Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 146548 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 733(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 146548 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 733(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
“Cobalt,” Farrow says with the same tough concern.
This is about Nate, the Asshole With Benefits that stalked me for a while. He wanted to hurt me, and he ended up mostly hurting my best friend…and my boyfriend, who can’t shake that night. And even Thatcher Moretti, whose guilt lingers.
It’s ironic.
Because hurting Jane and Farrow is a direct shot to my heart. So really, that asshole got what he wanted.
Jane pries a piece of frizzy hair off her pink lips and only looks at me. “I have no use for condoms when there’s no dick in the world, small, regular or large, that I’d trust to enter my vagina.”
I shake my head. “You could, eventually—”
“These condoms will expire by then.” Jane raises her mug. “So let them not go to waste, Moffy. They should be used by people who can have glorious and beautiful sex.”
While I’ve been basking in a newfound world of sex without compromise or fear, my best friend has taken five million steps backward because of this fucking asshole. And I want her to be safe and feel loved and free.
Farrow straightens off the doorframe. “You’re really planning to be celibate for the rest of your life?”
Jane lifts her blue eyes to him. “I can live fine without falling in love, so I can live just as easily without a penis.”
Farrow arches his brows.
“You love sex,” I tell my best friend.
“I love to masturbate.” Jane sips her coffee again.
“Same,” Luna nods.
I rub my face with my one hand. Not sure how I should feel. My neck is hot, and Farrow looks partially amused, partially ready to wrap this up. I didn’t get him off yet, and the mood has been pretty much slaughtered. But I’ll revive it.
Jane motions for Luna to descend the staircase. “Come to my bedroom, Luna. I’ll teach you everything the men can’t.” Janie glances back at me.
I mouth, merci.
She taps her cheek and mouths, feel better. She’s referring to my burn from the coffee.
I almost smile, and when I return to my bedroom with Farrow, my mind reels through the whole day. “Was everything okay with the hospital?” I ask while we draw together. He took the call while I did the Instagram Live, and I forgot to ask.
He unbuttons my jeans. “They wanted to make sure I could comply with HIPPA.”
“Isn’t that the thing that protects a patient’s privacy?”
Farrow starts to smile. “That thing is a law. And yeah, it’s there to ensure healthcare providers will keep medical records and other health information private.”
I think harder. “They called because you were doxxed,” I realize.
Farrow looks surprised that I figured it out, but also he looks like he loves me. Like really loves me, and I wrap my arm around his shoulder as he tells me, “They were afraid I wouldn’t be able to maintain privacy for a patient, but I talked them down.” He eyes my mouth as much as I eye his. “Everything is fine, wolf scout.”
But I sense an uneasiness. “Really?”
He nods, clutches my jaw, and whispers against my lips, “I hope so.”
20
MAXIMOFF HALE
“This is my thing, Moffy. You can’t have it.”
We’re at a 1920s speakeasy-themed bar. It’s nearly empty. I sit on a round leather stool, and my best friend rattles a silver cocktail shaker on the other side of the counter.
Jane’s mixology instructor is an actual bartender, dressed in a fedora, bowtie and suit vest. While he slices limes next to her, I catch him scrutinizing her, then me. Not pretending that this conversation doesn’t interest him.
I focus on Janie. “I’m not trying to take your thing,” I say seriously. “But maybe we can try to find a passion together seeing as I am passionless now—”
She snatches an ice cube from a bucket and tosses it at me.
I dodge with a smile.
“You have a passion,” she says. “It’s just been disrupted for the time being.”
I’m aware that charity exists beyond the company I built. I can still attend functions and donate money and time. But I’m not looking to head a corporation.
“I don’t want charity to be a job,” I tell Janie. “I’d rather not set an alarm to it.”
For the longest time, I’ve chased responsibility, and I won’t stop running towards my family—I won’t slow down for anything. But with Farrow, I’ve experienced what it’s like to just take it easy, to exist and breathe, and when it comes to work life, I want the simple enjoyment.
Not a CEO position. Not managing a hundred-some employees.
“It’s official then?” Jane asks, setting down the shaker. Frilly sleeves of a shirt stick out from her Cheetah-print tee. “You won’t return to H.M.C. Philanthropies?”
“It feels official,” I say with a nod.
A smile pulls her freckled cheeks. “In that case, you most certainly must join me in our quest to find a passion—”
“No, you were right,” I interject. “This is your thing.” I’m not sharing in Jane’s Quest for Passion because she’ll be so determined to find mine, she’ll forget her search. I see that in how excited she is for me—I can’t do that to her.