Total pages in book: 183
Estimated words: 174715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 874(@200wpm)___ 699(@250wpm)___ 582(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 174715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 874(@200wpm)___ 699(@250wpm)___ 582(@300wpm)
“I’m going to finish school and get my mother out of here,” I vow, before I open the door to be greeted by confetti and singing, compliments of my mother, and Marie Anne, our neighbor who is her dear friend. Both are wearing paper hats, and my mother, who is fifty-eight, and still stunning, is smiling brightly. Her hair is also colored a fresh brown, all the gray of the past six months gone, and she has on a nude-ish lipstick. Seeing her like this is the best birthday gift I could ever wish for.
“Happy birthday, honey,” she says, giving me a huge hug.
I hug her back and I don’t let go, reminded now of one of the many reasons that leaving Cole behind was necessary, and why I’m okay with that. She needs me, and I need her.
It’s not long, an hour later at most, and we’ve eaten chocolate cake, and my mother and Marie Anne have delighted over my new job. “Will you go back to Stanford to finish school?” Marie Anne asks.
“I think I’ll finish here at NYU,” I say.
This upsets my mother, and I don’t want her upset. She shakes her head. “No. You aren’t finishing here for me. I’m improving every day.”
“And she has me,” Marie Anne assures me.
“This is nothing to fret over,” I assure my mother, taking her hand. “The school might not even be my choice with this scholarship.”
“I want to say my daughter graduated from Stanford,” she insists.
“And you still might,” I assure her.
“And maybe you can get back with that Neal boy you were so into. I never even met him.”
“And you won’t,” I say since Neal, who wasn’t a boy, but rather a thirty-five-year-old attorney, who’d lectured at Stanford and later became my whatever he was—is also the man who told me I was a fool to quit school for my mother. And he never, ever made me feel any of the things I felt with Cole.
Nor would I have let him spank me.
“You need to get out and date, honey,” my mother says.
No, I think. Forget the dating. I’ll take Cole’s hand on my ass, just one more time.
“I am,” my mother says.
My eyes go wide. “What?”
“I met someone at the hospital. An architect.”
“Who’s ten years younger than her,” Marie Anne chimes in. “And gorgeous.”
My eyes go even wider. “When?” I ask. “Have you gone on a date?”
“I met him a week ago when his daughter gave birth,” she says. “He’s divorced, and we just started chatting and couldn’t stop. He’s stopped by to see me twice now and I agreed to let him bring me dinner on my break tonight.” She glances at the clock over the stove. “Oh my. I need to get to work. Please tell me you have plans tonight.”
“I’m meeting friends for dinner,” I lie, because while I hate lies, I love her and I don’t want her to worry. I’m happy to see her happy, even though I want to meet this architect and size him up, immediately.
A few minutes later, I’m alone in the apartment, and I put another huge slice of chocolate cake on my plate. I might as well grow a bigger butt. No one is going to be seeing it anytime soon.
Cole
One month later…
I’m in New York City for the second time since that morning without a goodbye from Lori, and I’m sitting in the bar where I’d met her the second time, because holy fuck, I want to meet Lori a third time. It’s Friday night, I’ve spent all day looking at office space, contracts, and negotiating deals. I’m exhausted and I fly out early tomorrow when I should have flown out tonight. I have a weekend of prep for the new trial starting Monday morning, but instead I’m here. I’m here because it’s the only place I know that she might be. Because I’m losing my fucking mind over a woman.
I finish off a Scotch, because wine just isn’t cutting it for me the past few weeks. A pretty brunette across the bar catches my eye. I don’t turn away. I want to want her. I want to take her to my room, fuck her, and fuck Lori out of my head. Bring it on. But I don’t get up. That’s telling. I’m a man who goes for what I want, I pursue, but I don’t get up now.
She does. She walks in my direction, and I already know what comes next. I flag the waiter, Johnathan, I believe he said is his name. He hurries in my direction and when the woman sits down, I motion to Johnathan. “What’ll you have?”
“Wine,” she says. “House red.”
Wine. Bad choice, and she doesn’t even know it. I glance at Johnathan. “Put it on my tab and cash it out.”