Total pages in book: 53
Estimated words: 51427 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 257(@200wpm)___ 206(@250wpm)___ 171(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51427 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 257(@200wpm)___ 206(@250wpm)___ 171(@300wpm)
I tap the gas one more time.
She laughs like that’s a loony thought. “Of course not. That’s just mother’s intuition,” she says as I turn onto my new block. “I knew you got in okay because I’ve been tracking your location on Waze.”
“Mom!” I shriek. That explains so much. “I told you not to stalk me anymore!”
“What? Everyone does it,” she says as I scan the block of cottages for number 583.
“Everyone does not do it. Only helicopter moms do it.”
“That’s not true. Joanie tracks Mariana, Suzi tracks Taylor, and—”
“Helicopter moms,” I repeat as I hit the blinker, the cute metal numbers for 583 calling me home.
“Ellie, sweetheart. You shared your location with me on Waze. I saved it. So sue me.”
“I did that…years ago,” I sputter. I was home from college for the summer, and it was the only way she’d let me borrow her car to go out with that sexy, tatted guy I met at a club.
“And imagine how hard it was for me to track your whereabouts when you were in New York for the past five years, walking everywhere, never using Waze. Thank god I can do it again. You should be grateful,” she says, half teasing, half serious.
Wait. Make that all serious.
“I’m twenty-six, Mom.” I pull into the driveway and cut the engine. “You can turn off the propellers.”
“Ooh,” she says brightly. “I see you officially reached your destination.”
Are you kidding me? I stab the end drive button on my app, then turn it off. “Mom, that’s me turning off the Waze.”
“Don’t turn off the sharing,” she chides.
“Mom,” I warn as I swing open the driver’s side door. In record time, I unbuckle Gigi and grab her from the back seat, focused on getting the key from the lockbox and beelining to the little girls’ room.
“Enough about me, though,” Mom says as I wrestle with the lockbox where Maddox left the key. “Have you heard the news?”
That’s not foreboding at all. “What news?”
“It’s about Fabio’s List.”
I groan in frustration, forgetting completely about my need to pee.
As I start this new chapter of my life, the last thing I want is a reminder of all my romantic failures.
2
UNSPANKED
Gabe
Five minutes, then I’m leaving, even if it is my home.
With her hands parked on her hips, and her gray eyes shooting death rays of shame, shame, shame at me, my ex’s pissy big sister is building up a new head of steam. “Do you know how distraught my sister was by your freakish suggestion?” Jessica rants, pointing at the box of Brittany’s stuff on the coffee table.
Of course I know. Everyone in my condo building knows, thanks to Brittany’s ear-splitting outrage at my suggestion. Hell no, I don’t want you to spank me, you freak!
But I’m not going to engage now because I want my ex’s sister to get the hell out of my pad. At this rip-me-to-shreds rate, I’m going to be late for poker and my buds will bust my balls.
“Honestly, I expected more of you,” Jessica hisses, spewing more judgment at me. “You’re an adult. You should behave like a gentleman.”
“And your sister is a grown woman who said no and left here unspanked,” I say calmly, adding with a fake-ass smile, “So feel free to take her box and go.”
I wanted to say get the fuck out, but I didn’t. See? I am a gentleman.
Jessica grinds the spikes of her sling-back heels into my hardwood floor and glares at me, waggling a long black nail. “You should be ashamed.”
“Britt made that quite clear,” I say drily. My phone buzzes on the coffee table. It’s probably Drew, docking points for me being late. I deserve that.
“You’re thirty-six,” Jessica spews. “Thirty-six-year-old men don’t ask to spank their girlfriends.”
I could beg to differ. I could also point out all the shitty things Brittany said to me while we were together, but instead, I grab the box and thrust it at her sister, hustling her toward the door. “Thanks for coming by. Here’s the last of Brittany’s things. Her poodle mug, her comfort-food cookbook, and her favorite spatula,” I say.
“Good. I’m going to cook with her tonight to make her feel better.” She snatches the box. “She’s still devastated by your outrageous request.”
Jessica takes the box, then gasps, dropping it like it’s on fire. “Ew! So gross.”
“What?” I ask, eager to deal with her issue so I can get on with my evening.
With her mouth gaping, she points like the box is infected with…a spider? A snake?
I cross a few feet to the open box, then groan, annoyed when I see the issue.
A pair of silver gleaming handcuffs.
Jessica plucks the handcuffs out of the box with two disgusted fingers. “Brittany will not want these. You’re just embarrassing yourself!”
Embarrassed is right, but not for the reasons Jessica thinks.
Embarrassed because I’d bought these to give Brittany for her birthday coming up. I even got a pink bow to tie around them. I’d been gearing up, too, to finally tell her why I wanted to play around with handcuffs. What I hoped it could do for us. How it might even help our relationship.