Samiah squinted against the sunlight slicing across her face through her living room’s floor-to-ceiling windows. Grimacing, she expended a supreme amount of effort to open her left eye. She quickly shut it. A dull thud repeatedly beat against the back of her skull, reverberating around her brain like a Ping-Pong ball in slow motion.
“Is there coffee?” a strange voice croaked. “Please tell me there’s coffee.”
Samiah bolted upright and twisted around on the sofa. London Kelley stood next to the eight-foot soapstone island that separated her kitchen from the living room. Make that Doctor London Kelley, as Samiah had discovered last night.
“I’ll take kombucha if you have any,” came a muffled voice from somewhere underneath the mound of pillows on the living room floor. Taylor Powell moaned before leveling herself up on her elbows. “You see this headache right here? This is why I don’t drink alcohol.” She straightened. “I gotta pee,” she said before scrambling up from the floor and racing toward the bathroom.
Exhausted and hungover, Samiah still had the presence of mind to acknowledge that she should be concerned about waking up to find two strangers in her home. Strangers who were now familiar enough with her home to utilize the kitchen and bathroom without her help or permission.
Yet in the few short hours since she’d met them, Taylor and London no longer felt like strangers. Being conned by the same lowlife accelerated the sisterhood-development process.
Samiah placed her bare feet on the cool hardwood floors and rested her elbows on her thighs, covering her face with her hands. She still wore her jeans from last night, but at some point had changed into her favorite blue-and-gray Rice University T-shirt.
“Hey, chica? Coffee?” London called again.
“There are coffee pods in the cabinet above the Keurig.” She turned to Taylor, who had just resumed her spot on the floor. “Sorry, no kombucha. I’ve seen it, but I’m too chicken to try it.”
“Chicken? After the way you went after Craig last night? Woman, there is nothing chicken about you. You are badass.”
Samiah grimaced. She didn’t want to hear the name Craig ever again. She’d cloaked herself in fury and indignation last night, but in the light of day his treacherous deception cut through her like a switchblade. How could she have been foolish enough to trust him? Why hadn’t she seen through his lies?
“Did he try calling either of you last night?” London asked.
Samiah reached for her phone and checked the screen. Other than a couple of missed calls from her sister and an exorbitant number of Facebook notifications, her phone was clear. She would call Denise later. She didn’t know when she would look at Facebook.
“I guess he heeded my warning,” Samiah said. “He didn’t try to contact me at all.”
“I wasn’t lying when I said I didn’t give him my number,” Taylor remarked, wrapping her arms around her bended knees. “It was a burner phone. A friend suggested I use one after this guy she met on a dating site started stalking her.”
“Shit, that’s scary,” London said. She plopped onto the sofa next to Samiah, her fingers wrapped around a steaming cup of coffee. Her crinkly curls were mashed on one side. “This place is gorgeous, by the way. I didn’t get a chance to tell you that last night.”
“We were all too busy bitching about that asshole,” Samiah replied. “But thanks.”
A foggy veil obscured her recollection of the past twelve hours, but she remembered inviting London and Taylor back to her place after deciding she wasn’t up to going to the blues club. She’d probably never step foot in there now that it was linked to Craig and his lying ways.
Samiah glanced to the right and noticed the empty vodka bottle, stray lime wedges, and copper tumblers on the glass end table, remnants of the Moscow Mules she’d made last night.
“Is anyone up for breakfast?” she asked. “I can order something.”
London lifted her cup. “This is my normal breakfast.”
“Aren’t you a doctor?” Taylor tsked. “You should know better. You need protein to get your day off on the right foot.”
London replied with a grunt before sipping her coffee.
“What is it you do for a living again?” Samiah asked Taylor. “Sorry if you mentioned it last night. Everything is a bit fuzzy.”
“Personal trainer and nutrition expert,” Taylor answered. She was way too bubbly now that she was fully awake. Samiah would have found it endearing if her head wasn’t pounding so much. “Which means that I should know better than to pollute my body with the half liter of vodka I consumed last night.”
“It was warranted.” London settled back on the sofa, crossing one long, slim leg over the other. “If you can’t get drunk after finding out your boyfriend has been cheating on you with who knows how many other women, when can you get drunk?” She turned to Samiah. “By the way, I figured out this morning that you were the first to date him, at least among the three of us. You went out with him on the Friday of the Fourth of July holiday weekend, and my first date with him was that Sunday night.”
“He told me he had to go to Dallas that weekend. Things were just sooo busy at his job that he couldn’t take the holiday off.” Samiah snorted out a humorless laugh. “I swear I thought I was smarter than this.”
“Hey, I’m no dummy, and he fooled the hell out of me too.” London shrugged. “He ran a good game. I’m just happy I never slept with him.”
“I didn’t either!” Samiah said. “It’s as if our instincts knew better.”
They high-fived each other.
Taylor pouted. “I’m kinda bummed I found out he was a dog before I got the chance to sleep with him.”
“What?” Samiah and London’s simultaneous screeches echoed off the condo’s high ceilings.
“What?” she asked with an incredulous shrug. “It’s been a minute, okay? I swear I saw cobwebs the last time I looked down there.”
Samiah burst out laughing then regretted it. The hammering that had all but subsided returned to her skull with a vengeance. She drew her feet up on the sofa and tucked them underneath her.
“You can do better than Craig Walters’s lying ass,” she told Taylor.
“I thought his name was Craig Johnson?” London said.
“He told me his name was Craig Milton,” Taylor said. “And if I could do better, I would have been out with better last night. I don’t know about you, but this dating shit has been brutal for me since I moved to Austin.”
Samiah was still reeling from the revelation that Craig’s cheating behind had given them all different last names. She’d looked him up on social media. Everything had seemed legit. She wondered if he’d set up profiles for all his different names. How much time and energy had that leech put into this little scheme of his?
“I hear you on the dating front,” Samiah said. “Craig was the first guy in six months who’d made it past a second date.”
“Look, I’m from this area and it’s been brutal for me too,” London added. “I guess that’s how he was able to dupe the three of us. There’s slim pickings out there.” She drained her coffee mug and set it on the sofa table. “And now I have to find someone else to take to my damn class reunion. Shit.”
The three of them released commiserating groans.
“My ten-year reunion was a nightmare,” Samiah said.
“I used my move to Austin as an excuse to skip mine,” Taylor said.
“Well, this makes fifteen years for me, and there is no skipping it. That’s what I get for being class president.”
“When is the reunion?” Samiah asked.
“Thankfully, it’s still a few months away.” London shoved her hands in her hair and fluffed out her mangled curls. “I hate this shit. The only reason I started dating Craig is because I didn’t want to show up alone. I did that for both the five- and ten-year reunions.” She choked out an incredulous laugh. “You’d think this whole pediatric surgeon thing I have going on would make up for being single, but not with that crew.”
Samiah knew that song all too well. Whenever she went back home to Houston, the talk quickly shifted from her career to her relationship status. It was nauseating. And infuriating.
“You know you can rent a date, right?” Taylor asked as she gathered her braids in one hand and wrapped a purple scrunchie around them. “And not just from Craigslist.” She gasped, her eyes widening. “I’ll never be able to go on that website again after last night.”
“Taylor’s right,” Samiah said. “Why don’t you just go with one of those escort services?”
“I kind of wanted it to be real, you know? A fake relationship with a Rent-A-Date guy sounds like something from a supersweet Hallmark movie.”
“That’s only if you two end up married with two-point-five kids and a basset hound named Molly.”
Samiah grinned at Taylor’s quip. Her sense of humor beat the hell out of Craig’s.
“If I took an escort to my class reunion, I’d spend the entire night worrying about whether or not we’d get found out. I’d rather go alone than deal with that kind of anxiety.” Her resigned sigh struck a familiar chord. “What’s a little judgment from people you only see once every five years, right?”
“I get what you’re saying, but to be honest, why do you even care?” Samiah asked. She looked from one woman to the other as her question began to resonate in her head. “Why do any of us care? So what if I’m not dating the perfect guy? Who says everything on my checklist needs to get checked off?”
“You have a checklist?” One of London’s perfectly shaped eyebrows arched. “Do tell.”
“Everyone has a checklist. And mine is almost complete.” She ticked items off on her fingers. “I’ve got the fancy downtown condo I always wanted. I have a fabulous job in my field. I still expect at least a few promotions in the near future, but to say I’ve only been with my company for three years, I’ve done pretty well for myself.”
“Is that the extent of the list?”
“No. I also drive the car of my dreams.”
Taylor perked up. “Oooh, what kind?”
“Mustang GTE.”
“Full package?”
“Full package.”
“Oh, you are definitely a boss bitch. Why did you think you needed someone like Craig in the first place?”
“Because even with this nice condo and her incredible job and her boss-bitch car—whatever that is—people will still question why she doesn’t have a man,” London said.
“Bingo.” Samiah sighed, her shoulders wilting in defeat. No matter how successful she became, there were some who would still think her life was lacking because she didn’t have a significant other.
But why should she care what those people thought? What anyone thought? Why in the hell was she putting herself through this kind of trauma for the sake of attaining some impractical, ideal life that would never be enough for those people?
Samiah sat up straight, planting her feet back on the floor.
“You know what? Fuck that,” she said. “Fuck. That.”
“Fuck what?” London asked.
“This. Craig. All of it. And fuck anyone who says what I’ve accomplished isn’t enough. Do you know how much time and effort I’ve put into finding someone? The hours I’ve wasted filling out dating profiles alone makes me wish I’d gone ahead and punched Craig in the stomach.”
“You’re right,” Taylor whispered, her voice tinged with awe. “You are absolutely right. Want to know how I ended up on that date with Craig? Because one of my friends signed me up on a dating site because she’s tired of imagining that I’m lonely.” She pointed to her chest. “I’m not lonely. I’m too busy to feel lonely. Hell, when I wasn’t live-tweeting our date last night, I was invoicing clients. My time would have been better spent at home working on my marketing plan.”
Taylor directed her attention at Samiah. “Maybe it’s time you rethink that checklist. If a con man like Craig is all there is out there, you’re better off using that time to do something that will actually make you happy.”
Her words collided with the beliefs Samiah had held since her freshman year of college. She had not gone into any of this lightly. She’d taken stock of her life, examined every crevice, and devised a list of goals that she firmly believed were crucial to living the kind of life she wanted to live.
Happiness had not been part of the equation when she’d made her plans. The concept was too vague for her to fully grasp it. She felt safer, more in control, when dealing in absolutes. True happiness—whatever that meant—would follow once she finally achieved these concrete items she’d set out to attain.
But she could define happiness for herself if she tried hard enough. She thought about the boxes of sketch pads and reams of notes in her closet and knew one thing that would make her happy.
No. You been over this already. You don’t have time for that.
Samiah cradled her head in her palms. This was too much for her hungover brain to think about right now. “Why are you making so much sense?”
“Right?” Taylor asked, as if she’d surprised herself. “But it does make sense, doesn’t it? Imagine if we’d all devoted the time we wasted with Craig to doing something worthwhile. Isn’t there something you’ve always wanted to do that you haven’t done yet? Stick that on your checklist instead of looking for some man who doesn’t deserve you.”
“Of course you wouldn’t have discovered the volcano sushi roll if not for Craig,” London said. “But I get your point.”
“Her point,” Samiah stressed, “is that we’re three beautiful, successful women who swallowed the bullshit society tries to feed us. Every single one of us is much too good for Craig Walters. Or whatever his name is. The point is—”
Their heads turned at the sound of two sharp knocks on her front door, followed by the distinct click of the lock disengaging. A second later, the door opened and her sister and brother-in-law, Bradley, walked in with wide eyes and big smiles.
“Oh, wow,” Denise said as she took in the sight before her. “I didn’t think I’d find all three of you here.”
“It’s a good thing we went with the half-dozen bagels instead of just three,” Bradley said, following his wife to the sofa.
“Carbs,” Taylor said with a dreamy sigh, making grabby hands toward the bag Bradley carried.
He held up a finger. “Just a sec.” He pivoted toward the kitchen.
“So, how are you, ladies?” Denise asked as she rested on the arm of the sofa next to London. “It would seem you all had quite a night.”
“Yes, we did,” Taylor said with a cheeriness Samiah couldn’t comprehend after the night they’d had. Her disposition was as bright as the sun streaming through the tall windows.
Samiah made the introductions. “Ladies, this is my sister, Denise, and her husband, Bradley. Guys, this is—”
“Oh, we know who you both are,” Denise said, her cagey smile setting off an alarm in Samiah’s head.
“I’m pretty sure the entire world knows who they are by now,” Bradley said. He set a platter of bagels with flavored cream cheeses on the glass sofa table, then rested his hands on Denise’s shoulders and started massaging her neck with his thumbs. “Well, maybe not the people in Australia.”
“Yet,” Denise added.
Dread slithered down Samiah’s spine. “What are you two talking about?”
“I figured you hadn’t seen it yet, based on how calm you all are.” Denise pulled out her phone, swiped across the screen, and held it up. “It was at five hundred thousand views last I checked.”
“What!” Samiah, London, and Taylor all yelped at the same time.
Samiah grabbed the phone. London and Taylor gathered around her. Someone at the restaurant had captured their argument with Craig and posted it online. Her stomach dropped.
“Bossip picked it up. So has BuzzFeed. No TMZ, though,” Denise said around a mouthful of the cinnamon raisin bagel she’d just bitten into.
“Only a matter of time,” Bradley chipped in.
Samiah increased the volume on the phone, although now that the fogginess of the alcohol had worn off, she recalled what was said last night with stunning clarity.
Lying piece of dog shit?
Yikes. She hadn’t remembered that.
“There’s another video that was shot from the opposite angle. That’s the one I saw first,” Denise said. “I was so afraid you’d punched that Craig guy, but then I saw you’d only poked him.”
“You should have punched him,” Bradley said. “I would have punched him if I was there.” His ginger-colored brows curved inward with his frown.
Samiah looked up at him and wasn’t sure if she wanted to laugh or cry. Craig wasn’t linebacker-big, but he probably had a good seventy pounds on her perpetually thin brother-in-law. What Bradley lacked in heft, he made up for in heart. She handed the phone back to Denise, then stood and walked over to him, wrapping him up in a hug.
“Thank you, honey.” Samiah sniffed. “But I don’t think any of us have to worry about Craig anymore.”
“I’m just hoping his other women have seen the video and know not to trust him either,” Taylor said.
“You think there were others?” Bradley asked.
“Yes,” the four women in the room answered.
Her sister and brother-in-law left them with breakfast and a promise to check up on Samiah later in the week. Once they finished off the bagels, she, Taylor, and London sat in her living room, encountering the first awkward silence between them since their eventful meeting. The horror of knowing the most painfully embarrassing moment of their lives was now fodder for memes around the world muzzled all other thoughts.
London was the first to break the silence. After crossing her legs, she rested her clasped hands on her knee and said, “I’m happy I changed out of my scrubs before going to the restaurant last night. If I’m going to get caught on camera, I want to get caught in something that shows the world I have a nice ass.”
“You have a great ass,” Taylor said.
“So do you,” Samiah told her.
There was another beat of silence before the three of them burst out laughing. Now that the dam had broken, Samiah couldn’t hold it in. She rolled over on the sofa, cackling until she caught a stitch in her side.
“Oh, my God.” She took another moment to catch her breath. “I needed that.”
“We all needed that,” Taylor said, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes. Silence fell over them again, then Taylor added, “Well, I should probably get going. I’ve got a bunch of meal plans to put together for my clients.” She reached for her ankle-high boots and slipped them on.
London slapped her hands on her knee and stood. “I should go too. It’s been forever since I drank like this. I need to sleep off the rest of those Moscow Mules before my shift tomorrow.” She braced her hands against her lower back and stretched. “Thank God I pushed those hernia surgeries to the middle of the week.”
Samiah looked from one woman to the other as something akin to panic stole over her.
“So is this it?” she asked. “This is how this ends?”
London hunched her shoulders in a cautious shrug. “Are we supposed to hug or something?”
“Yeah. No.” Samiah shook her head. “I mean…maybe?”
She didn’t know what she meant, but she knew it didn’t feel right to just walk away from one another after everything they’d been through over the past twelve hours.
“This just feels…I don’t know…anticlimactic. We should share phone numbers. Or, at the very least, connect on social media.”
“I guess you’re right,” Taylor said. She reached into her black clutch and drew out a couple of business cards. “I like you two. You get to have my real number,” she said with a wink. “Give me a call sometime and let me know how you’re both doing.”
“I’ll go you one better,” London said, slipping the business card in her back pocket. “Why don’t we meet for drinks next week? Just to check in on each other. I have a feeling things will get a little crazy following this viral video.” She shot Taylor a good-natured grin. “I’ll even bring the kombucha.”
“I prefer the ones with ginger, thank you very much.”
Relief flooded Samiah’s veins. She would explore just why it was so important not to lose touch with these two later. For now, she was just happy they were going to connect again.
“It’s a date,” she said. “Shoot me a text with whatever time works best for the two of you and I’ll come up with a place to meet.”
“Aww, now I do want a hug,” Taylor said. She stretched her arms wide and gathered London and Samiah in an embrace.
Samiah saw both women to the door with a promise to contact them later in the week. Then she went to her bedroom and fell face-first onto the bed. She grabbed her phone, pulled up the YouTube video, and groaned. Another twenty thousand views since she’d last watched it less than a half hour ago. This was such a freaking disaster.
She set the phone beside her on the mattress and twisted around, staring up at the stark white ceiling. She wondered if she should add another item to her list.
Item 58: Have half a million people witness the most humiliating moment of your life.
At least it would be an easy one to check off.