Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 69352 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69352 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
He paused and listened for a long moment, then he shook his head as he said, “Dorie, I wasn’t born yesterday.”
He listened a little longer, then frowned, pulling the phone away from his face.
“Let me ask you something,” he said, his eyes coming down to me. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but if you last had sex with someone three months ago, it wouldn’t net you a pregnancy that’s only five weeks along, right?”
I blinked. “Um, no. That’s not how it works.”
“Thought so.” He turned the phone onto speaker and said, “Dorie, I realize you’re trying to help this kid of yours, but I’m not that man.”
“It’s your kid,” she declared for a fourth time.
“You’re five weeks along. We haven’t had sex in three months. I’m sorry to break it to you, but that’s not how biology works,” he said. “I even asked a woman. She has all those same parts. She agrees with me, too.”
“Who is she?” she hissed, sounding pissed now.
Cutter’s devastatingly brown eyes came to me as he said, “She’s beautiful. You’d probably hate her.”
Beautiful.
I blushed profusely.
He was being awfully nice…
“I’ll bet she’s hideous,” she snarled. “Does she know that you’re cheating on me?”
“Dorie,” he said patiently, “I’m going to explain a few things to you very carefully. One, we broke up. Two, we were never serious. Three, I always used condoms, and you were on birth control. Four, if you’re five weeks along, that means that you fucked someone…”
He proceeded to give the best biology lesson he could ever give.
He was very knowledgeable, and I couldn’t stop the smile that lit my face at his explanation into how the female reproductive cycle worked.
After a bit more screeching, he said, “I’m blocking you now. Have a nice life.”
Then he hung up.
He shoved his phone back into his pocket, and it immediately started to vibrate.
Instead of reaching for it, he turned to me and said, “I have a few questions to ask you about the bathrooms.”
I followed him to the bathroom, still thoroughly embarrassed about what he’d likely heard me doing in my office.
“All right, Go. Tell me which one of these is the men’s bathroom. Then tell me if you’re going to have a urinal in it or not.”
I scrunched up my nose. “I’d planned on putting the men’s bathroom farther down the hall. I hate when I have to walk all the way down long hallways that are dark. It’s scary for women. And…urinals? Why would I put a urinal in?”
He looked at me like I was adorable, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.
He then went on to explain the importance of urinals, and before I could stop myself, I blurted, “If you’d put one in, I’d better go with your professional opinion.”
He winked, and I reacted with a start.
He pushed into the men’s bathroom and said, “You’re cute.”
“What does ‘Go’ mean?” I asked to satisfy my earlier curiosity as he pulled out his tape measure.
He’d called me ‘Go Go’ last night, too.
I remembered it specifically because it was an odd thing to call me in the middle of a breakdown.
“Hold that, would you?” he requested as he gestured to the tip of the tape measure.
I caught it with my fingers and stood awkwardly.
“Hold it up against the wall,” he instructed.
I did, giving him the best hold job I’d ever done in my life.
When he was finished, he turned and indulged me, “Go. Indigo. The color of your eyes.”
Then he left me standing there in the bathroom, feeling…weirdly warm.
The first thing I did when I got back to my office was text my best friend.
Me:
I have the most embarrassing story to tell you about the man that’s making my cabinets and me. Are we still on for our long run tomorrow?
Not everyone is going to think you’re amazing, gorgeous and magical. They’re wrong, though. Dickheads.
—Milena’s secret thoughts
MILENA
Me:
Hey, I’m running like two minutes late. I forgot where I put my shoes. Don’t start without me!
No response.
I didn’t waste time after sending the text.
Instead, I hurried out the door and to my car, heading to the front entrance of the lake where Hazel and I usually started our long run.
She hadn’t answered my text yesterday, but honestly, I hadn’t expected her to after I’d seen her social media story.
I’d happened to be stalking some random woman on Instagram and Facebook and had seen her story about being out with some girls from her office.
One of those girls was my girl. My best friend.
Hazel had been doing that a lot lately.
In fact, it’d been so long since we’d done anything more than run together that I was starting to get a complex.
Not to mention, any time I texted her, she either replied hours later, or didn’t reply at all.
I didn’t like the sick feeling it was leaving in my stomach, either.