Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 111732 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 559(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111732 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 559(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
He’s not wrong. Actually, no, correction. That’s what I used to do. Quite well, too. But that very thing is something I’ve been working on, with extreme diligence, during my lengthy dating hiatus. I’ve been figuring out who I really am and what I want. I’ve been figuring out why I’ve always been so addicted to male validation, and I’ve been weaning myself off the drug. And now, after all that hard work, this asshole thinks he knows me and everything about my present state of being?
“Wrong,” I say. “And stop calling me Sybil.”
“Is the kid’s father in the picture?” Max asks.
“No. I’m a single mother and always have been. Ripley’s de facto sperm donor is some rando in Prague whose last name I never even asked.”
“Lovely.”
“Fuck you. I was single and traveling the world and the condom broke. You’ve never had a one-night stand?”
Max rolls his eyes. “You know very well I have.”
“Then shut the fuck up.” I gesture to my daughter as she bops along with Gigi and chatters away. “That little girl is the best thing that’s ever happened to me and I’m not going to apologize for the way she got here. It was divine intervention, as far as I’m concerned.”
Max’s features soften. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Damn right, you shouldn’t have. It came off like you’re slut-shaming me, and that’s not something I’ll tolerate from you or anyone else.”
“Nor should you. Again, I apologize. I’m just . . .” He runs his hand through his hair. “I’m confused, I guess.”
“About what?”
The group has stopped in front of a painting, so we hang back in order to talk without being overheard. Max sighs. “We talked about a lot of things that night, remember? Personal things. It felt like we made a genuine connection. A deep one.”
“We did,” I concede, my cheeks burning. “Regardless, there was no reason to mention Ripley to you because I knew I’d never see you again. There wasn’t a chance in hell you’d ever want to become her daddy, so why tell you about her at all?”
He doesn’t dispute me. In fact, he’s nodding his agreement. “I see your point,” he says. “But I still think it was weird.”
“Think what you want. None of it matters now.”
Max gestures to our parents ahead of us. “When did you find out about this?”
“When I got here. Although I found out my acquaintance, Geraldine, was your mother when her face popped up on your phone today.”
Max furrows his brow. “That’s why you ran out on me today? Because you realized you’d fucked your yoga pal’s son?”
I look around. “Not so loud, Max. Please. Yes. It felt like a wakeup call that it was a mistake to fool around with you. Like the universe was telling me we’re a bad idea.”
The group in front of us walks to a sculpture, so Max and I amble behind, slowly, keeping our distance.
“Why is that, again?” Max says.
“Huh?”
“Why are we a bad idea?”
I look at him like he’s got a horn growing out of his forehead. “Because we want very different things.”
“Not in the short term. Seems like we both want exactly the same thing in the here and now. The best sex of both our lives.”
Well, he’s not wrong there. Before today, I would have sworn I’d left the feral side of me behind, thanks to all the hard work I’ve been doing on myself. But I can’t deny I wanted to get railed by this man the nano-second I laid eyes on him at Grayson’s party today. Nor can I deny he’s the best I’ve ever had.
Max looks around and then whispers, “Who cares if you’re semi-friendly with your fuck buddy’s mother? It’s irrelevant. By definition, fuck buddies aren’t someone you’d ever take home to meet the parents.”
“And thank God for that,” I mutter, suddenly imagining the hellish scenario of Max taking me home to meet his father.
Max says, “You didn’t need to bolt today—again—just because you saw your yoga pal’s face on my phone. That was a massive overreaction, Marnie.”
I glare at him. As a general rule, I don’t like being told I’m overreacting—especially “massively”—and especially when the person saying it to me is a man. In this instance, however, I can’t blame Max for thinking that, since he doesn’t have the faintest idea about the overall context at play here. What Max doesn’t know, and must never know, is that his mother’s face on his phone felt like the universe screaming at me, “Didn’t you hear me the last time, bitch? He’s off-limits to you!”
“Oh!” Gigi says in front of us. “Would you all mind if we go back to my painting and take some photos in front of it? I totally forgot to do that.”
The group says that’s a great idea, and off we go across the gallery. When we get to Gigi’s painting, everyone compliments her again, the same way we did before, and then we snap photos of her in front of her masterpiece.