Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 97466 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97466 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
“Jesus, Hugh. I don’t want you to have to lie to me because you think I’m worried about you—”
“That’s not what happened. I didn’t set out to lie. I wanted to bring a date to your party because of Jared and the Curriers. I didn’t want to show up alone and have them all feeling sorry for me. So I was going to bring Rafa, but then he canceled, and I… I was a little desperate. I called Oscar, even though we hadn’t talked in months, and he agreed to come, as a friend. But then… it just… it became more. Like, from the first minute. And he suggested we pretend to be together, and I figured why not? but then his brother was there, so he sort of had to keep pretending, and I agreed to attend brunch at his mother’s house as his boyfriend—”
“He had to?” Abby interrupted. “Did he though?”
I squirmed. “Well. Sort of? Yes. And they naturally asked if I’d be attending his sister’s wedding on New Year’s Eve in Vermont as his date—”
“Naturally.” She snorted.
“And since we were going to, uh, do the fake-boyfriend thing again so soon, we sort of decided to… just… pretend for the month.”
“That’s… unbelievable.” Surprisingly, her lips twitched. “Literally. You mean to tell me that for the past six weeks, you’ve been living a lie?”
I nodded, miserable.
“So when I called you a couple weeks ago and the two of you were cuddled on the sofa doing a jigsaw puzzle and teasing each other like a couple of the old ladies at Grandma Currier’s nursing home… that was fake?”
“Well, I… I mean, yes,” I admitted. “Essentially.”
“Damn.” She shook her head. “And when you told me he called in a favor with a friend to get you reservations at that exclusive dessert restaurant with the gold-flaked, gooey chocolate thing, that was all an act? The photos looked so real.”
I frowned. “I mean, no. Roscoe’s is real. And the cake is very real. And we were really there. But…”
Abby lowered her voice to a horrified whisper and leaned toward me. “And the sex? Are you faking the orgasms too?”
“No!” I exclaimed, shoving her shoulder gently. “Abigail Currier! Obviously, that’s real.”
She grinned, but her grin quickly faded. “It’s pretty obvious that your feelings are real too.”
I sniffed. “How can you tell?”
“Your face is still wet from tears.” She ran a thumb across my cheek. “So you want Oscar, but you’re worried he doesn’t feel the same way, is that it? You think he’s faking how he’s feeling? Because, Hugh, that’s just not—”
“No! No, it’s the exact opposite.” I fiddled with the edge of the throw blanket on the back of the sofa so I wouldn’t have to meet her eyes. “I think he might feel the same way I do, but he… he won’t let it be real. He won’t admit that it is. He’s keeping that wall up—”
“His toxic-torture wall?”
I nodded, then swallowed through a throat thickened from deep emotion. “I get it. He’s scared. I am too. But I really thought this was it, Abs. That he was The One. I feel it like… like I feel when I’ve taken the perfect shot. I can feel it in my chest. In my heart. In my bones. So I’ve tried to persevere, you know? To approach him like an animal with a hurt paw and let him know he’s safe with me. To show him, over the last few weeks, how good the two of us could be together if he’d just let me into his heart all the way. I just… I don’t know if I can keep doing that because the clock is ticking down, and if he doesn’t want me enough to try…” I shuddered out a breath, unable to complete the sentence.
Rafa had already mentioned the idea of taking a trip in January. A wild weekend away, he called it. He’d made it sound like it was something he needed—a way to recover from a Grindr hookup gone wrong or something—but I’d recognized the offer for what it was: a way to distract me from my broken heart now that all things Shonda Rhimes were laden with Oscar-related memories.
“I don’t want to pressure him when he’s made it clear he doesn’t want what I want,” I continued bravely. “I want to be a better friend to him than that. And deep down, Abs, I know it’s not supposed to be this hard. If it was right, if Oscar was meant to be my happily ever after, it would be easy.” I tapped the picture of her and Dex. “Like this. Pure happiness, zero struggle. Like a key in a lock.”
Abby laughed. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Hugh. You’re such a damn romantic.”
The words were an ice-water shock after her warm sympathy from a moment ago. I drew myself up straighter in my seat and lifted my chin. “That’s not an insult, you know. Being romantic isn’t a bad thing.”