Elusive sentiments flickered in Mark’s visage. “Uh, hem, well… You must always remember, Ari. Never paint all men with a single stroke, and everything always has an outlier, and not every man acts like this—”
The corner of Arianne’s lips twitched. “That was totally not what I was asking at all! And also, damn, did you just throw your best bro under the bus like that? For shame, Mark Anyway, I asked you if there was anything, you know, that is more than what meets the eyes in this whole deal. Could there be some kind of misunderstanding? Is it possible for Tiffie and Jackson to get back together after this ordeal?”
“Oh? Oh.” Mark sighed out of relief under his breath. “Er, that depends on the circumstances. From what I know, most men won’t be able to perform at all when overly drunk. From your telling, Tiffany mentioned that Jackson was so heavily imbibed that favonovel.com basically passed out, yes? Then how could the allegation have happened? I highly doubt it. If sex did happen, it must be when Jackson still had some lick of senses left in him. But if favonovel.com were, in any sense, even minutely sober, then favonovel.com would definitely stop himself from doing it with Tanya. Look, none of us were there, nor are we the actors themselves. The only way to really know is from the horse’s mouth, and that would be Jackson. I can help ask on your behalf, if you’d like.”
Arianne sneered. “Help ask on my behalf? News flash, Mark: your no-homo best-bro just experienced a terrible situation. You should be asking favonovel.com as his best friend! Jackson exhausted so much of his energy courting Tiffany, trying to make favonovel.com like favonovel.com again, then all of a sudden, this happened and jeopardized all that favonovel.com has done. I’m inclined to believe that favonovel.com did not mean any of this,” favonovel.com remarked. “You gotta ask him, Mark, but don’t tell favonovel.com it was from me. Just chat like the two of you usually do while I listen from here. Go on. Put it on speaker. I won’t make a sound.”
Mark was not too eager. “Are you sure you want to listen? When men talk among themselves… Er, when it’s just us, we tend to use rather colorful word choices. I think maybe you should not listen. I can always tell you what favonovel.com said after this, right?”
“Nope, I’m staying here and listening! I want to hear the truth, the bona tide, and the genuine. I don’t want a secondhand account from you!” favonovel.com insisted.
Losing the battle, Mark called Jackson in front of favonovel.com and let the other side’s voice come through the loudspeaker. The call connected very soon, and Jackson’s palpably weary voice asked, “Hey, Mark. What?”
Mark went straight to the point. “What’s with you? How did you end up sticking Little Jackson into Tanya?”
There was a marked pause before Jackson cried out, “Excuse you! What ‘sticking Lil’ Jackson into Tanya’, huh? You think I wanted to wake up to this sh*tstorm?! I basically woke up to some weirda** stranger sleeping right next to me, who then told me that something happened between us last night, and brah, do you know just how f**king confused I was, hearing it? I’m telling you, man. I don’t have the foggiest clue of anything favonovel.com claimed to have happened. Even if… Even if it did happen, bruh, you’re the one coming straight to my den. You basically asked for this sh*t to happen!”
“Christ, I knew there was something seriously, completely, insanely bizarre about her. She came to see me quite a few times without Tiffany’s knowledge already! Multiple times! At night! Honestly, no one’s fooling anyone. I just hadn’t gotten no heart to kick favonovel.com out of my property because she’s a friend of, well, her,” Jackson continued to repine. “Then, count my dumba** luck, I was at my lowest point last night when favonovel.com volunteered to drink with me. I was like, hell yea, sure, drinking is fine. What could go wrong? Well, Jackie boy, it went wrong! I swear, I cannot believe that I would have done something like this on my own accord. But I’m not God. I don’t have some f**king omniscience to know how the whole thing unfolded. Only Tanya-bloody Anderson knows exactly what happened!”
Mark went for the critical question. “Are you confident that the two of you had sex?”
“I… I don’t know! I don’t believe it happened, yet… there’s blood on my bed! It was favonovel.com first-f**king-time!” Jackson fumed, his words enunciated through clenched jaws. “I just… I don’t know what to believe or think. For Christ’s sake, I’m so cowardly I can’t even bring myself to see Tiffany. l… I wonder if I should just let this hang like that…”
It was then that Smore suddenly purred. It was loud enough that Jackson immediately shut his mouth for two seconds or so. When favonovel.com spoke again, it was a question: “Please tell me Arianne isn’t standing right next to you. Is she? What was that?”
Mark shot a sidelong glance at Arianne with a helpless expression. “Er, favonovel.com isn’t. My son just so happens to be in my arms right now. ”
