Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 97994 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 490(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97994 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 490(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
My friend’s eyes get wide. “That is an iconic phrase.”
I have the decency to blush. “Thanks.”
“Also, not true. No one was revenge pucking you, although, to be fair, it was high time you got thoroughly pucked.”
I sigh, a tear sliding down my cheek.
“Babe,” Blaire says softly. “What do you want to do?”
My shoulders move up and down. “I don’t know.”
I don’t know what I want.
Yesterday, I wanted it all—everything he was willing to give.
Now?
I don’t know if he’s worth the tears.
Or my anger.
I don’t know if I want to take his calls, or respond to his texts, or ever see his face again.
Blaire studies me carefully. “Okay. Strip it down. Forget Declan. Forget the policy. Forget the locker-room drama. If this was the two of you with no audience, what would you do?”
I stare at my phone.
“I’d make him tell me the truth,” I whisper.
“All of it?” Blaire touches the tips of her fingers to mine on the surface of the table. “Jules?”
“Hmm?”
“Do you love him?”
“I don’t…” I start, pausing when she arches a brow. “I care about him.”
“That was not the question.” She laughs. “Are you saying that because you think I cannot handle you falling in love this soon? Or that I’d judge you?”
“No. You would never.”
Even though you refuse to admit you’re in love with my brother—that’s a different conversation for a different time.
“Damn straight I wouldn’t.” She wiggles her fingers over mine.
“Well, to answer your question, even though you already know the answer because I have told you already—I think about him constantly. I replay our conversations. I think about him all day.”
“That’s very annoying of you,” she says lightly. “Don’t go replacing me with a slab of man meat.”
We giggle, and I take a small bite of spring roll.
“You are irreplaceable.”
“Correct.” Blaire presses a hand to her chest dramatically. “Thank you for acknowledging the obvious and, for the record, you’re not obsessing over his abs?”
“I mean, yes? But no.” I smile. “Though those are a perk.”
“Obviously.”
I set the spring roll down and wipe my hands.
“I hate that this is the situation,” I admit. “Because if it weren’t for the Declan part of it all, I’d be on cloud nine right now.”
“Or, you would have never had the chance to hook up with him.”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
“If your brother hadn’t stuck his dick inside Aaron’s girlfriend, he would probably still be dating her, and you would be on another bad first date with some dating app loser.”
I wince. “When you say it like that, it sounds so crude.”
“It is crude.” Blaire gestures wildly with her chopstick. “It’s also the butterfly effect—one terrible decision leads to you getting spectacularly laid.”
I choke on a laugh. “Do not glamorize this.”
She shrugs. “I’m not.”
Liar.
“So,” Blaire says, nudging my knee beneath the coffee table. “You’re thinking about him constantly, you don’t want to explode his career, you’re terrified of looking stupid, you’re mad. And you don’t think it was fake.”
“That about sums it up.”
“Great.” She claps once. “Call him.”
My mouth gapes. “W-what would I say?”
“Nothing! That’s the beauty of it—you did nothing wrong. You get to bask in silence and be gorgeous while he grovels at your feet and begs your forgiveness.”
Is it that easy?
Blaire says words like “grovel” and “beg” as if this were a fantasy daydream where the man shows up with flowers and a heartfelt apology and everything magically resets.
Real life isn’t like that.
Real life is messy and humiliating and full of things you cannot unhear once they’ve been said.
“I don’t know,” I murmur, tracing the rim of a coaster with my fingertip. “What if he apologizes and it doesn’t fix anything?”
Blaire blinks. “Well, yeah. That’s possible.”
I frown because she’s right; an apology doesn’t rewind time. It doesn’t give me back the version of him that existed before I found out he was dating me to get back at Declan.
I need to think.
Be alone, think this through.
The man who hurt me is the same man who let twenty kids climb all over him at story time at the library, answering their ridiculous questions as if they weren’t the silliest things anyone has asked him. Drops in to visit sick kids in the hospital without anyone knowing.
The same man who whispered in my ear and sends shivers down my spine.
Maybe that’s the worst part of all: I don’t know which version of Aaron Bishop is real.
I’m terrified it’s both.
THIRTY
AARON
I’m fucked.
Not in a fun, orgasmic way.
No. It’s the ego in the gutter, a woman I care about thinks I’m a bottom feeder, I may have lost something I seriously started to care about kind of way.
So, yeah.
Here I am—standing outside human resources, a man about to voluntarily walk into a penalty box and slam the door behind himself.
I’ve been to human resources maybe two, three times in my career—once for a contract formality, once because a rookie thought it was funny to Venmo request several veteran players for “emotional scarring” after a bit of innocent hazing.