Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 66330 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 332(@200wpm)___ 265(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66330 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 332(@200wpm)___ 265(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
“Hi stranger,” she said when she picked up. Her voice was filled with delight and not a hint of recrimination for how long it had been. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”
I glanced at the clock. Too early for a lunch hour. “I’m taking a sick day. It was the weirdest thing. I woke up sick, threw up, and then felt fine.”
“That does sound weird,” she agreed. “Maybe you’re pregnant.” She laughed when she said it, so sure it wasn’t even a remote possibility. She knew I’d never slept with any of the serious boyfriends I’d had in college, and I hadn’t even told her I was seeing someone in the city.
While she laughed, my blood ran cold, then a hot flush rose into my cheeks. The breath evaporated from my lungs, leaving me gasping. I couldn’t have faked a laugh if I’d wanted to.
“Lily? Are you there?” her voice sobered. “I was just kidding, honey. I know you’re waiting for the right one.”
She was worried she’d offended me. I managed to draw in enough air to reassure her. “Sorry, mom. I’m just–I’m feeling sick again. Can I call you back?”
After we hung up, I threw on a pair of jeans and wore Con’s t-shirt to the pharmacy down the street. I bought a pack of condoms and a two-pack of pregnancy tests and was grateful that the cashier didn’t have anything funny to say about it.
Then I raced back to the penthouse, my heart beating wildly. My whole life might be about to change, and I had no idea how I felt about it.
25
CON
From an outsider’s perspective, I’d been on top of the world for a long time now. I’d accomplished everything I set out to do when I was a scared shitless nineteen-year-old kid who felt like he had one shot to make a life for his infant daughter. My name was synonymous with success. It opened doors for talent I believed in and people I cared about. My infant daughter was now on the precipice of being a college graduate and being able to do anything. I had more money than I could spend and more houses than I could live in. I even had real friends, something that was harder to come by than success in this town. In fact, the two rarely coexisted. I’d known abstractly that I had plenty of reasons to feel cocky, but a small part of me always felt like I was putting on a show. The slick, successful hot shot with the five-thousand-dollar suit and thirty-thousand dollar smile and everything else that was designed to distract from what was underneath. Secretly, it had all felt like a giant sleight of hand. A lifelong game of misdirection. I had everything, and yet I’d always felt like something was missing. I was never sure what it was. I chalked it up to uncertainty. Told myself it would go away when I had a certain amount of money in the bank, a certain number of Oscar winners in my roster. When Halley got through those god-awful middle school years. When she got out of those sly, secretive high school years.
And at each milestone, I’d waited for the feeling to go away.
It never had.
As I waited for my friends at our favorite rooftop bar, my mind slid to it absently. Probed for it. And felt an electric current ripple all the way through my body as I realized it was gone. The dull ache, the vague frustration that came with it, the renewed determination to achieve more. It was all gone. Instead, I felt…
I frowned, trying to figure out what it was.
Relaxed?
No, that wasn’t it. The furrows in my forehead lengthened, and my frown deepened as I tried to put a name to the sensation.
Calm?
“You look pissed,” Landon observed, sliding into the barstool across from mine.
“I’m not,” I said, still frowning.
“Is he acting?” Garrett wondered.
Dominic and Julian snorted. They began imagining what role I might be preparing an audition for. I heard the names Heathcliff and Dracula thrown out.
“If that’s not your pissed off face, what is it?” Landon asked.
“Peace,” I said, finding the word suddenly. That was what I felt. Fucking peace. Like I’d just finished a ninety-minute hot yoga session after an ayahuasca ceremony followed by tree bathing or whatever new age shit promised to bring about peace these days.
“If that’s how you look when you feel peaceful, I’d hate to see you pissed,” Garrett said, raising his eyebrows in surprise.
I didn’t bother trying to explain further. They didn’t get it. They weren’t in love. The realization that I loved Lily bloomed, fully formed in my head, before my mind could yank it out by its roots. I pictured her heart-shaped face with the ocean blue eyes and the innocent beauty of a girl fresh out of college sprung into my mind in full, detailed, Technicolor.