Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 122506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
But in the moment, I was just unhinged. Crazed. “Hell hath no fury” and all that. Even later, when I found myself accompanied in the coat closet, the experience felt unreal. Like an out-of-body experience, almost.
“You didn’t hear anything about it by any chance, did you?” I ask, meeting his gaze finally.
Fin shakes his head. Pissed on my behalf, he’s all dark, stormy eyed and tense jawed.
I try not to like his reaction too much.
“It was just a theory,” I say with a small shrug. “A brief theory, but none of the guests can have seen or heard, really. It was after dinner, so most of them were already smashed.”
“Were you hoping you could patch things up? That he’d change his mind, maybe?”
“God, no. We’d been over for a few weeks at that point. I wasn’t grieving him, because I’d already begun to examine how he’d manipulated me.” How I’d misconstrued his behavior for love in the beginning and how it had just become the norm. How stupidly willing I was to overlook all that just because I didn’t want to be alone. No friends, barely any family, and lurking at the back of my mind was the realization that, once Baba left the world, I’d have no one. I shiver as though something unpleasant has just scuttled down my spine. Death is a part of life, but that doesn’t mean I want to think about it.
“Good,” he says. “I’m glad.”
“It took a little distance to truly see, but in that moment, I was so angry. How fucking dare he? After my outburst, I just wasn’t in the mood to deal with a wedding and all that outpouring of love.”
“Drunken or otherwise,” Fin puts in with a sad smile.
“Exactly. The wedding was over, but for sore heads and next-day regrets. So I swiped a bottle of champagne and hid in the coat closet where no one would find me.”
“No one but me.”
I give in to a small smile. “You were the highlight of my night.” And I’d been living on that memory since.
“And the dread of it when I turned up here again.”
“I thought I’d hidden my feelings quite well.”
At this, he laughs.
“It’s strange how things turn out sometimes.”
“And sometimes, though they hurt, they turn out for the best in the end.”
“I suppose. The night we broke up, Adam said he loved me but that he wasn’t in love with me.”
Fin grimaces. Such a terrible cliché.
“I asked him why he’d proposed when he didn’t love me, how he could let me plan my wedding. But he just kept banging on about how he’d been lying to himself. No mention of lying to me. Or even an apology.” I roll my suddenly tense shoulders, my anger rising like a spark from a tinderbox.
Enough. I can’t believe I just spewed all my personal ick. My deepest, darkest secrets. How I was taken in by Adam for all those years.
“Story time over.” I give a brittle-feeling smile. I sit straighter in my chair and try to decipher Fin’s expression. There’s sadness and, urgh, pity. “You don’t have anything to add?” I ask lightly. “No quip to make me laugh?” Please make me laugh. “Maybe you’d like to offer me a quick shag, just so I can kick you under the table?”
“You can kick me if it makes you feel better.”
My heart plummets, and tears suddenly prickle.
“Your ex isn’t just a manipulative asshole. He’s fucking cruel.”
I grab my napkin and twist it between my fingers, forcing back the ball of emotion creeping up my throat. “I bet you can’t believe we’re having this conversation. I know I can’t. I feel a bit like a geyser—not a geezer,” I amend in my version of Cockney patois. “This is the first time I’ve really talked about it. With anyone.”
“We can talk about it for as long as you want.”
“Why are you so nice?”
His face. It’s like I’ve insulted him.
“What’s wrong with nice?”
“It’s what every man wants to hear.” His reply sounds like a roll of the eyes. He rocks back in his chair and stretches, clasping his hands to the back of his head.
“I’m sorry. Did I tweak your masculine sensibilities with a compliment?”
“Nice is not a compliment.”
“Yes, it is. Being called nice is nice. I like it when someone says I’m—”
“Nice? No, honeybuns. Nice means you can’t come up with anything more positive. And I know you can.” His eyes move hotly over me.
“Nice is good,” I protest as my heart begins to canter.
“So I’m nice?”
“That’s what I said, didn’t I?”
“Nice what? Nice looking? I have nice manners? Nice teeth? A nice cock?”
“You’re nice when you’re not talking,” I retort.
“How about this for an entirely nice proposition?” His voice is all husk and gravel suddenly.
I hold up my finger—pause, please—reach for my glass, and drain it. Something tells me I might need it. “Go on.”