Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 102781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 514(@200wpm)___ 411(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 514(@200wpm)___ 411(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
Madison set down her wine glass. “Back up. You met Andrew for dinner? I didn’t get a midnight call or early morning visit the next day. And now we’ve been through drinks and appetizers and this was never mentioned?”
I sighed. “Yeah. It’s a long story.”
She pushed her side of mashed potatoes around with her fork. “My food was delivered cold anyway. Start at the beginning.”
I ran her through Andrew asking me to meet, him rubbing my arm at the hotel restaurant while telling me how much he missed me, but then him also backing up as fast as he could when I asked point blank if he was saying he wanted to be together again. I also filled her in on Bennett’s thoughts on what Andrew wanted before I went and how he’d showed up to pick up the pieces.
Madison tapped a fingernail to her lips. “So basically you’re saying Bennett’s an asshole to women, so he’s able to foresee what other asshole men are after?”
“I guess. But the thing that doesn’t reconcile is, if he’s such an asshole to women, why would he try to warn me about Andrew and then be there for me when everything he’d warned me about came true? An asshole wouldn’t care what happened to me before or after. He should’ve been saying I told you so the next day at work instead of letting me talk through things that night.”
The waiter came by and asked how our meals were. Madison would normally send subpar food back to see how the restaurant handled it, and then give them another chance if they acted professionally. But instead, she fake smiled to the waiter, saying dinner was fine, and ordered another bottle of wine. I had a feeling our discussion was sidetracking her assessment at the moment.
“Sounds like Bennett might have Beast syndrome,” she said.
“Beast syndrome?”
“All men fit into one Disney character or another. That guy I went out with a few months ago who had three video game consoles and hung out with his friends five nights a week? Peter Pan syndrome. Remember last year I dated a guy who told me he was the VP of Finance for a tech company, only to find out he worked in customer service taking orders? Pinocchio syndrome. That gorgeous French guy I went out with who wanted to do it in his bathroom in front of the mirror so he could look at himself? Gaston.”
I chuckled. “You’re nuts. But I’ll bite. What’s Beast syndrome? Because Bennett is gorgeous, not beastly.”
“Beast syndrome is when a man constantly roars at you to scare you away. Perhaps he was less than magnanimous in his early days, which he thinks defines who he’s forever banished to be. So he tries to keep people from getting too close. But he’s not really the villain he thinks he is, and every once in a while, a peek of the prince underneath shines through. That usually just makes him roar louder.”
“So…like, he was a player, and now he thinks he always needs to be that guy instead of a nice guy?”
Madison shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe he was mean to an old beggar woman. I don’t know the reason, but it sounds like he’s afraid that showing too much of his underlying prince will cause him to get hurt.”
“I’m not so sure about that. But I do know it’s time I move on from Andrew.”
“I couldn’t agree more. He’s been stringing you along for years now—claiming you guys couldn’t move in together because he couldn’t have distractions while writing his dumb book for three years. Then when the book was finished, he wasn’t ready to move on because he’d fallen into a depression because the book didn’t do as well as he’d hoped. Guess what? Life sucks. We all have disappointments. You know what we do? We get drunk for a week, then dust ourselves off and get back to work and try harder, not dump the person we love.”
“You’re right. I’ll always love Andrew. But things have changed from what we had in college and after graduation. He’s not the same happy, spontaneous person he used to be, and he hasn’t been in a long time. I guess I was holding out that he’d magically go back to being the guy who used to show up at my place with a bottle of wine and surprise me with a weekend at a bed and breakfast.”
Madison reached forward and covered my hand with hers. “I’m sorry, babe. But on the bright side, maybe the next guy will be more into oral.”
I sighed. The night after Andrew told me he needed a break, I’d gotten way too drunk and spilled my guts on some private things—namely, that Andrew only went down on me on my birthday. When I’d tried to talk about it with him, he’d said he just needed to be in the mood. Apparently, that mood never struck.