Page 127 of Cloudy With a Chance of Bad Decisions

His whole frame shook with it. Another one of his choking, snorting fits. My favorite. My favorite thing in the whole goddamn world. Like he couldn’t get a breath in, he was so overwhelmed with joy.

I joined him, chuckling against his shoulder, unable to help myself, because Georgie’s happiness was contagious.

Like the flu.

“Shut the fuck up,” George wheezed between snorts. “That is not—that’sjust. That’smean?—”

“I’m just saying—” I spoke over him, seeing how long I could drag this out. “That getting a boner while being in bed with a handsome guy is atotallynormal reaction. And inmyworld a little grinding is always welcome.”

“Ohmygod. Goodnight, Alex.” George continued to giggle and I did too.

When we finally fell asleep, we both had smiles on our faces.

Tomorrow, we could worry about what the future held for us. I could worry about the wedding. About learning. About being a better temporary partner than Brendon had ever been as a permanent one. I could worry about the timer ticking over our heads, the very thing that kept me from being the one to run.

But tomorrow had never felt further away than it did right then.

And I only had Georgie to blame for that.

I didn’t wake up with a boner, but Ididwake with a pounding headache and an existential crisis on the horizon. Alex did have one—a boner, not an existential crisis—and he didn’t run from me. A fact that he took great joy pointing out as he let the damn thing go down naturally on its own and dressed for the day. We’d both popped pain-killers. He checked my burns before he left, pleased to note that they were looking better, before rebandaging them with the same care he’d previously taken.

That was the last I saw of him.

Because he’d had to do more…competent-wedding-planner-brother things.

Still stuck in my thoughts, I’d wandered to the only place at the camping grounds that felt safe when he wasn’t beside me. The kitchen—and my mother. And her distracting, but soothing orders.

But even being commanded to cook did nothing to distract me.

I was stuck in the past.

Trapped.

Like a fly on a sticky tape trap.

When Brendon and I started dating he’d been a lot more focused on aftercare. He’d had a soft hand to follow the hard blows, and it’d been easy to melt when I was held so firmly beneath his thumb. He was never particularly affectionate, but I didn’t complain. As that care had dwindled from a full meal into table scraps over the years, I’d found myself grasping at what little morsels of affection he’d decided I deserved. I noticed the change, yes. But it was more lucrative at the time to beg for more than to argue over what I was missing.

Brendon had said my love was “smothering.”

He’d said that my standards were too high.

That I asked too much.

That I needed too much.

Brendon didn’t like when I argued—unlike Alex, who thrived under my attention, even when it was negative. There were so many differences between the two of them that it was hard to keep track of all of them. What did it say about me that my “practice boyfriend” was better at taking care of me than the man I’d thought would be my life partner?

How had I never noticed?

Scratch that—of course I had. I just…I suppose I hadn’t thought I deserved better. It was an awful sort of feeling, to come to terms with the fact that Brendon had been a horrible boyfriend when I’d put him on a pedestal for so long.

What was the opposite of rose-colored glasses? Green…spectacles? I had no idea. But it felt like I had a pair ofthoseon. In the light of the morning, after spending time with a man that treated me well, it was suddenly easy to see all of Brendon’s faults.

I didn’t understand how Brendon could treat me the way he had, and yet—Alex didn’t? It was an equation that didn’t make sense. Two plus two equalling six, or something equally as unlikely.

Had the fault been mine? That I simply wasn’t worth the effort?

Especially after I’d found out what I was to him. A convenient hole to fuck when he got bored with his “real” relationship—the one I hadn’t known about. I was the idiot who spent years in the dark. While Brendon paraded around his fiancé, taking her to dinners, and picnics, and family events like he was proud of her. He’d never been proud of me. Never wanted to be seen with me. No, I was delegated to dark corners to pick at crumbs, and yet he’d expected me to be grateful for that.

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