Total pages in book: 144
Estimated words: 134830 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 539(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134830 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 539(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
I smile, knowing it was because of me. “What’d you tell them?”
“That my latest job has this annoying neighbor that I’m trying to smooth things over with.” His eyes drop over me, leaving heat everywhere he looks. “But it wasn’t going all that well, and I’m pretty sure she hates me.”
“I don’t hate you,” I say, rolling my eyes because he knows I don’t. Or at least, I don’t any more.
“Go out with me tonight.”
It’s not a question, but it’s also not an order. It falls into this nebulous area somewhere in between, which leaves me unsure. If he’d asked, I would’ve said no. If he’d ordered me, I would’ve said fuck no. But this feels like hazy possibility.
I lick my lips, not sure, but even as doubts rage in my head, I automatically shake my head. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”
“Can’t or won’t? Not that it matters, I’ll respect it either way, but it hurts less if you’ve got some parole rule, like house arrest.” He looks pointedly at my ankle-monitor-free legs and smiles. But it’s the forced one he puts on, not his real smile. I can tell the difference now.
In the few minutes since Nessa gave me her opinion on what I should do with Kyle and I saw him, my brain has been on a fast-track of ideas, playing out scenarios. The truth is… nothing’s changed. Not really.
“You’re a nice guy, Kyle—"
He flinches, his head going back like I’ve shot him with the words. “Ouch, that’s a low blow.”
I try again. “You are. I feel like it’s important to you that I recognize that, and I do see how much you’ve done to try and help the situation here.” I cut my eyes to the curb up front, where his bike is parked. “But this is one of those ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ deals. I’m not date material. I work too many hours, am drowning in worries about my business, have a family that wants to marry me off to literally any guy with a big enough bank account balance, and parents who need me to take care of them, even though they’d be furious I think they can’t do it all on their own.”
Kyle listens. I feel like he’s truly hearing me, which is why the words keep pouring out. I don’t mean for them to, but I guess they’ve been bottled up so long that the slightest relief on the pressure valve of my mouth has them spewing out.
“And I’m a shit girlfriend and will be an even shittier wife. I don’t have it in me to put someone else at the top of my priority list right now, maybe ever.” I laugh hollowly at the bitter truth. “If I do, I’m not a nurturer like some women are. I see how my mom and my sister-in-law act, and it doesn’t even compute for me. I don’t understand how or why they do what they do.”
I shake my head, countless images of Mama and Mara playing out in my mind—Mama and Papa in the kitchen at the restaurant, with him telling her how to cook as though the recipes weren’t hers to begin with, and then later, directing her and me on what to do from his recovery spot in his living room recliner, Mara running around after the kids while Xavier drinks a beer on the back patio, both Mama and Mara preparing plates for their men before themselves or the kids, the way they brag about Papa and Xavier as if marrying them is their biggest accomplishment.
“I don’t want to take care of a man-sized toddler who thinks changing the toilet paper roll deserves a pat on the back and taking out the trash merits a blow job. I can’t… I just can’t…”
I meet Kyle’s eyes, ashamed of my own failings, but also… I’m trying to run him off. Still testing here, pushing there, to see how he reacts, just like I was last night.
“Fuck, someone really did a number on you, didn’t they?” Kyle asks, peering at me like he can see every ugly bit of my insides splayed open. But he doesn’t look horrified. If anything, he looks… curious?
“What?”
“Not everyone’s looking for someone to take care of them, Dani. I can take care of myself, thank you very much.”
He sounds offended that I think so little of him, which is not what I expected his response to be. At all.
I’ve told Mama that I don’t want to be like her. She says I’m young and stupid, and that one day, I’ll meet a man I’ll want to take care of. I think she’s full of shit and justifying her own life. And when I told my ex, Roman, that I was going to start my lunch business, he’d whined that I wouldn’t have time for him and said that was why he had to go elsewhere to get his needs ‘taken care of’, putting the blame for his cheating ways on my shoulders.