Snap

Why is that when people say it isn’t what it looks like, it’s always exactly what it looks like?

Take last night for example. Jake, the man I’ve been in love with for two years, sat on a barstool at Del Mar, playing tonsil hockey with a stunningly beautiful woman. I stared. I dropped my drink, and then I stared some more. I stared for a long time, unable to believe my eyes. If they were actually playing hockey, they would have been in overtime by the time I scooped an ice cube off the floor and chucked it at his head.

In what was quickly becoming a pattern, Jake’s glass shattered to the ground when he saw me. He literally flinched as if he’d seen a horror movie, not his girlfriend.

“R-Rae?” he stammered.

I grabbed another ice cube.

That’s when he told me it isn’t what it looks like and that I need to let him explain.

Before he could, his make-out partner screeched, “You have a girlfriend?” and turned a shade of green that would have been nasty on anyone except her.

“I, uh...”

So much for having an explanation.

Liquor gave me the courage to say what sober me would never dare. I crossed my arms and snapped, “Yeah, he does.”

She dumped her drink on his head with trembling hands. Then, the glass slipped out of her fingers, the bartender groaned, and I half-laughed, half-sobbed.

“Rae, please. Let me explain,” Jake begged as cranberry juice and Tito’s dripped from his now-drenched, once-neatly combed chocolate hair.

Because I’m me, I let him. More than anything, I wanted to hear a valid reason why my boyfriend was at the shitty club near my apartment and not at his parents’ house in Park City, which is where he said he was spending the weekend.

“Explain,” I ordered.

“I swear, I wasn’t...” he trailed off.

Zoe decided that was an appropriate time to sock him in the temple.

He told me he wanted to see other people while the bouncers less-than-gently escorted Zoe and me outside. He didn’t even say he was sorry. He just...walked off.

That’s part one of How Rae Ended Up in a Stranger’s Bed.

It’s a trilogy.