Total pages in book: 161
Estimated words: 154890 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154890 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
“You’re welcome.”
Honestly, I still don’t know whether to consider Lavender’s phone call a blessing or a curse. As much as I want to fuck Mimi, something tells me it would’ve been one night of pleasure followed by many more of grief because more and more lately, I keep remembering the last time I was with Connor.
I’d been in the States on business but had made time to catch up with him. On a whim, we’d headed to Utah to climb in Moab. If there’s anything that’ll get you thinking about the smallness of your existence, it’s spending a couple of days in a red rock canyon, hanging from a piece of sandstone sculpted by millennia of rain and wind. You want to contemplate your mortality? Be sure to rappel down a couple of vertical cliff faces while you’re there. Want to kick back after finding joy in surviving? Head from Utah to Vegas, which is exactly what we did.
Our weekend of debauchery began with a steak followed by a few drinks, which had then turned to getting laid, the peacocks that we were. Needless to say, neither of us had gone to our hotel rooms alone. But at breakfast the following morning, Connor had seemed unusually pensive.
“If anything happens to me, look after Mimi, would you?” he asked out of the blue.
I’d barely looked up as I’d worked my way through my omelet. “Why not. What’s one more sister added to the pile,” I’d replied.
“At least your sisters have each other. If anything happens to me, Mimi will be all alone.”
“Are your parents also kicking the bucket in this scenario? Did you all die in the same car wreck? Maybe a grand piano or a supersized anvil fell on your heads.”
“Fuck, man. I know it sounds weird, but I just feel like, a girl like her needs someone to look out for her. Someone to make sure she doesn’t end up with some dick.” He’s swung a finger between us. Like us, he’d meant.
“Speak for yourself,” I’d muttered, reaching for my coffee. But then I realized he wasn’t laughing along with me. “What’s brought this on?”
“I don’t know.” He wiped his mouth with the napkin then tossed it down. “It’s just, that girl last night was kind of sweet.” He hunched forward in his chair. “I can’t think of Mimi—”
“Then don’t,” I’d retorted, horrified. I had three times the number of sisters he did. I couldn’t afford to think of them as women with potential sex lives and all that entailed. I’d suffered a hard enough time when Heather met Archer. I was happy for them when he proposed, but it didn’t stop the urge to punch him in the face whenever he touched her.
“I mean it,” he’d insisted. “My parents have no fucking clue what the world is like, and Mimi is so—”
“Young,” I’d put in. I hadn’t seen her for a while at this point. In my head, she was still the kid with white-blond pigtails and legs like pale toothpicks. “There’s loads of time before you start tying yourself up in knots.”
“She’s such an innocent. She’s kind and too sweet for her own damn good.” His words choked off, his expression flickering with something akin to pain.
I’d bit my tongue against saying that’s what we all like to think.
Jesus Christ, what would he say if he saw me last night? He’d doubtless want to rip off my head.
“Fine.” I’d put my coffee cup down and folded my arms across my chest. “I’ll do it.” It was not like he was dying anytime soon, right? He was just hungover and regretting his choice of pussy.
“I mean it. No one like me, right?”
“Scout’s honor,” I’d said, giving him an ironic salute.
“Or you.”
“Fucking charming!” I’d laughed.
“Aren’t you gonna ask me to look after your sisters?” He’d stretched in his chair. He’d seemed satisfied or at least lighter in his mood.
“That feral lot?” I’d asked with a huff. “I like you too much to saddle you with them.”
It wasn’t a declaration signed in blood, and he didn’t specifically mention me by name. Just someone like me. And who is most in the world like me? Me, obviously. But I reckon he’d include El and Brin in the same category.
I drag my mind from the past as my phone buzzes again.
I guess I’ll see you on Monday.
I don’t respond because fuck bro code, a decent man wouldn’t screw his best friend’s kid sister no matter what.
After Lavender takes a cab home, I go for a run through Hyde Park to clear my head. The early evening rolls around, and I contemplate ordering Thai in when Brin and Primrose, the baby of our family, appear in the kitchen.
“Oh, Thai food. Yummy!” Prim claps her hand like a cute performing seal.
“I’m having Thai,” I say, taking the menu back. “In peace, if I’m lucky.”