Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 68309 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68309 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
The ones with more money than God, who’ve never known what it’s like to go to bed with a growling stomach or to use the same backpack five years in a row at school. He’ll never know the satisfaction of organic ambition, of wanting to rise from the ashes and become a self-made man.
I don’t fault him for it—we can’t help the families we’re born into or the cards we’re dealt.
We are who we are.
And at least he’s doing something with his life, even if it involves traveling to exotic places to throw his money at the less fortunate. I imagine it makes him feel better. I hope it puts things into perspective.
I’m happy for my sister though. I’m relieved she’ll never have to want for anything in her life—and she’s got a guy who gets dreamy-eyed every time she walks in the room.
We weren’t born with silver spoons. We were born with rusty, tetanus-infected nails to parents who shunned the word “love” and screamed at one another so often the neighbors would call the cops just to make sure no one was getting murdered.
I suppose, in some ways, Luke is the antithesis of everything Claire was taught about love. He’s gentle with her. I’ve never heard him raise his voice … not with her or with anyone. Every time he looks at her, he’s got stars for eyes. And the man can’t take his hands off her for more than two seconds at a time, always brushing her hair out of her eyes or slipping his arm around her shoulders when they walk.
I’d be suffocated with someone like that.
But not Claire.
He makes her happy. And he’s good to her.
We should all be so lucky.
“Oh, we didn’t cheers!” Claire lifts her half-empty cocktail in my direction. Luke does the same. I swear those two are in full synchronicity ninety-five percent of the time.
I lift my glass against theirs. We drink in unison.
Scanning the room, I spot a handsy couple to my left. A bickering couple to my right. And a table full of middle-aged married couples on some kind of quadruple date.
I’ve never believed in love, never loved anyone, never wanted or needed or so much as considered pursuing anything remotely in that vein—but lately I wonder if there’s something everyone else knows that I don’t.
The only kind of love I’d consider would be the kind that knocks me to my knees and fills me with that indescribable fullness I get any time I think of the woman from the dream. I don’t know what actual love feels like, but I can only imagine it feels something like that.
“I want to set you up with this new girl who moved into my building.” Claire wears a twinkle in her eyes, and she squares her shoulders as she slicks her palms together.
“Hard pass.” I exhale, ears tuned into the still-bickering couple. It would appear they’re fighting over finances. If it were an appropriate thing to do, I’d slip them a business card as, clearly, they’ll be needing my services in the near future. Sex and money are the top reasons people split. Speaking from professional experience, if the two of them don’t rush home after this and have steamy makeup sex, their marriage is fucked.
“Her name is Hannah,” Claire continues. “She’s an accountant. She just moved here from Idaho. And she’s super, super nice.”
“You also claimed Lexie was super, super nice.” I shoot her a look, dropping the name of the woman she tried to fix me up with several years back—the woman who tried to fucking trap me with a fake pregnancy when she sensed I was pulling away. And I was pulling away … because she was batshit-fucking-crazy. Things were fine at first … but they started going downhill the day I caught her going through my phone when I stepped out of the room. The next day, I caught her spraying my cologne on her clothes before she left one morning. I later found out she took it upon herself to make a copy of my apartment key without permission so she could hang out at my place while I was at work because she “missed” me. Six months after I ended things with her, she tried hacking into one of my social media accounts. And when that didn’t work, she messaged every attractive female on my friends’ lists and spread malicious lies about me. After slapping her with a cease-and-desist and threat of a restraining order, I shut down all of my accounts and haven’t looked back since.
“In my defense, Lexie was really good at acting normal.” Claire rolls her eyes. “But Hannah is really sweet. Promise.”
“No.” I take another drink. The fighting couple are attempting to settle their bill with their server, only now the two of them refuse to make eye contact. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say makeup sex isn’t in the cards tonight.