Enter Operation: One Night Stand: Find a man who is hotness personified and have some much-needed sexy time. The only problem is that Caroline is torn between a flirtatious, well-built guy and the ridiculously hot bartender serving her shots. This was supposed to be all fun and no games, but like the perfect scotch on the rocks, no good fling finishes without a twist . .
weighed me down lifted off my shoulders and my attitude changed. In that moment,
I decided that “poor me” was no longer my battle cry. Melody and Sarah were right. I
was twenty-eight with my whole life ahead of me. Who was I to ignore that?
“Did you have to get her fired?” Steven interrupted my silent hear-me-roar
mantra.
“I didn’t do anything. I just quit my job. Looks like she had the same idea.
End of story.”
“Care—“
“Steven.” I glared at him, wishing actual daggers would shoot from my eyes
and hit him in the face.
Dropping his shoulders, he looked at me one last time. “It didn’t have to be
this way.”
“There is no other way for it to be. You made sure of that when you fucked
the intern in our bed while I walked around oblivious with a two-carat engagement
ring on my finger. Who does that? A douche bag, that’s who. Now, please, close the
door on your way out. I have work to do.”
“Who are you? My Caroline doesn’t talk like that.”
“Your Caroline doesn’t exist anymore. Read the obituary. It reads: ‘Here lies
Steven’s Caroline. Fucked over by a pretentious douche bag and his plastic intern.’”
I was a bit alarmed at how good it felt to tell Steven what was on my mind.
His gaze fell to the floor and his shoulders sagged. He opened his mouth to speak
again but must have thought better of it.
It felt even better when I watched him close the door.
As soon as he left, I picked up the phone and dialed Sarah, knowing she was
on her way home.
“Did you do it?” Sarah asked in reference to part one of the plan.
“I did. And Betsy the Wonder Slut quit too.”
“A nice extension of the plan. I wasn’t expecting that.” I heard her chewing.
“Neither was I. And I told off Steven. I am so amped.”
“Excellent. Adrenaline is a beautiful thing.”
“What are you eating? It’s awfully loud.”
“Carrots. Not everyone can eat six million gallons of ice cream in a six week
period and still have a great ass.”
“True. So listen, I’ve been giving it a lot of thought and I think part two of the
plan would be good for me.”
“So you’re in?”
“I’m in.”
“Excellent.”
All weekend, I was inundated with a three-part plan. Melody and Sarah had
done quite a bit of thinking and came up with, what they deemed to be, a full proof
method for helping me to move on. Part one was complete. I quit my job. I’ll find a
new one. Especially with the help from the very kind human resources manager.
“Just so you know,” Sarah continued, “there is an addendum to the plan.
Chapter one point five if you will. You gave two weeks notice? You don’t have to stay
longer than that, right?”
“No. I’m done the Friday before Thanksgiving.”
“Good because the three of us are spending Thanksgiving in Jamaica.”
“What?”
“We all need to decompress, Care. I need to get away from school, Mel needs
to back away from her job for a bit and you need, well you need this too. I’m not
taking no for an answer. I’m booking the second I get off the phone with you.”
I guess spontaneity was the lesson for chapter one-point-five of the plan.
“Book it.”
Part two was a little dicier, a little less old me and a lot more new me. But
then again Operation: One Night Stand was a go and I had two weeks to get up the
nerve to go through with it. At least I’d be on a plane out of town soon after so I’d be
able to obsess about it in a different country.
I was going to step out into the sun and live my life. And I’d spend a week in
Jamaica with my two best friends doing just that.