“Wes?” I asked, as if the question might change the fact that he was standing in Louis’ and had overheard the worst possible part of my conversation with Carlos.

Wes didn’t bother to disappear the way I wished he would. Instead, he slid into the booth next to me so forcefully that he managed to bump me out of the way to make room. I glared at him as he side-eyed Carlos. “You want to explain yourself, Mrs. Tucker?”

“Mrs. Tucker?” Carlos asked, his eyes sliding from me to Wes and back again.

I shrugged my shoulders and addressed Carlos then, not Wes. “I told you I got married.”

“I thought it was a joke because you’re mad at me.”

“Why were you mad at him?” Wes asked before the blonde became impatient.

“Wes, what are you doing?” Her question came as she popped her hip out and shot daggers at me with her eyes.

“Yes, Wes, what are you doing besides interrupting my breakfast?”

“Well, I heard you talking about some man fucking you as payment for something and didn’t think that could possibly have been right since you know – you’re married to my best friend.”

I laughed. Literally, I doubled over with laughter, and there was no telling if it was just the start of a nervous breakdown or if I truly thought the whole scenario was hilarious. Everyone just stared at me until I got myself under control and dabbed away the tears that had fallen. I wouldn’t quite call them happy tears, definitely not sad ones either. Are crazy tears a thing? If so, I’m pretty sure that’s what they were.

“Wes,” I introduced as I flipped my hand from him to Carlos who was sitting quietly on the other side of the table still. “Carlos.”

“Okay, that explains nothing,” Wes addressed the obvious as we all just sat there.

I sighed. “Okay,” I turned to look at Wes then. “Since you’re obviously not going to just let this go, I’ll explain. Carlos has been my fuck buddy for a while. A little over a week ago, I accidentally overheard another woman on the phone, and he had to explain that he’d been seeing someone, for months. That was actually against our little fuck buddy code. We weren’t exclusive, but we also were supposed to be upfront about anyone else being in the picture, because I certainly never wanted to come across as ‘the other woman’ in someone else’s relationship,” I glared Carlos’s way as I mentioned the last part.

“So, then he told me he knew it was wrong, but he thought if he came clean, I would have stopped helping him with his classes. In conclusion, essentially, he was still fucking me so that I would continue tutoring him and helping with his papers. I don’t know who that makes more pathetic in this situation, the guy who was knowingly using sex to pay for tutoring or the girl who didn’t realize that’s what was happening.” When everyone just sat, staring at me in stunned reaction to my blunt honesty I carried on.