Total pages in book: 151
Estimated words: 140874 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 704(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 470(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 140874 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 704(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 470(@300wpm)
Instead, I leaned against the doorjamb and gave him a resentful glare over the top of my glasses.
“Sleeping Beauty awakes,” he said with a chuckle, scraping something out of a pan and onto a plate. The buttery smell, as well as the noise, made me want to hurl up everything in my stomach—though I had a suspicion there was nothing in there to hurl.
“You know, if you were one of the dwarves, you’d probably be Drunky,” he went on cheerfully. “Do you want mushrooms in yours?”
I held up one finger. “First, there weren’t any dwarves in Sleeping Beauty. Second, if you mention food again, I’m preemptively divorcing you. Third, what the hell? How are you even upright?”
“B12 shot. Dr. Williams was here this morning. I tried to wake you, to no avail. Do you want me to ring her? Have her come back?” He clicked off the burner, wisely taking my food warning to heart.
I shook my head, and I swear I felt my brain smack off the sides of my skull. “No. I refuse. I will bounce back from this sans vitamin cures, and prove that I’m still young.”
His lips tilted. “I don’t think you’re ever going to get away with complaining about your age. At least not to me.”
I shambled like a zombie to the breakfast nook and sat in my usual place. “Coffee. I beg of you.”
I plugged my ears while he got a cup and saucer down and slid them across the tabletop to me. He stood over the sink to eat his breakfast. “Last night was… Well, it was utterly amazing. Thank you so much, darling.”
I gave him a weak thumbs-up. “It was cool getting to meet some of your friends.”
“Did you ever track down the only ginger man you’d ever leave me for?” he asked around a mouthful of omelet.
“I’m here, aren’t I?” I quipped, raising my mug to my lips.
“Humor, that’s a good sign. The hangover won’t kill you, then?”
“Not yet. But I do have to be in shape for tonight.” I pushed my sunglasses down and batted my blood-shot, makeup smeared eyes at him. “Your birthday present, Sir.”
“Ah, I look forward to it.” He paused. “Though I dare say I will look more forward to it once you’ve showered and brushed your teeth.”
“In sickness and in health,” I reminded him. “Did you really have a good time?”
“I really did.” He grinned at me. “I must admit, I shamelessly enjoyed showing off my young girlfriend. Perhaps that’s a symptom of turning fifty?”
“Well, I liked meeting your friends, so we’re even.” I rolled my head on my shoulders, and the cracking of my spine was both too loud and a huge relief.
“How did you like Ian and Gena?” he asked, with that tone of casual disinterest he could never pull off.
“How do you like Gena?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Lovely woman. Very charming.” He sipped his own coffee and avoided direct eye contact.
“You wanna fuck her,” I sing-songed.
“That I do.” He slid his plate onto the island countertop. “But they come as a bit of a package deal.”
“Swingers?” My eyebrows shot up. “My my, but aren’t we becoming suburbanites.”
“I’d hardly call a thirty-five-thousand square foot house in the Hamptons suburban, but yes. I mention it because they indicated that they would be open to…examining the possibility.”
I scoffed. “I only talked to them for like, three minutes, tops.”
“And in that three minutes, you couldn’t take your eyes off of Ian’s hands.”
Damn. He knew me too well.
“Okay. He was rocking that forbidden, best-friend’s-dad kind of vibe—”
“Oh, please, no,” Neil said with a uncomfortable laugh. He hated, hated that I believed my attraction to older men was rooted in some perverse, father-related area of my psyche. And I loved, loved to torment him with that.
“What I’m saying is, I’d have dinner with them, get to know them, feel out the situation.” But I wasn’t entirely cool with the idea of Neil having sex with another woman. It was completely hypocritical of me; I’d been fine having sex with Emir in front of Neil, and I’d been fine with Neil having sex with Emir when I wasn’t there. Something about another woman was more threatening, and I was surprised at how much.
Maybe I didn’t understand Neil’s bisexuality as much as I’d thought I had. Or maybe it was internalized misogyny talking. There was definitely an element of it’s-okay-for-me-but-not-for-you jealousy that I wasn’t proud of.
The only way to deal with it was by being totally upfront. “Look, if anything ever did happen… I would want to be there. I wouldn’t be cool with going off to separate rooms or whatever. And that’s not just insecurity talking. I’m also kind of nervous of the idea of being with another partner, alone.”
Neil nodded. “I don’t blame you there. I don’t think I would have been comfortable if you’d spent the evening with Emir in London. I was a bit surprised that you were.”