Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 79798 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79798 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
“You shouldn’t assume.”
“In this case, the assumption is right.”
“I was with her one night and asked why she ended things with you. She didn’t mention me at all.”
He gripped his skull like he was frustrated. “Of course she didn’t mention you. You think she’s just going to look you in the eye and say she wants your nuts in her mouth?”
“Tucker.” I didn’t care if he talked about other women like that, but not Cleo.
He sighed. “That’s not how people are, Deacon. She’s not going to tell you the truth.”
“She always tells me the truth.”
“This isn’t the same thing. She probably thinks you don’t feel the same way, so why would she just blurt that out? It would be embarrassing and incredibly awkward. You aren’t just some guy she can avoid if this goes south. You’re her boss. You get what I’m saying?”
I swirled the remaining liquid in my beer just so I had something to do with my hands.
“Just talk to her. She’ll feel the same way. I promise you.”
I stared down at my beer.
“You can pick up an endless line of random women at the bar, but you can’t ask out one particular woman?”
“It’s not the same.” I lifted my gaze and looked at him.
“Yeah, it’s easier.”
“When I bring a woman home, it’s just sex. That’s all I want. But I can’t have that with Cleo…”
He narrowed his eyes in confusion. “I assumed you didn’t want that with Cleo anyway. It seems like you both want more.”
I shook my head. “I’ve only been divorced for five months…”
“So?”
“I don’t want to be in a relationship again.”
He sighed quietly.
“It was the worst shit I’ve ever had to go through, even worse than losing Dad, because it was five years of fucking torture. I was never happy—not once.”
“Deacon, it’s not the same thing.”
I shook my head. “She took half my money—which she didn’t even earn. She destroyed my research when I didn’t give her what she wanted. She threw a fucking plate at my head because I didn’t answer a simple question, and I got a goddamn concussion…”
He turned quiet, his eyes falling.
“There were times when I wished she’d get in a car accident and never come home…” I felt guilty for wishing that on anyone, especially the mother of my child, but she made my life a living hell.
“Fuck that shit.” My voice rose louder because I lost control. “Why the fuck would I want to do that again? I’m happy with my life right now. It’s the first time I’ve been happy in half a goddamn decade. And you think I should just get into another relationship after that shitshow? Five months after I got divorced?”
He was quiet, letting me vent.
I stared at the table and let my breathing slowly return to normal. Maybe I was in a bad mood because my mother would be there that evening. Or maybe it was a moment of catharsis, to share some of the memories of my marriage that I tried so hard to forget. Tucker had known I wasn’t happy, but he never knew the details…because I never told anyone.
He watched me for a while. “I’m sorry, man. I didn’t know it was that bad.”
“I stayed for Derek until I couldn’t do it anymore.” I remembered the night I left so clearly. “She cheated on me and then screamed at me for being a piece-of-shit husband. So, she took my Nobel Prize and threw it over the fence. I spent the entire night searching for it with a flashlight. When I found it, I packed my shit and left.”
His hand remained around his beer, and he looked at me with sadness in his eyes, like it hurt him to know I’d been tortured like that, disrespected.
“My second-greatest accomplishment…thrown over the fucking fence…when that bitch cheated on me.”
“What’s the first?” he whispered.
“Derek.”
His eyes softened.
“So, no, I don’t want to be in a relationship. And I can’t just have a one-night stand with Cleo. Therefore, I can’t have anything with her. So, I choose to be her friend…and nothing more.”
“I mean, she might be down with a one-night stand…”
Even if she was, I didn’t want it. “That’s not how I feel about her.” It wasn’t because I wasn’t attracted to her, because I was…immensely. But that seemed like a slap in the face to the kind of relationship we had and how much she meant to me. She wasn’t some random woman I picked up in a bar. And if I had her once…I’d want her again.
Tucker stared at me for a while, as if he were trying to read my expression. “You’re right. Maybe it is too soon. You’ve been burned pretty bad, worse than I realized. I understand why you aren’t interested in that right now.”
About fucking time.
“But you’re comparing a toxic relationship to a healthy one. I don’t know Cleo as well as you do, but I can promise she’s nothing like Valerie. She would never treat you like that.”