Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 98345 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 492(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98345 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 492(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
“I don’t think I would have turned Vivienne down and rubbed it in her face that I’ve already moved on, but it’s better this way. Now, no one is under any assumptions that the relationship will be restored.”
“Hold on.” I put my hand out like a police officer directing traffic. “What do you mean about the moving on part?”
“Sienna brought you up, and Vivienne was curious.”
My eyes practically bug out of my head. I knew Sienna brought me up in front of Vivienne. But I didn’t know Phillip spoke about me! That’s different! “What did you tell her?”
I must know, but Phillip doesn’t answer. He kicks off his shoes by the door—a gentleman—and then starts to peel out of his jacket.
My mind immediately goes to the gutter. My eyes are on a slow descent down to his crotch. “I thought you said we weren’t getting it on. Have my chances improved?”
I think my dancing eyebrows will surely win him over, so I’m shocked when he still shakes his head. “Not tonight. Come sit down with me, will you?”
“Can I change into my pajamas first?”
“Yeah. Go.”
By the time I walk back into the living room in a cute matching pajama set (the only one I own and only because I found it on sale at Target, stuffed in a clearance bin), Phillip’s sitting on my couch. Because someone gave him the exact script on how to make me fall in love with him, he has poured me a fresh glass of water and dug around in the snacks near the minibar. There’s an assortment of candy and chips laid out on the table for us to share. All kinds of junk that immediately has my mouth watering.
I sit down to peruse my bevy of options and go for candy first. Wild, considering everyone knows that the snack pattern goes salty, then sweet, salty, then sweet ad infinitum. It almost feels sacrilegious to do it the other way around. I pop a few M&M’s in my mouth, then hand the bag to Phillip. Then I go for chips. We swap the M&M’s for the chips, then vice versa. And it’s somehow accomplished without a single word until we finish both bags.
Then we reach for our waters in sync, meet eyes, and laugh.
“You’re something else,” I chide him, and boy, does that phrase have a hundred meanings. It lets me say so much with so little, and Phillip gets it. He understands what I’m withholding out of fear, and he’s not scared of the magnitude of it. He welcomes it.
After I set my glass down, I settle back against him. I’m sick of the distance between us, even if it was only a few inches.
I lean my head against his shoulder, and the back of his pointer finger eases along the slope of my shoulder, ostensibly so he can brush my hair back, but all I feel are a thousand sparks lighting me up from the inside. He makes me feel this much anguish with a single touch. It’s heart wrenching to feel this strongly for someone I know will exist in my life as a sentence, not a chapter.
“I told Vivienne”—his finger stills—“that in some ways, important ways, I feel for you in seven days what I never felt for her in two years.”
I squeeze my eyes closed against his confession.
He turns me so we’re chest to chest, my legs draped over his, as if he’s trying to shield me. I bury my face against his chest, inhaling his scent, wishing he didn’t feel like home. I haven’t known that feeling in so long, not since my last big bear hug from my grandmother. To me, peace is a sensation more dangerous than lust.
“I didn’t tell her that to belittle our relationship,” Phillip continues, “or try to rewrite history. Vivienne was a wonderful partner and a good friend. I’d never want to hurt her, but I needed to explain to her why I was sticking to our breakup. I needed her to know the truth so that it’d be easier for her to walk away.” He makes me look at him. “You have to understand the way we operated. You know my personality. Now imagine my dream partner.”
I sit up (literally rising to the challenge) and smile as I tick personality traits off my fingers. “Easygoing, slow to anger, intelligent . . . hmm, you love being in charge, so I’d bet she needs to be deferential too.”
He chuckles. “You just described Vivienne to a T.”
A laugh bursts out of me. “And you’re here with me? Oh my god, quick.” I wave my hand frantically. “Get your phone and call her up right now because I will never, not in a million years, be that to you. Wait. God. I bet she’s one of those women who would also gladly cook you dinner every night wearing high heels and a nightie. Phillip! I don’t even own a nightie!”