“Thank goodness…” Devon drained her glass, her rigid muscles relaxing as a serene buzz floated through her head.
Jason tossed his phone down onto the table. He looked over at Devon and gave her thigh a squeeze. “Hey, did I mention how good you look tonight?”
Her muscles immediately tensed up again. “Um…no. You didn’t.”
“Well, you do. You look great. Have you lost weight?”
“Ha! I wish.” Devon neglected to mention she’d actually gained weight.
Jason’s hand slid from the back of the couch onto her shoulder. She shifted in her seat as his penetrating eyes focused on her. Something in his gaze suddenly gave her the courage to tell him how she felt. But when she opened her mouth to speak, he leaned in and kissed her.
Devon emitted a soft moan as Jason’s lips caressed hers. Before things went too far, she pressed her hands against his chest and slowly pulled back. Instead of following suit, he wrapped his arms around her tightly and pulled her in closer.
“Jason,” she murmured.
“Yeah?” he grunted.
“You know there’s something I want to talk to you about.”
“Can it wait?”
Devon hesitated, wondering whether she should press the issue. As Jason nuzzled her neck, wild thoughts of their future swirled through her mind. Would they make things official tonight? Should they move in together? Was expecting a proposal within six months too soon?
Just when Devon wondered how many carats would look best on her ring finger, she felt Jason’s head roll down onto her shoulder. A few seconds later, the sound of loud snoring rang through her ears while the scent of whiskey-laced breath blew in her face.
Devon sighed deeply, staving off the feeling of disappointment tightening in her chest.
Oh well. There’s always tomorrow, she thought, glad to be at least one step closer to sealing the deal with Jason.
Chapter Three
Devon felt her eyelids flutter open. She saw a shadowy figure standing in the middle of her living room. Her first instinct was to panic and dial nine-one-one. But as the memories of last night came flooding back into her now-sober mind, she immediately relaxed, realizing that there was no burglar lurking in her dark living room. It was her close friend turned potential new love, Jason.
Devon smiled brightly, gingerly stretched her arms up over her head and glanced over at the clock. It was just after four in the morning. She pulled herself up, ready to suggest a great new brunch spot they could try later that morning. That’s when she noticed Jason furiously texting away on his phone.
“Hey. Everything okay?” she asked, pulling her rumpled dress down over her thighs.
“Yep,” he mumbled, his face buried in his cell.
Once her eyes adjusted to the darkness, Devon noticed that Jason was fully dressed. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing. Why don’t you go back to sleep? I’ve got a car coming to pick me up.”
“Wait, you’re leaving?”
Jason grabbed his blazer off the back of the couch. “Yeah. I uh…I need to go into the office and get some things done. The world of pharmaceutical sales never sleeps.”
Devon felt her heartbeat speed up as cold beads of perspiration formed along her hairline. Her mouth opened and closed a good three times before she was finally able to respond to Jason’s dismissive behavior.
“Wait, what about my car? I thought you were taking me back to The Platinum Room to pick it up.”
Jason finally looked up from his phone, the bright screen revealing his sullen expression. “Oh yeah…my bad. I’ve got so much work I need to catch up on. Can I just call a car to take you?”
Devon stared at Jason curiously. “You know what? No. Don’t worry about it. I’ll have Lisa take me.”
“You sure?”
“Positive,” she chirped as sprinkles of anger seasoned her hurt feelings.
“Okay. Oh, before I go, wasn’t there something you wanted to talk to me about?”
Devon debated whether she should come clean to Jason at this point. After thinking back on the intimate kiss they’d shared, she decided to go for it.
“Well, I just wanted to…tell you how I’ve felt about you. For quite some time.”
“How you’ve felt about me?” he asked right before his phone buzzed. He looked down and tapped the screen, once again turning his attention away from Devon.
Jason’s inattentiveness sent a wave of frustrated determination through her. She abruptly jumped up from the couch and cleared her throat. When Jason glanced over at her, she just let it all out.
“I love you, Jason,” she uttered, her voice trembling as intensely as her hands. “I’ve loved you for years. I never said anything because I didn’t think I was your type, and you seemed to only see me as a friend. But now, I was hoping we could be more than that.”
Silence filled the air. Jason stared at Devon, a dumbfounded expression spreading across his face.
“Sooo…” she continued, almost breaking skin as she dug her gel nails into her palms, “do you have anything you’d like to say?”
Jason shook his head and looked off into space. “Wow. I just…I didn’t see that coming. I mean, you know I care about you, Dev. And…I kind of agree with part of what you said.”
She blinked rapidly, her eyes scanning the room in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“What I mean is, I’ve never really seen you as more than just a friend. But don’t get me wrong,” he quickly added while throwing his hands up. “You’re a phenomenal woman. But I just…I just don’t see us being together in that way.”
A strong bout of nausea hit Devon in the gut. She tried to take a deep breath but felt as though her throat was closing up. After several moments, she banged her hand against her chest and finally spoke up.
“But what about last night, Jason? Why would you suggest coming back to my place and then kiss me like that if you weren’t interested in anything more than a friendship?”
He stared down at the floor, shrugging and shoving his hands in his pockets. “I don’t know. We were having such a good time. The drinks were flowing, and I guess I got caught up and the kiss just…happened.”
Devon fanned her face as tears pooled at the rims of her eyes. “Really? So that’s it? I pour my heart out to you, you turn me down cold, and what, we’re supposed to go back to the way things were?”
Jason slowly backed away, seeming to want nothing more than to escape the apartment. “I don’t know. Maybe coming back here with you was a mistake. But I can’t turn back the hands of time and do things differently, so…”
His words cracked the invisible barrier that had been holding back her tears. Devon turned away, no longer able to look at Jason. “Okay. That’s enough. Can you please leave?”
“Wait, I’m sorry,” he said, approaching her from behind and placing his hands on her shoulders. “That didn’t come out right. What I meant to say was—”
She stepped out of his grip and hurried over to the door. “I mean it, Jason. I’m done talking. Please. Just go.”
“I’m sorry, Dev,” he whispered before walking out.
She slammed the door and ran over to the couch, burying her face in a pillow and sobbing as her entire body shook. After several minutes, she reached for the phone to call Lisa. But then she remembered Lisa was probably with Brandon or Charles.
Devon dragged herself off the couch and into the bathroom. She reluctantly looked in the mirror and winced at her reflection. Her hair was completely disheveled, streaks of black mascara stained her cheeks and her eyes were red and puffy.
She grabbed two aspirin from her medicine cabinet, shoving them in her mouth and washing them down with water from the faucet. Then she combed her hair back into a ponytail and took a hot shower, hoping that the streams of water would help soothe her bruised emotions.
Twenty minutes later, Devon stepped out of the shower feeling no better than she had when she’d gotten in. She was so ex
hausted that she could’ve lain down right there on the bathroom floor. But she forced herself to throw on a robe and head to the bedroom, wiping away a few stray tears along the way.
An hour after her head hit the pillow, she was still wide awake. Devon pulled out her tablet and tapped on a random sitcom, hoping it would help take her mind off of Jason.
*
A shrill ringing tore through Devon’s ears and woke her out of a deep sleep. She rolled over and snatched her cell phone off the nightstand, struggling to pick up the call. When her vision cleared, she looked at the screen and realized that there was no call coming in. The buzzing was coming from her apartment’s intercom.
Devon crawled out of bed and slumped into the living room, every muscle in her body feeling stiff and sore. But nothing hurt worse than her tattered heart.
“Yeah?” she croaked into the speaker.
“Dev, it’s Lisa! I’ve been trying to call you all morning. Let me up. I talked to Jason earlier and he told me everything.”
Devon groaned loudly. She wasn’t in the mood for company, even if it was her best friend. But she reluctantly buzzed Lisa in, then trudged into the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee. Just as the thought of having to rehash her awful night with Jason hit, Lisa threw open her door and rushed inside.
“Sis!” she yelled, wrapping her arms around Devon and squeezing her tightly. “I am so sorry. Are you okay?”
“I will be. I don’t know when, but… Anyway, Jason took it upon himself to call and tell you what happened, huh?”
“He did. I think he wanted to plead his case before you got to me. He knows he handled the situation all wrong. And he feels like crap because of it.”
“As he should!” Devon yelled. She cringed at the sound of her shrill tone, which caused a sharp pain to shoot up the back of her neck. “Last night was a disaster. Plain and simple.”
Lisa crossed her arms and stared at Devon sympathetically. “I don’t even know what to say right now. But I’ll tell you this much. I let Jason have it after he told me what he did. I just don’t understand why he’d let things go as far as he did, knowing he only wants to be friends.”
“My sentiments exactly,” Devon said as she poured two cups of coffee. She kept Lisa’s black and added an exorbitant amount of cream and sugar to hers. “But we’d been drinking, and things just escalated. Never in a million years would I have imagined he’d shoot me down like that, though. As a result of it, I’ve lost one of my closest friends.”
“You don’t think you’ll straighten things out with Jason?”
“Absolutely not!”
Lisa paused for several seconds and sipped her coffee before continuing. “Did he mention anything about his ex-girlfriend?”
“No. Why?”
Devon looked over at Lisa and saw the worrisome look in her eyes. She swallowed hard as a dull pang hit her in the chest, already knowing she wasn’t going to like whatever was coming next.
“Maybe I shouldn’t say anything.”
“Too late. You already did. What about his ex?”
Lisa sniffed and stared down at her mug.
“What, girl? Come on. It can’t be any worse than what he’s already done.”
“I don’t know. It may be,” Lisa muttered under her breath before finally looking up at Devon. “Jason said he and his ex-fiancée Amber may be getting back together. And she was texting him early this morning while he was here with you, which is what woke him up. And they’re uh…they’re taking a trip to the Caribbean next week to see if they can work things out.”
Devon’s skin burned at the sound of Lisa’s stinging words. She set her coffee down and untied her bathrobe. “Wait, Amber the actress who he met during college? Are you serious? I thought they were like, done done. I cannot believe this. I feel like such a fool.”
“Don’t, Dev. You didn’t do anything wrong. You opened up to someone you thought was a friend about how you felt, and you can’t be mad at yourself for being honest. Jason is the one who’s in the wrong. Just focus on forgetting about him, and keep it moving. On to the next one.”
“Easier said than done, Lisa. You can’t relate because this type of mess doesn’t happen to you. Unraveling all these feelings I’ve developed for Jason over the years is gonna be impossible.” Devon shook her head and walked out of the kitchen. “Ugh. I’m done. Can you take me to The Platinum Room to pick up my car?”
“Of course,” Lisa said, following her into the bedroom. “And I hope I don’t sound insensitive. I just want you to be okay. I feel partly responsible for all this, because I’m the one who insisted you tell Jason how you feel. Maybe if I would’ve left it alone and let you do things your way, none of this would’ve happened.”
“No, Lisa, this isn’t on you. I’m a grown woman and made the decision to open up to Jason on my own. I can’t let you take the blame for that. Now let’s go pick up my car. I need to get back and start getting ready for the work week.”
Lisa sighed and grabbed her purse. “Can I at least treat you to brunch?”
“For once in my life I don’t have an appetite. But what you can do is tell me about your night with Brandon.”
Lisa’s lips curled into a coy smile. “There isn’t much to tell…”
“Yeah, right. You’re not getting off that easy!” Devon threw on a pair of leggings and oversized Indiana University sweatshirt. “Let’s go. You can spill the tea in the car.”
On the way to The Platinum Room, Lisa insisted that things remained strictly platonic between her and Brandon throughout the night.
“Who do you think you’re fooling?” Devon asked, holding back laughter as Lisa pulled into the parking lot. “I could literally feel the chemistry swirling around you two. But you’d better be careful. I would hate to see you lose an awesome man like Charles over a frivolous fling.”
“Girl, there’s no need for you to even go there. But on a side note, there is nothing frivolous about Brandon. He’s a great guy. His ex-wife must’ve been out of her mind to let him go.”
“See? Listen to you! Already taking up for him. Mmm hmm. Okay, I see you, hot girl.”
“Will you stop it!” Lisa said, laughing while parking next to Devon’s car. “Listen, I hope you feel better. And again, I’m so sorry about what happened with Jason. Call me if you need to talk.”
“I will. Thank you. For everything.”
“Anytime. You know I’ve always got your back.”
“Ditto. I’ll check in with you later.”
Devon climbed out of the car and into her own. A cloud of sadness enveloped her as memories of last night came flooding back. She hit the accelerator and tore out of the lot, anxious to get back to her apartment and cry her eyes out in the comfort of her own home.
Chapter Four
On Monday evening, Devon pulled up in front of her building and willed herself not to start crying until she’d made it inside. Next to the night of the reunion, it’d been the worst day of her life.
Two of the newspaper’s staff writers abruptly quit for reasons that the editor-in-chief refused to divulge. He was, however, willing to share with the remaining staff members that it was their responsibility to pick up the slack and complete whatever assignments the ex-employees left behind. Since Devon had the least seniority out of the group, she’d been stuck with the crappiest articles.
On top of that, she hadn’t heard a word from Jason. She’d expected him to at least come begging for her forgiveness. But clearly their friendship hadn’t meant as much to him as it had her.
Devon pulled her handbag, tote, bag of Chinese takeout and bottle of red wine from the back seat of her car. The walk from the curb to her apartment felt like an exhaustive marathon. When she finally made it inside, Devon dropped everything by the door except for the food and wine, plopped down at her desk and turned on her laptop.
She filled a glass sitting in the corner with wine and took several long gulps. After pouring a refill, Devon tore into her jumbo-size co
ntainer of shrimp fried rice. While waiting for her computer to boot up, she grabbed her cell and opened Instagram. Devon scrolled through her feed and liked several posts before zooming in on a photo that caused her to scream.
There, displayed boldly on the screen, was a brightly filtered photo of Jason and his ex-fiancée Amber. They were at a luxury resort in the Caribbean, dressed in bathing suits and grinning wildly. The picture had been taken on a beautiful sandy beach, and the pair was holding hands while jumping in the air. The caption underneath the photo read, SHE SAID YES!
Devon’s phone fell from her hand and hit the floor. She covered her mouth and fell back in her chair, staring up at the ceiling for several seconds before grabbing her phone off the floor. She dialed Lisa’s number. The call went straight to voicemail.
“Call. Me. Back. Immediately,” Devon hissed, her trembling voice barely audible.
She disconnected the call and reopened Jason’s Instagram page. A sickening feeling rumbled through her stomach as she scrolled through the photos. According to comments left by his followers, he’d proposed to Amber with a ring purchased from the resort’s gift shop. Her “real” ring had been ordered from her family’s jeweler in New York.
Devon felt the rage that had been swirling around her gut creep up her throat. She blocked Jason’s Instagram account, disgusted by the thought of seeing him flaunt his engagement knowing she’d see it. She then drained her glass, turned to the computer and double-clicked on her digital dream board.
An immediate calm fell over her as she stared at the screen, taking in photos of the Hollywood sign, palm-tree-lined streets, movie studios and her favorite apartment complex.
But that calm turned to anger when Jason’s image popped up. Devon resisted the urge to flip her desk over and instead deleted the slide.
After taking a deep, cleansing breath, she exited the board and opened the teleplay she’d begun writing a couple of months ago. Reading over the comical dialogue brought a smile to Devon’s face. She ran through each page and made a few minor tweaks here and there. It wasn’t until her cell phone buzzed that she realized her L.A. dreams had completely taken her mind off her troubles.
She Gets What She Wants Page 3
