Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 103530 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103530 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
“Oh, weird. I just got done talking to him, myself.” Did she sound extra bubbly or did I notice her cheerfulness more because I knew I would have to wreck it all?
“Talk about anything interesting?” I fished.
“We talked about you.” Her expression turned serious. “He’s worried that I’m going to emotionally destroy you.”
“He’s worried that I’m going to do the same to you,” I said grimly.
“You’re calling to break this off, right?” she asked bluntly.
“Did he tell you that?” How the hell had he known?
Her face fell and froze. “I told him I didn’t want that. And I was hoping you didn’t want that, either.”
“I don’t.” A tide of relief swelled against the dam of resolve I’d built around my Charlotte-related emotions. I held it back. “But should we? For him?”
“No!” She shook her head firmly. Then all the resolve went out. “Maybe? On my end, it doesn’t matter. He’s my brother, not my keeper, and he doesn’t own you. But you’re his best friend and there’s obviously a different code of conduct there.”
“Plus, he got left at the altar.”
“Which is affecting his ability to reason,” she said with an eye roll. “I love my brother. I know you love him, too. But it’s ridiculous that two grown adults are tiptoeing around the feelings of a third, fully uninvolved person.”
That was reasonable. Too reasonable.
“I think you’re talking me out of canceling,” I admitted reluctantly.
“You’d better not cancel the trip you promised me,” she threatened. “If I’m not fucking you, I’m sure I’ll be able to find someone else. It seems unfair to rob me of that chance.”
The thought of her going to Ascend Red without me seemed more unfair. And unacceptable. Of course, she would be able to find other sex partners there. But I didn’t want her to have sex with them. I wanted her to have sex with me. Or, with me and them.
“I think what we need to talk about here is whether or not we’re actually hurting Scott,” she went on. “Or if he’s hurting himself because it’s easier to be concerned and overly involved in our sex lives than it is to deal with the end of his own relationship.”
Now that she mentioned it… “I guess I hadn’t thought of it like that but maybe you’re right.”
“I know I’m right. Not just because I want a vacation,” she added with a sly raise of her eyebrow.
“And not because you think you have to please everyone?” I asked cautiously. “Scott suggested that might be the case.”
“If I were trying to please everyone, wouldn’t that include Scott?”
I didn’t have an answer for that.
“I know I’m screwed up, okay?” she said, an undercurrent of brokenness beneath her words that I identified too easily. “But that doesn’t mean that every action I take is due to the thing that screwed me up. Scott feels responsible for anything and everything that’s ever gone even slightly wrong in my life, and that’s nice of him, I guess, but it’s not okay to butt into my private life to protect me from myself. If you want to call this off out of loyalty to my brother, I can’t force you not to. But I’ll think you’re making a shitty choice, and I will still be expecting those plane tickets.
“Fair enough.” I took a deep breath and made a split-second decision. “I’m not calling it off. But let’s not tell Scott that.”
“You want to lie to your best friend?” She seemed patently unimpressed.
“No. I want to stop discussing the subject with him. Unfortunately, I made a gentleman’s agreement—”
“Ah, an agreement between ‘gentlemen’ about a totally unaware, female third party. That’s not gross, creepy, or infantilizing at all,” she snapped.
“Now that I hear it out loud, it does sound…”
“Misogynistic? Archaic? Outright unacceptable?” There was no humor or teasing present. "First and final warning: that behavior is what’s going to end this arrangement. Not my brother.”
“Noted. And I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“As long as you can it admit it, we can be on the same page about it.” She rubbed her forehead, a similar gesture of frustration to one I’d seen her brother make tons of times. “I like what we have.”
“I like what we have, too.”
‘Then let’s not end it. And we’ll stop talking about it and maybe everyone will politely ignore it until it goes away,” she said hopefully.
“That sounds like an unhealthy tactic,” I pointed out. And I didn’t want it to go away.
“Stick with me, kid. I can teach you all about unhealthy.” She made a finger gun and a clicking noise.
“I have no doubt about that, princess.” My chest ached suddenly. I went through my mental list of blood clot symptoms; I was still a little jumpy about those. It was almost worse to realize I was fine, just emotional, precisely what I’d decided not to be about Charlotte.