Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 111732 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 559(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111732 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 559(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
I force myself to look up. And when my eyes meet Max’s, the homicidal glare he’s shooting me makes my stomach twist.
Ripley hands me her apple juice, takes a step forward, and looks up at Max like she’s taking in the full height of a towering redwood tree. “I’m four and a half,” she says. “How old are you?”
When Max doesn’t reply, but instead continues glaring at me, Auggie clears his throat and says, “He’s thirty-one and I’m twenty-nine. We’re brothers.”
“I don’t have a brudder,” Ripley says. She looks at me. “Can I have a brudder, Mommy?”
Everyone chuckles except for Max and me.
“Do you two know each other?” Gigi asks tentatively. Apparently, our body language has tipped her off.
God only knows what Max might say about me, so I quickly reply, “Yes, we met once, briefly, a while back at a bar. We were both with our respective friends.”
“And then, we ran into each other again today at a mutual friend’s birthday party,” Max adds.
“What a small world!” Gigi says. She turns to her older son. “I met Marnie about a year and a half ago, too—in a yoga class. I even went to dinner with Marnie and her friends once and really enjoyed it.”
“I actually met Max that very same night,” I say. “Remember how my friends and I went to Captain’s after dinner, but you decided to go home?”
Gigi’s eyes widen. Suddenly, I remember the salacious conversation we had at dinner. Specifically, the part where all my dinner companions, including Geraldine, encouraged me to find a hot guy at Captain’s and get under him in order to get over Mr. BDE. Geraldine’s ex-husband. Max’s father. Oh my god.
Geraldine blushes. Is she putting two and two together and realizing her handsome son might have served as my young amnesia-inducer of choice that night? “Yes, I remember that conversation,” Geraldine says tightly. Blushing, she looks at me. “I remember it very well.”
Whatever expression I’m wearing in this moment, Gigi’s reaction to it tells me I’ve just given myself away. Nonverbally confessed I’ve fucked her son.
Quickly, Gigi looks away from me, blushing, while I fidget and shift my weight and rack my brain for an excuse to sprint out of here and never look back.
“What’s that on your neck, Max?” Gigi asks. “Did you cut yourself shaving?”
Max touches the spot on his neck where I bit him an hour ago while he impaled me against a wall with his cock. “This? Oh. No. It’s a bite mark.”
I feel dizzy. He didn’t have to admit that! His mother gave him a perfect cover story, for fuck’s sake.
“Max,” Gigi whisper-shouts. She looks at the rest of us apologetically.
“What?” Max says. “We’re all practically family now, right? I think they can handle the truth.”
Gigi looks hopeful. “Does this mean you finally have a girlfriend?”
“Nope.” Max looks straight at me. “It means I stupidly did something completely forgettable and meaningless.”
“Maximillian,” Gigi gasps out. Clearly, the poor woman is beyond mortified. Practically having a heart attack about her son’s brutal honesty in front of people she’s trying to impress.
There’s an awkward beat, during which all the adults are staring at each other, at a total loss regarding what to say or do next.
Finally, Dad motions to the nearest painting on the wall and says, “It looks great in an art gallery, honey. It’s where it belongs.” He addresses me. “This is Gigi’s. She painted it. Isn’t it amazing?”
“Oh, wow. Yes. It’s really beautiful. Congratulations.”
We all compliment the painting. As we do that, Ripley tugs on Max’s pant leg, and he wrenches his blazing, angry eyes off me in order to look down at her. Figuratively and literally. Sweet little Ripley says, “We have a Max at my school. He’s my friend.”
“Cool.”
“What’s your big name?”
“My big name?”
“He’s Maximillian,” Auggie supplies. “But he goes by Max. Just like I’m Augustus and I go by Auggie.”
Ripley doesn’t give two shits about Auggie. That’s plain enough. Even when Auggie was speaking directly to Ripley, her eyes remained fixed on Max. Not only that, both her pupils have now been replaced by little hearts.
“I like Maxy-Milly. Dat’s pretty. I don’t have a big and a small name. I’m always Ripley. Are you mad at my mommy, Maxy-Milly?”
Max looks at me briefly, like he wants to throttle me. But when he returns to Ripley, he smiles politely and says, “No, I’m not mad at your mommy. I feel nothing about her.”
“Den why are you looking at Mommy like dis?” She puts her little hands on her hips and scowls comically.
“That’s what my face always looks like, kid,” Max says. “Even when I couldn’t care less about something or someone.”
Looking straight at Max, I scratch my nose with my middle finger, and he smirks in reply.
“Want to see me twirl, Maxy-Milly?” Ripley asks.
“Oh, I’d love to see that,” Gigi interjects, still looking like she’s on the verge of cardiac arrest.