And it’s none of your damn business.
“Your mother was a fine girl. Such a happy-go-lucky person. I never understood why she married your father, unless it was to cheer him up!”
Now I’m getting annoyed. “I’m sure she saw something in him others couldn’t,” I snap and walk away, leaving my lines and baits lying there, too pissed off to care.
My father is quiet and kind. He’s not very sociable, not very loud. He doesn’t laugh easily, doesn’t crack jokes.
And I’m a lot more like him than I want to admit.
If he deserved a chance to be happy…then so do I.
Right?
***
I pack my things and return to the city. Inner peace, whatever. Not a glimpse of it. I drive through snow falling, the wipers swishing, and somehow I feel calmer than I had at the lake house.
Calmer and yet excited, and what the hell does this mean, huh? Excited about what? Going back to my empty, silent apartment? Watching my series and eating my healthy Lean Cuisine dinner?
And that’s exactly what I do when I get home. The same routines. Pacing my apartment. Exercising with my light dumbbells. Watching TV. Looking out the window. Eating without appetite.
The hell is wrong with me?
Maybe my father was right. Maybe I should go get my check up—only I’m pretty fucking sure this issue isn’t within my doctor’s field of expertise.
After a night of uneasy sleep—and some pretty intense dreams that had me waking up with my hand wrapped around my dick—I make it to work on Monday.
Everything seems normal. Piles of paperwork, lists of tasks waiting for me, new projects to familiarize myself with. All par for the course. Part of the schedule.
Which reminds me of Brylee.
But Brylee doesn’t come anywhere near me. It’s like I caught the plague. She’s at the office, I catch a glimpse of her as I cross to the meeting room, but she’s gone again, like a flash of lightning.
There and then gone.
I busy myself with numbers and spreadsheets. I force my mind on work. I do my fucking best not to care, not to wonder, not to ask myself where she is, why I can’t stop wishing she’d come over to say something funny.
To my credit, I last most of the day. It’s mid-afternoon when I say, fuck it, push my chair back and go to find her.
PART II
Princess Brylee saved her cherry for her prince—who was being difficult and not following the damn script.
Then another guy, Riddick, walked through the door and ate her cookie.
Literally, okay? It was a good cookie, too, with chocolate chips.
Even Princess Brylee had to admit Riddick could hold a candle to the beauty of Ryan. A pretty big candle, too.
This wasn’t how things were supposed to happen. She was supposed to get a prince, not get caught between a hot prince and a hunky pauper, unable to choose…
But it was fine. After all, she didn’t want them both.
At the same time. In her bed. Like, ever.
#FamousLastWords
Chapter Thirteen