Everyone, including me, turned around and saw where the voice was coming from.

  A man was standing by the vintage Jeep I recognized from the other day. It was idle and clearly not in a parking spot, which I assumed was because of the guys spotting our act of vengeance and throwing the gear into Park to rush over and stop us.

  I couldn’t make the man out too well, thanks to the distance and it being dark, but I could see him leaning against the passenger door and looking in our direction with his arms crossed over his chest.

  He appeared tall and had really short hair if it wasn’t completely shaved. That’s all I could make out.

  “We’re good,” Jamie yelled back. “Be ready in a minute.”

  The guy heard him, clearly he did, but he kept watching from where he stood. He didn’t get back in the Jeep.

  “Now,” Jamie started again, drawing my head around.

  He was still standing just as close to Tori as he was a minute ago.