Page 22 of Love and Loathing

“It might do you good.”

“Mm. And you should probably eat a steak.”

She let out a shocked gasp of laughter. “Roscoe once warned me you were too Aubrey. I’m beginning to see what he meant.”

He frowned at that. “Roscoe’s normally right. Except when he’s completely wrong.”

“That’s…” she protested. “Actually…that’s quite true now I come to think about it.”

“Mm.”

“But seriously, why Liv?”

“I love her,” he said simply, voice just as expressionless as everyone had always complained. “Always have. First lecture of the first day at university, she walked in, and that was it.”

“Even though she’s awful?”

He looked down at her. Her eyes looked black in the moonlight. Sparks like stars inside them. Fierce mischief.

“Yes. Even though she’s awful. Even though she broke my heart when we were twenty, reduced me to such a mess I couldn’t finish my degree. Didn’t even want anything to do with lawyers anymore, not when I found out she was sleeping with a partner at the firm she was interning at. Loved her so much I took her back three years later. Only for her to do the exact same thing.”

“And you still love her?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“It’s not just…a habit? A really bad one. Like smoking.”

He gave her another look.

She grinned up at him. “Maybe try a patch,” she said. “Some gum.”

“My main tactic to date has been meaningless sex with a string of beautiful women. It doesn’t seem to work.”

“Wow. Way to humblebrag.”

He breathed a laugh, infuriated, amused, it was hard to tell. The dark corners of the room were swimming, and all the words they spoke were bobbing up and down, sliding carelessly in and out of his hearing.

“I’ve never experienced it,” Evie said after a while.

“Sex with beautiful women?”

“No, I’ve done that twice. I mean, I’ve never experienced that love at first sight thing. Or love at all, really.”

Aubrey looked at her, brain still caught on the first part of that. “Twice?”

She groaned, reaching out a hand from under the covers to hit his arm. “You aresucha man.”

“I just need some clarification. Details.”

“It seemed worth trying. But I was depressed to learn I prefer men. I often wish I didn’t.”

“Fair,” he agreed. “We are awful.”

She looked at him for a moment. “You’re not shocked? Disgusted?”

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