The Day the Jerk Started Falling (Jerk #2) Page 12

  The struggle is real every single fucking day, and I’ve essentially lost the ability to function as a normal human being.

  I’m doing pretty well as a Zombie-hybrid type thing, though, so that’s good.

  Really, it’s the future I’m most worried about.

  I’ve been back in New York for nearly a month, and in less than twenty-four hours, I’ll be leaving on a jet plane to France for the final three events of the surfing competition.

  First, France.

  Then, Portugal.

  And finally, Hawaii.

  Not a bad setup by vacation standards, but the real kicker?

  Once I step foot in France, I won’t be able to avoid Ollie anymore.

  I’ve yet to talk to him since we had dinner with Allie and Sam a few weeks back.

  And Lord Almighty, shit got a little too real at that dinner.

  Meetings between adversarial dictators have gone better.

  I’m not sure of the exact decibels I used when yelling about having sex with Allie’s brother, in front of Allie, mind you, but I am sure a couple in Rapid City, South Dakota heard it.

  Stranger embarrassment aside, I’m still not sure how to handle any of it.

  Ollie has sent me a few text messages, and even tried to call me twice, but I’ve yet to respond. And Allie…well, let’s just say I thought she was violent with Baldy at the Yankees game. In reality, it takes her best friend going behind her back and getting her heart broken by her really hot older brother to set her off.

  I tried to tell her that was a really specific trigger when she said as much, but she didn’t exactly receive it well.

  All in all, our relationship is fine. She’s the kind of friend who doesn’t get bogged down in the betrayal, thankfully. And without much effort, she moved on to prying for details.

  I’d like to say I clammed up, but in reality, I did the opposite.

  Not only did I tell Allie most of what happened between Ollie and me, barring a few details about things like his penis size and sex, but I also posted nearly fourteen hours of podcasted personal life on Scoop’s website.

  It’s safe to say, that’s not exactly keeping it to myself.

  And, truthfully, I still don’t really know why I did it.

  Why I had to do it.

  I guess I just needed some kind of outlet. Some way to process everything.

  Some way to process Ollie’s assertion that I’m incapable of falling in love with anyone.

  What a bunch of bullshit.

  I am capable, a little too capable if my current situation—a girl who is still secretly pining over and missing a man she shouldn’t be—is taken into consideration.

  I honestly thought my podcast would fall on deaf ears, but the listener response has been the complete opposite. They love it. The damn thing continues to grow in popularity each day. I swear to God, if I get one more listener asking me if I’ve spoken to Ollie yet, I might gouge my eyes out.

  Dramatic? Of course.

  But warranted? In my opinion, yes.

  And, undoubtedly, the reason I’ve been doing my best to stay offline as much as possible.

  I wouldn’t say I’m regretful about doing the podcast, but I definitely didn’t predict this kind of overwhelming response.

  And because of its popularity, Vanessa has been on my ass about doing another series when I get back from my assignment in a few months.

  Hence the reason for today’s meeting.

  I know, during my final broadcast, I insinuated another series might be a possibility to my listeners when I get back from the surfing tour, but after stewing over if for a while, I am entirely unconvinced prolonging my proverbial pain via audio production is a good idea.

  I mean, what in the hell am I going to say after I get back from Hawaii in November?

  Mentally, I start rolling through the possibilities…

  So, Ollie and I are no longer on speaking terms, and shit was completely awkward for the rest of the surfing competition, and I know you guys are hoping for some kind of happily-ever-after, Cinderella-style-bullshit fairy tale, but all I’ve got is a bunch of sad sack shit that in no way will be of any interest to you, and oh, by the way, Nordstrom is having their huge end-of-year sale, so maybe you should go shopping instead of listening to this podcast…

  Ugh. I’m done with even thinking about it.

  Doing more podcasts sounds less appealing than getting a Brazilian wax.

  I push through the lobby doors of Scoop’s office, and by the time I step on the elevator with a man wearing a fedora and a leather messenger bag across his hip, I glance down at my phone to find I’m already ten minutes late.

  Sure, it’s not a lot of time, definitely could be worse, but when it comes to Vanessa, being three minutes early isn’t good enough.

  I silently prepare myself for her ire as I step off the elevator and head down the main hallway to her office, but my heart is pounding so damn hard it’s rattling my eardrums.

  Who knows why she still makes me jumpy after being under her wing for the past four years, but the proof is in the nervous-as-hell pudding.

  Just as I stop in front of her closed office door, I force a big inhale of hopefully calming oxygen into my lungs before releasing it on a whoosh.

  Two knocks to the wood later and she answers, “Come in.”

  I walk inside, and the instant I lock eyes with her, a ramble of an apology shoots from my mouth. “I’m so sorry I’m late. I—”

  “Don’t worry about it,” she cuts me off and gestures for me to sit down across from her desk.

  Wait…what?

  No yelling? No forcing me to work in the mail room for the next three months?

  No anger?

  Flabbergasted and wide-eyed, I simply swallow down my surprise and sit down.

  No need to draw any more attention to my time-responsibility faux pas.

  She slips her red-framed reading glasses off her face and sets them down beside her laptop. And my eyes don’t miss the way the crimson of her nail polish shimmers and shines beneath the expensive gold lamp on her desk.

  “Busy getting ready for your trip?” she asks, and I just nod.

  But inside, well, I freak out a little.

  My to-do list is still a mile long, and I can’t seem to muster the motivation to get my ass in gear. My suitcase isn’t even packed. Well, more like suitcases plural because I’m incapable of leaving on a jet plane without my entire closet. Also, I’ve barely unpacked said suitcases from when I got home from Huntington Beach.

  All very unlike me.

  Normally, I’m the girl who unpacks her bags the instant she steps through the door.

  But I haven’t really been myself. More like a shell of myself. Like, I’m just walking through my life with my eyes half open and my brain a scattered mess.

  Thanks a fucking lot, Ollie.

  “Well, I’m not going to keep you here long since I know you’re heading out tomorrow,” she starts and taps her fingers across the white marble of her desk. “First, I want to go ahead and get a production schedule on the books for when you get back.”

  “A production schedule?” I ask, but I already know what’s coming next.

  “For your next series of podcasts.”

  Internally, I sigh. It’s deep and cavernous, but my lungs ache when I swallow it back.

  The last thing I need is for Cruella de Vil to spot my hesitancy.

  She can sniff out weakness like a dog, and if she knows I’m having doubts about doing another podcast, she’ll pounce—claws out and teeth bared, the whole scary and intimidating nine yards.

  “Are you having second thoughts about it?” she questions, and her eyes narrow on the last word.

  So much for hiding my true feelings…

  “No.” Emphatically, I shake my head. “Of course not…”

  “But?” she tosses out. “I wasn’t born yesterday, Lucky. I can sense when there’s a but.”

  “There isn’t a but,” I
start to say, but her gaze narrows further. “Okay, so there’s a tiny but… I’m just not sure what my podcast is going to be about.”

  “The rest of your story,” she says like I’m the biggest idiot in the whole damn office building. Like it’s just that simple.

  The rest of my stupid fucking story? More like the rest of my and Ollie’s story.

  Which, what story? At this point, we have no story.

  But I can’t exactly ramble all that off to Vanessa, so I go with the next best thing.

  “But what if the rest of the story ends horribly?” I ask because, yeah, in my mind, the story is pretty much done.

  Ollie and I are done.

  Sure, I need to stop avoiding him, and we need to talk. But some kind of podcast-worthy happy ending coming from that seems like an impossibility.

  I mean, he lied.

  Then, I freaked the fuck out and handled things terribly.

  And when faced with the truth, he never owned up to anything. Never denied anything. Never offered any kind of explanation.

  Not to mention, that whole part where he basically insulted me and I stormed out of the restaurant.

  From where I stand, the damage is done. We were a fucking tornado and pretty much destroyed everything in our path, and now, there is nothing left to rebuild after our storm. That kind of destruction is generally irreparable.

  “I can see this isn’t necessarily easy for you, but, Lucky, I need to remind you that you are the one who wanted this podcast.”

  Touché, Vanessa.

  I don’t really have a response to that, but it’s not needed because she has plenty of words to release into the room.

  “You’re the one who was desperate to do it,” she continues. “And now, you’ve gained hordes of listeners whom you’ve left hanging in the fucking breeze. They want to know what happens.”

  “They want a happy ending…”

  “No,” she retorts. “They simply want an ending.”

  I think she’s underestimating the general inclination of humans.

  Sure, people love to hear about bad things. They love to hear about tragedy and devastation. The news wouldn’t report all the bad shit if it weren’t for that very fact.

  But deep down, at the end of the day, people want good shit too.

  And my podcast? Well, I think my listeners are waiting for a happy ending.

  One I’m convinced is not going to occur.

  I look at Vanessa and she looks at me, and I can just tell she isn’t going to budge on this. Her mind is made up, and for the sake of not ruffling her feathers and keeping my job, I’m going to have to go right along with this horrible plan.

  Hopefully, once she hears the resulting podcasts after I get back in November, she’ll quickly realize the sad sack, pathetic in love vibe won’t appeal to anyone, and she’ll squash it before it goes live.

  A girl can hope, a girl can dream, a girl can cross her fucking fingers and toes.

  “When do you want me to start production?”

  “You’re back in November, right?”

  I nod.

  “Let’s plan for the first week in December.”

  “Okay.”

  What more can I say?

  I’m the one who got myself into this mess with my brilliant fucking ideas.

  Let’s write letters to my Dear Ex-Boyfriends!

  Let’s go on a surfing assignment and fall in love with the biggest fucking jerk in the world! And then, let’s do a podcast about said jerk because surely, that will help you get over him!

  Hells bells. After all of this is said and done, I might need to call a priest to perform an exorcism on my idea notebook. Surely, that little bastard is cursed or something.

  “How is the website planning going for Dear Exes?” she asks, completely oblivious to my internal pain and diving right into another agenda item.

  The topic at hand being the result of my Dear Ex-Boyfriend letters.

  Because of their popularity, and the fact that Scoop has received thousands of personalized Dear Ex-Boyfriend and Dear Ex-Girlfriend letters from readers, we’re currently in the process of developing a new sister site that will be connected to Scoop’s homepage.

  An interactive and supportive place for people to upload their own letters and converse with one another. All good things, and below the current hell of heartbreak I’m maneuvering through, I’m over the moon about it.

  To say I’ve been busy with this giant undertaking would be putting it mildly.

  Over the past few weeks, I’ve basically been eating, sleeping, and breathing this site with our IT team. It is such an undertaking that Vanessa handed off most of my daily Scoop-related assignments to one of our new, junior columnists named Mary.

  “It’s good,” I say. “I saw the mock version yesterday and gave Tom and his IT team the go-ahead to put it into production. In a month’s time, we should be able to see it in its entirety.”

  “Great news.” She nods. “I’m impressed with what you’ve brought to the table over the past few months, Lucky. I know I don’t usually say that, but it’s deserved. You’re really helping take Scoop to that next level, and it won’t go unnoticed during evaluations at the end of the year.”

  Aka, I’ll probably get a raise.

  Vanessa is the very last person to give a compliment.

  She demands. She requires. She rides your ass.

  But give a compliment? Not likely.

  I should be far more excited about these prospects than I am, but a broken heart sure has a way of fogging up all the good shit happening around you.

  So, I simply say, “Thank you” and promise myself I’ll actually feel excited and bask in her praise at some point in the near future.

  Maybe after I’m done with this surfing assignment and all this Ollie shit is laid to rest?

  “Last order of business,” she redirects and slips her glasses back onto her face. “We’re currently getting hounded by the media for a comment from you.”

  “A comment from me?”

  “About the podcast.”

  I scrunch up my nose and squint my eyes. “They want a comment from me about my own podcast?”

  That sounds a bit weird. And pointless. Pretty sure they can snag all the comments they want if they just listen to the damn thing…

  “No, they don’t want a comment on your podcast,” she retorts, and sarcasm drips from her voice like rain on a windowpane. “On Oliver Arsen’s podcast.”

  Wait…what?

  “Ollie has a podcast?”

  What in the hell is she talking about?

  “Clearly, you’re very up-to-date on our site, huh?” She volleys more sarcasm my way, but I’m too busy drowning in her first statement to come up for air and take it personally.

  In my defense, I’ve been far too invested in the Dear Exes sister site to really know the current happenings on Scoop. With Mary taking most of my daily responsibilities, it’s been weeks since I’ve even posted something. Not to mention I’ve been doing everything in my power to stay offline and avoid the “Have you talked to Ollie?” questions I’m certain have been messaged and emailed my way.

  And, seriously, what in the hell is she talking about?

  “Ollie has a podcast on Scoop’s site?” I dumbly ask again.

  She nearly glares at me. “The first episode only went live seven days ago, and the last episode just posted yesterday evening,” she says, and annoyance cradles her voice. “You really haven’t heard this?”

  I shake my head. No, obviously, I haven’t heard it. The fact that my jaw is currently in my lap and my eyes are the size of saucers should be proof of that.

  “Well, we reached out to him for a comment on your podcast—”

  “You did what?” I shout, and her cat eyes narrow. Shit. Yelling at my boss isn’t exactly what I should be doing inside her office. Hell, inside, outside, from fucking outer space, it is not something any of Scoop’s employees should ever attempt. Even when they’re
being faced with something like this.

  “Sorry,” I mutter by way of apology. “It’s just a bit shocking…”

  If I were Pinocchio, my nose would have grown two inches when that half-assed apology left my lips.

  I wasn’t sorry.

  I was internally cursing out every single one of my coworkers and Vanessa too.

  I mean, they had reached out to Ollie for a goddamn comment on my podcast without giving me any sort of heads-up. What the fuck, guys?

  I should’ve known this was an inevitability of airing my pathetic love life for the entire world to hear, but the fact that I felt entirely steamrolled by this news was still the reality of my situation.

  Vanessa purses her lips and continues. “Well, like I was saying, we reached out to him for a comment on your podcast, you know, because that’s kind of how this whole media thing works, especially since your podcast was about him. But he refused to give us a comment. Instead, he pretty much demanded to make his own podcast for his response.”

  The demanding part shouldn’t have been a surprise.

  But the fact that he felt compelled to make his own podcast still isn’t making sense in my head…

  “W-what did he say?”

  “What did he say?” she questions. “It’s ten hours’ worth of recordings, Lucky.”

  Excuse me? Mind repeating that for the woman in the room who feels like she’s losing her ever-loving mind?

  “His podcast is ten hours long?”

  “Yes.”

  “H-have you listened to it?”

  She rolls her eyes. “It’s ten fucking hours long, Lucky. I’ve heard some of it, but I’m a little busy running a company to have heard the whole damn thing…”

  I am flabbergasted. Just…stunned.

  And all I can do is sit here, mouth dropped open, eyes wide, and heart pounding like a kick drum inside my chest.

  Ollie has a freaking podcast? On Scoop’s website?

  How did I not know about any of this?

  Surely, Allie would have given me a heads-up on this…right?

  Maybe I’m just dreaming this all up?

  I pinch myself to make sure it’s real, but I don’t wake up. Instead, I’m still here, sitting across from Vanessa, wondering what in the hell did Ollie say in his podcast?