Hesitating and Suffocating

John blew smoke out of his lips as he sat on Pat and Garrett’s back porch, where they were all drinking beer and Jamie, typical Jamie, was bouncing on his lap and pretending to be happy about going on tour.

“So, Jamie, are you excited for tomorrow?” Pat asked kindly, and Jamie resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She didn’t like Pat, and had offered a thousand times to cut his hair for him, and he looked like she had suggested he run over his puppy with a bicycle. And Garrett, she hated Garrett, simply because she knew Garrett didn’t like her.

Jamie wasn’t stupid. She knew that there had been someone before her, someone significant in John’s life. She had seen the way he ignored calls and how he would sit at the kitchen table and stare at his background. It was a picture of him and some beautiful blonde girl who was across the room from him and making a heart, while he made one back. She had found the huge engagement ring that obviously wasn’t for her. Jamie wasn’t stupid. She knew she wasn’t important to John.

Well, he wasn’t important to her either. He was rich, he was famous, and he was great in bed. What else did she even need? She smiled sweetly at Pat, her words dripping with sarcasm they wouldn’t detect. “I’m ecstatic,” She said, adjusting her ample cleavage, a birthday gift from 20 of her closest friends.

“Gare, who’s the new merch girl that Tim found?” John said once the silence settled again, the bugs buzzing in all their ears. Garrett smirked, his secret safe in his heart, at least until tomorrow morning. But he was sure that John would be too wasted to even recognize her.

“You’ll find out tomorrow, John.” Garrett threw in a joke for good measure. “And no worries, Jamie. This girl won’t sleep with John, or even fall for him,” Garrett said with a fake smile. Halvo had taken Cally out for ice cream again. It was a tradition now.

“You said the same thing about Cally,” John muttered, and Jamie’s ears pricked up. So the mystery girl’s name was Cally? She just needed a last name, and she could FaceBook stalk the girl who broke John’s heart.

The silence that followed was immensely awkward, until Pat broke the silence as only Pat could. “So, Jamie, you said you’re a model. Who do you model for?” He asked, and John chuckled.

“Would you believe ‘Playboy’?” John said, and Jamie bristled, knowing it was a direct dig at how little clothing she wore during shoots. She hardly cared, but she hated being insulted. She was determined to fight for John if this Cally bitch came back, but goddamn, she was going to destroy John O’Callaghan if it killed her.

“John, babe, can you get me a beer?” She said sweetly, and quietly hoped he’d drink himself away too.