Page 49 of Rafferty's Rules
‘Yeah. I was just thinking about hearts and egos.’
‘And bathroom stall wisdom?’
‘Do you believe it?’ I find myself asking, the words out and free in the air before the thought can connect.
‘I’m maybe the wrong person to ask. I’m hardly an expert on men.’ She sighs, then straightens, her shoulders rolling inwards almost immediately. ‘All I can say is my ex blamed me for his arrest.’
‘What the fuck, Lis. You didn’t believe him, did you?’ My fingers are like claws against the arms of my chair. I want to go to her, to comfort her, but I also want to go punch her ex.
‘Well, maybe not his arrest,’ she answers without answering at all. ‘He said I wasn’t there for him in a lot of ways. That, in our relationship, I was always front and centre stage. He said that he loves me, but that sometimes it needed to be about him.’
‘The only thing needed is a fucking good slap here. There’s no excuse for infidelity, darl.’ And I am a hypocrite of the largest order. ‘He sounds like a shit-slinging bastard, and the shit is all his.’
‘Maybe. But maybe he needed more from me.’
‘Then he should’ve said so. Before he went and fucked it all up. I’m telling you, all he needs is a good working over.’
‘And a good lawyer, I expect,’ she says with a wry sounding laugh. ‘Not really. I expect he’ll get nothing more than a slap on the wrists.’
‘Not true because he also lost you.’ She looks up and sends me the glimmer of a smile. Not a proper smile and not even a quiet one but more like the promise of that piece of sunshine, which makes me want the reward all the more. ‘He deserves more, though, doesn’t he? Because, by your reckoning, to feed his ego, he broke your heart.’
‘For a little while, at least,’ she answers softly. ‘But not anymore. Besides, it’s better that I find out now what he’s capable of rather than later, don’t you think.’
‘I think a lot of things I shouldn’t.’ A lot of thoughts I’m keeping to myself. Like how I’ve avoided going home all these months after an encounter that fedmyfucking ego. An encounter that’s made it hard to live with myself.
And now I have to go home and face it, and it’s fucking terrifying.
‘You okay over there?’ After a moment, it becomes my time to ask her. She seems miles away, and not only that, but she’s visiting an unhappy place.
‘Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just, I’ve had my phone switched off, and I foolishly switched in on this afternoon.’
‘To let your family know you’re okay?’ The thought that she might have done so to check in on him is like a lead weight on my chest.
‘Something like that.’
As she doesn’t offer more, I wonder if I shouldn’t ask. But I do anyway.
‘You had calls from your ex?’
She sighs, looking down at the cat again. ‘Calls. Texts. I’m sure if I looked, there would’ve been emails. I sent him a dick to drink.’
‘What?’ The. Fuck?
‘A dick to drink,’ she says, looking up from Cat the cat while looking a little herself like another type of cat. Her eyes are slightly narrowed and almost cat-like, but it’s more the smug expression she’s wearing.Like the cat who ate the cream.
‘That’s a new one on me,’ I answer, not sure where she’s going with this.
‘I ordered a coffee at a café this afternoon, thanks for the T-shirt this morning, by the way; super special.’ I chuckle—I can’t help it. It seems I love fucking with people by means of their clothing. ‘I had all kinds of strange looks while sightseeing and then I had to endure a coffee made with soya milk thanks to that T-shirt. The cake was okay, but I digress. My coffee came with some beautiful coffee art.’ She sits ramrod straight and a little pink of cheek as she announces, ‘Of an ejaculating penis.’
If I’d been drinking wine, I’d be wearing it by now.
‘So you send him, what? A photo of your coffee?’
She nods happily. ‘And I told him to drink a dick.’
‘And that was your version ofchoke on a dick?’
‘Dammit, that sounds so much better,’ she complains, her brows drawing together.
