Total pages in book: 163
Estimated words: 164828 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 824(@200wpm)___ 659(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 164828 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 824(@200wpm)___ 659(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
“Oh God, like with scissors?” Jessica, my brother’s girlfriend, winces.
“I think so.” Eliza shrugs.
“Are you serious? Can you imagine how much that would frigging hurt?” Jessica is sitting at the stool icing cupcakes while my mom is mixing something in a bowl. They listen as Eliza relays the ins and outs of her new job.
“And what’s your new boss like?” Mom asks her.
“He’s really nice.” Eliza smiles. “Although, I got the wrong idea about him in the interview.”
“Why?” Jessica asks.
Eliza stops chopping. “He’s just really forward, and I kind of got the feeling that he liked me.”
What?
She goes back to chopping and shrugs. “But now I realize that he’s just super upfront and doesn’t mince his words. He has no mouth to brain filter at all, so if he thinks something, he just blurts it out.”
“What did he say that made you think that he liked you?” Mom asks.
“He told me that he didn’t think he could hire me because he found me attractive.”
What the fuck?
I step back from the door so I can listen, unnoticed. Who says that in an interview? I get a vision of strangling Henry fucking Morgan.
How dare he?
“What?” Mom splutters with a giggle. “That’s so inappropriate.”
Eliza laughs. “I know, right? I was so shocked at the time, but I know now that it was just a misunderstanding.”
Fury begins to pump through my veins.
“But I told him that Nathan was my boyfriend so he knows I’m not interested,” Eliza adds.
Mom laughs. “Oh, wouldn’t that be something? You and Nathan together. All of my prayers would be answered.”
Jessica laughs. “I’ll say, although being married to a plastic surgeon would have its perks, too. You could design your own body. What would you get done if you could have anything? Like, anything in the world. I think I’d have a nose job.”
“Oh, I’d get a boob lift, for sure,” Mom replies. “I’ve always wanted one.”
Their line of conversation moves onto plastic surgery and its horror stories, and I walk out into the back yard.
Henry Morgan likes her.
What the fuck? He likes her.
I knew it. I just want to punch something, hard.
“What’s wrong with you?” my brother Alex asks. “Looks like you want to kill someone.”
“It’s tempting.”
“Who’s tempting?” He laughs.
“You boys going to go into town and pick up that alcohol order for me?” Dad calls. “Can you swing by the rental place and pick up that extra canopy? I’m going to tack it on the side here. Rain is predicted for later tonight. It won’t take us long to get it up, and it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
“Yeah,” I call. “Okay, text me the address.”
Half an hour later, I’m sitting at the bar with Alex.
“What is it?” he asks.
“What’s what?” I sip my beer.
“What’s wrong with you?”
I shrug. He knows whenever something is wrong with me, usually before I do. He’s the only person I talk to, and he knows me better than anyone.
I can’t hide from him.
“Shit’s been going down.”
“What shit? ”
I shrug, I don’t want to say it out loud.
“Shit with Eliza?”
My eyes shoot to his. “What makes you say that?”
“You like her, don’t you?”
“She’s my friend.”
“Friends don’t watch their friends like you watch her.”
I frown. “How do I watch her?”
“I was watching you at breakfast—could almost read your mind. You want her, don’t you?”
I clench my jaw, angered that I didn’t hide it better. “I don’t know what the fuck is going on with me lately.” I sigh sadly.
“Why, what’s happened?”
“I don’t know, man.” I rub my forehead in frustration. “I’ve started having these… thoughts… about her.”
“Sexual?”
I nod.
“For how long?”
I exhale heavily. “A while ago things changed between us. But just lately I’ve got a raging boner every time I’m with her. It’s like I’m barely hanging on to control.”
“What did she say about it?”
“She doesn’t know. Fuck!” I widen my eyes. “Are you stupid?”
“What changed between you?”
I frown at him, not understanding the question.
“You said that a while ago that things changed between you, so what changed?”
I blow air into my cheeks. “A couple of months ago, I stopped having sex with other people.”
“Why?”
I shrug. “Didn’t feel right.”
He listens intently.
“But I didn’t realize at the time that it involved Eliza. Elliot thinks that I stopped having sex with people because I felt like I was betraying Eliza.”
“Who’s Elliot?”
“My therapist.”
His eyes widen. “You’re seeing a therapist?”
“I’m telling you, Alex, I’m fucked in the head over this. It’s messing with me, big time.”
“Well, what does the therapist say?”
“He thinks…” I pause as I try to articulate Elliot’s words, “that perhaps I was unconsciously trying to protect myself from getting hurt again, and it’s only recently that my body has caught up with my heart.”
He listens intently as he watches me. “Is that what you think?”
I shrug and take a gulp of my beer.
“You do love Eliza.” He offers an explanation.