Revenge of the Nerds

Months had passed since the fiery sacrament of the Swedish fireplace. When the girls left my apartment for the very last time that morning, I deleted and blocked their phone numbers. Then I locked myself in my bedroom to cry and wallow in sorrow for an entire day.

Then I got on with my life.

I took client meetings, finished a few projects, and fucked several new women. I made the photo that Ashley had texted to the group of the First Timers standing arm over shoulder my desktop background, until the pain of seeing it every day compelled me to remove it. The image still lived on my phone, though, and I looked at it from time to time, but less frequently now than I had in the beginning.

I never heard from them again. No surprise visits, no ambushes in my lobby, no stakeouts by my car. I suppose they may have tried to contact me by phone at some point, but finding me unreachable, they’d moved on with their lives, and I did too.

I eased the Range Rover into an empty parking spot in front of the convenience store and hurried inside, leaving the engine running. I had a lot to get done today. The clerk asked me what I needed.

“Pack of Marlboro Lights,” I told him as I pulled out my wallet. I still hadn’t managed to quit, but I would, I promised myself. Tomorrow.

The clerk set the white and gold box onto the counter and rang it up. “Eight seventy-eight,” he said with a bored expression on his face.

“Fucking expensive,” I groused, handing over a ten dollar bill. I clocked his name tag.

“Colton,” I said, and he looked up briefly as he made change. “You wouldn’t happen to be the same Colton Bryer who played defensive back for the Hilton High Hawks last year, would you?”

His cheeks lifted into a grin. “Yeah. You a fan?” he asked, opening the register to gather up my change.

“Oh, I caught a few games. You were very good,” I said, taking the change from him. “You wouldn’t happen to remember a girl named Courtney Bellinore, would you?” I asked.

He furrowed his brow. “Nuh uh. Why?”

“You sure? About yea high, huge fucking tits. Ugly ass bitch. Shit ton of acne on her face?”

“Oh! Ha-ha, yeah, man. I remember her. Acne Blockermore. Fuck yeah! What about her?”

I looked at the change in my hand and frowned. “Hey, did you short me?” I asked.

He looked at my hand. “Nah. Buck twenty-two.”

I held up two fingers. “Should’ve been two bucks, man. Two.”

Colton laughed and held up one finger. “One dollar, dude.”

My hand shot out to grip his finger and I swiftly bent it backwards until I felt the bone snap. Colton screamed, crouching down behind the counter to cradle his hand.

“The FUCK, man? You broke my fucking finger!”

I pocketed my change and picked up the smokes, tapping the box on the counter. “Nope. You were right. It was a dollar.” I pulled my sunglasses down to wink at him, then headed for the door. “Courtney says hi,” I shouted before the door swung closed behind me.

When I’d put several miles between me and Colton’s broken index finger, I pulled over into a church parking lot to have a cigarette. The padded envelope I’d switched out while the girls were distracted getting champagne sat next to me on the passenger seat.

I closed my eyes and reached inside to fish around among the dozens of sticky notes. I culled one from the herd and brought it to my face. Even if I hadn’t recognized Brittney’s perfect handwriting, I’d have recognized the red ink from the pen I’d given her. I read the note out loud.

“Holly Lewis. Pulled my pants down in front of the gym class. Oh, that’s not very nice, Holly.”

I flicked the spent cigarette butt out onto the blazing asphalt and threw the Rover into drive. As I looked both ways, preparing the turn left onto the quiet suburban street, I muttered to myself.

“Maybe you’d prefer a big fucking cock in your ass, Holly. How does that sound? Yeah. Sounds really fucking good to me too.”