Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 103109 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103109 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
“I really don’t know.” I just stand there as he trails kisses up the side of my neck and strokes up and down my arms. Buttercup. I can’t deny the coincidence.
“Come to bed with me. We haven’t been together in two weeks.”
I wriggle out of his embrace. Buttercup. What is this I’m feeling? It’s not jealousy. It’s not even hurt. It’s disgust. “Stop.”
He steps back, letting me retreat. “Seeing that ring gave you a convenient excuse to pull away, but what’s your excuse now?”
“I don’t need an excuse. I’m not in the mood.”
“Seems like you’re never in the mood anymore. Not since that football player came to town.” And there it is. His dark eyes are colder than the snow piling on the windowsills. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it? You’re chickening out about the jobs, about moving away, not because you’re serious about this genre-fiction whim but because you don’t want to move away from him.”
There is so much in that statement to unpack. I start with the part that pisses me off the most. “Genre-fiction whim?”
He rolls his eyes. “What do you want me to call it?”
“I don’t know—my novels, maybe? My potential career as an author? My dream that this fucking institution beat out of me for no good reason? I’ve been writing novels since I was eighteen. Twelve years isn’t a whim.”
“Okay.” He holds up his hands. “Hell, Shay, you can’t be pissed at me about me not taking this seriously when you’ve never breathed a word about it to me before.”
Because I didn’t tell anyone. No one but Easton. “That’s fair, but I have told you—and many times—how important my family is to me. I hate the idea of leaving them, and I won’t uproot my life for a job I don’t want. Considering my options at this stage of the game isn’t cowardly; it’s prudent.”
“Prudent? Is that what you call throwing away opportunities because you’re feeling like a little girl with a crush?” He sneers, shaking his head. “I thought you were better than that archaic nonsense.”
“What if I told you my family is more important to me than my career? What if I told you I’d walk away from academia forever if it meant I could live down the street from my brothers and watch my nieces and nephews grow up?”
“I’d tell you that you’re being immature and you’ll regret shaping your life around everyone else instead of building it around yourself.”
“I don’t need you to understand my decisions to know they’re right for me. I don’t need your approval.”
“Of course you don’t. That’s my point. Live your life. Don’t make your choices based on anyone else.” He reaches for my hand. “Come on. I’m sick of arguing. Let’s go to bed.”
I pull away. “I’m going home.”
He drags a hand through his hair. “You’re going home angry.” He says it like it’s the dumbest possible choice.
“Yes. I am.” I roll my shoulders back. “I think we should stop seeing each other.”
“What?”
I wave a hand between us. God, I don’t even know how this started. Teagan’s right. Sleeping with George wasn’t just unwise, it was completely out of character for me. “Whatever this is? We need to step away for a while.”
“You wouldn’t be saying that if that ring was for you, would you?” His frustrated expression transforms to a sneer. “I see now. You want a proposal. You’re looking for a declaration of love, a promise that I’ll provide for you forever as if you’re a child and not an independent woman?”
I grab my purse from the table. “You don’t see me at all.”
“I see a scared little girl.”
“Fuck off, George.”
Shay
Apparently, I’m capable of flipping from adoring girlfriend to vindictive ex in no time, because the day after my breakup with George, I’m determined to find out if there is a Buttercup.
One thing I know for sure is that I owe it to the woman George is seeing to tell her we’ve been sleeping together. If he didn’t tell me about her, chances are he didn’t tell her about me. But the problem is I don’t even have a name, let alone a way to get ahold of her. I can’t exactly ask George for her contact info. I doubt he’d be interested in supporting my mission.
So I find myself doing what any slightly unhinged ex-girlfriend would do: I wait for George to leave campus on Thursday evening, and I get in my car and follow him to Chicago.
There are a thousand things wrong with this plan, the least of which is the possibility that following him tonight will be fruitless. Even if he does have some side piece in Chicago, what are the chances he goes straight to her on a Thursday night? But I don’t have any better ideas, so I follow him the two and a half hours on the interstate, staying a couple of cars back, and hope for the best.