Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 103102 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103102 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
And shit. He’s on his phone. Is he texting Lexi?
The music is not helping me keep his mind off her. The fact we’re in her car is bad enough. To also have her favorite music playing is not going to win me any battles here.
“How about Fleetwood Mac?” I say the first band that comes to mind. My favorite band. Because they were Mom’s favorite. And, hey, that’s not a sexy topic, either, but that’s okay. As long as I keep him distracted. “Could you stream it for me? My phone is in my purse.”
“Sure. What’s the password?”
“Lexi’s birthday.”
He takes my small black bag, finds my cell, unlocks it (of course he has her birthday memorized) and goes to work streaming.
“Rumours,” I suggest.
He laughs. “Really? You want to listen to Rumours?”
“Hey. What does that mean?”
“I’ve heard you play it a million times.” I can hear the smile in his voice as I focus on the road. He’s teasing me.
Fine. Good. Whatever keeps him occupied with things not Lexi.
“You hear it all the way across the backyard?” I ask.
“You played it loud enough, back in the day.”
“If you have bad taste, we can listen to something else.”
Again, he laughs.
“What’s so funny?”
“That’s a very Deanna Huntington sort of sentence.”
Okay… “How’s that?”
“If I don’t like what you like, I have bad taste.”
Ouch. “Not everything I like. But Rumours? Why not tell me you hate Casablanca?”
“You don’t?”
“Who could?” I ask.
“It’s not the best showing for women,” he says. “Especially not tough women.”
Damn. How does he know that I hate how much I love Casablanca exactly for those reasons?
It’s his grandma’s favorite movie—she babysat Lexi and me when we were kids, before River moved in. We spent our fair share of summer nights at his place, with his sister-cousins Fern and North, but we didn’t stay close as we got older—
Stop.
What am I doing here?
How is he the one distracting me now?
Focus.
“How about that music?” I ask.
Finally, River presses play.
The familiar guitar riff fills the air. Then the layered vocals. The tension in my shoulders eases.
I don’t know what I’m doing with him, I have no clue how this night is going to go, but I know how to listen to this. I know how to share its appeal.
He doesn’t latch onto the new topic, though. He goes right back to Lexi. “You think less of men who prefer a woman like your sister.” He places my cell in the hands-free claw.
“No. Never.”
He says nothing, but his I don’t believe you attitude spreads through the car.
And the silent pressure makes me feel like I should explain. Defend myself against an accusation he didn’t even make.
“I think less of men who see her as some sort of dumb blonde, yes. Or who think she’s easy.”
I have never judged her for sleeping around. I do wonder why she does it, what she gets out of it, how she could possibly find casual sex with men who don’t respect her empowering, but it’s not because I think she’s wrong. I understand it intellectually. After all, no one asks men who sleep around what they get out of it. We all know sex feels good, physically, and socially, too. She says that’s all it is. But I just, well, I can’t imagine sex with a stranger feeling that good. How often does any sex feel that good?
“I don’t think that about her,” he says. “I’ve never thought that about her.”
“I know.” I don’t want to talk about Lexi. Why do all the men in my life want to talk about her?
Really, I love my sister, I do. I just wish I could have a relationship with a man, any relationship, any man, that didn’t end up involving her somehow. But that’s impossible, because Lexi is such a big part of my life. And I wouldn’t want her out of my life. I just want the men in my life to see me as an individual, not as one half of a pair.
“This was my mom’s favorite.” I focus on the music, for his sake and mine. We both need a distraction from Lexi.
“I know it was.” Compassion slips into his voice. Or maybe it’s pity. I can never tell with people.
Thankfully, he doesn’t say I’m sorry you lost her or something way more horrible like everything happens for a reason.
He doesn’t say anything.
He listens to the song, in silence, until the next one starts. “What did she love about it?”
“The seventies were her thing.” I smile. “The bareness of the music, the confessional lyrics. That was her favorite part. Stevie Nicks turning her heartbreak to gold.”
“She was romantic about it?” he asks.
“It’s not romantic,” I say. “It’s bullshit. Why does a woman have to bare her soul to find success?”
“Maybe she wants to bare her soul.”
He would think that.
“Maybe that’s the only way she can understand her pain,” he adds.