Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 139147 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 139147 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
Update times two: Tonight wasn’t the night for us to go there with intimacy, mostly because I was seriously buzzed. Cap whipped up an insanely good pasta salad for the party (one could just say Lucia would approve of his ability to balance with acid), and I made a batch of my sangria.
Yes, I wasn’t much of a sex-on-your-period person (though, I could make exceptions, but not normally for the first time).
Mostly, I wanted a clear head and to be totally into the moment when that happened with Cap.
Anyway, I was getting off solely on this getting-to-know-you time. It felt like the more we had, the deeper the meaning would be when we went there.
So I was waiting for my instincts to tell me when that time came.
We’d made out a little, and it was awesome, but Cap, as promised, added no pressure.
So we were cuddling and chatting when Cap announced, “He’s biding his time.”
“What?”
“Jacob.”
I got up on a forearm and looked down at him, even if it was dark. My blinds were open and I could see him through the streetlights and moonlight.
“Really?” I asked excitedly.
“Absolutely. He’s got some notches he wants to score into his belt. He’s not ready to settle and commit, which is where he’s gonna take it with her.”
My excitement died a fiery death.
“That’s messed up,” I stated heatedly. “She can’t pine for him forever. What if she finds someone in the meantime? Also, him parading his women in front of her is uncool. Also to the also, him dallying with other women when he’s into Alexis is totally uncool.”
“I didn’t say what he was doing was cool. I said he was into her, he’s just not ready to take it there, because he cares about her, and he’s not gonna involve her in his life while he’s sorting out whatever he’s gotta sort out in his head before he gets serious.”
I flopped back to the bed on an, “Argh.”
Cap curled his arm around me and pulled me closer. “She ever bring a guy to one of your things?”
I shook my head. “No. Honestly, she’s all about Jacob.”
He nodded. “Yeah. And just to say, if she finds someone, that shit he’s gotta sort out is gonna get sorted real fuckin’ quick. He’s the kind of man who would put up with what he’s making her put up with for about a second. He’ll move in the minute she shows in the courtyard for one of your parties with a guy at her side.”
“He does strike me as a bit of a caveman,” I noted. “A part-time stoner caveman, but a caveman all the same.”
There was humor in Cap’s, “You’d be right.”
He then gave me a slight shake before he launched into some education.
“I think women look at men like him and see what he wants you to see, not what he’s hiding. It isn’t that Martha has no filter. Martha’s a fucking genius. Because, my guess, Jacob thinks Alexis is too good for him. That’s what he’s gotta sort out in his head. It isn’t right, but he doesn’t even know this man-whore shit he has going on is serving double duty to prove to himself he’s got a big enough dick to swing around, but also prove it to Alexis. And what Martha did was pump him up at the same time she was telling him he’d be the low swing for Alexis, when he isn’t. Martha knows that. But she also knows he thinks he is. In other words, they’d match, fit. They’d work. He could do his thing for Alexis in a different way and keep her up on the pedestal he’s put her on. And he’ll do that the minute he figures out what Martha gave me shit about and insulted Jacob’s woman in order to tell him. He’s what Alexis needs. They’re gonna work.”
I saw this.
So I breathed, “Oh my God. That is genius.”
“Yeah.”
“But…why do men play games like that?”
He laughed softly then said, “Baby, the same powers that be that make women think they gotta put on makeup and be the ones to take the calls from school and leave work and deal while their man does his thing, are the powers that tell men we gotta provide and protect and have big dicks to swing around. It’s insidious. It’s ingrained in you before you even know someone is implanting it. Until we get to the point where women who want to wear makeup wear it, and women who don’t, don’t, and men realize they’re just as responsible for dealing with what’s happening at school as their woman is, and if they leave work, it’s no hit to their manhood, we gotta navigate these games.”
He was so right.
Again.
I pressed closer, asking, “How did you get so smart?”
“Wait until you meet Shirleen,” he murmured. “And Jules. Indy. Jet. Ally. Ava. Roxie. Sadie. Daisy. And Stella.”