Page 78 of My Favorite Bad Decision
KIT
I’m dead asleep on Miller’s chest and his arms are wrapped around me tight when my phone starts beeping. Reluctantly, I climb off him to reach toward the nightstand for it.
Maren
I’m sorry about yesterday. You were totally right. I had no business being resentful. I’m on my way over—just dropping off the puppies at the groomer first. What do you want from Zuri?
Shit. I know my sister, and there will be no dissuading her. I could make something up. I could claim that I’m not here, but then she would just insist on meeting me wherever it is that she thinks I am, and it would turn into an escalating series of lies. Still, I’ve got to try.
Me
It’s all good. You don’t need to come over. I’m in bed.
Maren
I’m not going to feel as if you’ve forgiven me until I’ve fed you something with a lot of sugar. What do you want?
“Dammit.”
Miller raises his sleepy eyes to mine and raises a brow. “What’s the matter?”
I swallow. “Maren’s on her way over, and she’s not taking no for an answer. I’m gonna have to meet her out.”
Let’s meet at that breakfast place near you instead. Give me thirty.
His mouth presses to my neck. “How long do we have?”
“Ten minutes, tops.”
He rolls me beneath him. “I can work with that.”
I’m stretched and a bit bruised from last night, because if he wasn’t waking me up to go again, I was waking him—but that only makes me crave it one more time.
“You’re like a mosquito bite,” I say, clenching as he pushes inside me.
“Not what a man loves to hear when he’s just started fucking you,” he grunts.
My laugh is slightly breathless. “I just meant that I’ve scratched it once and I want to keep scratching.”
His generous mouth curves upward, just a hint of a smile. “Good. Because I want you to keep scratching for a long, long time.”
* * *
I’m five minutes late.Maren is sitting at the table with her chin in her palm, watching the people outside pass by with a wistfulness that makes my chest ache. I don’t think I even realized howdeepher unhappiness was until Miller came into my life…because I was so unhappy too.
Maren jumps to her feet and throws her arms around me when I approach the table. “I’m sorry, pumpkin,” she whispers. “You were absolutely right yesterday.”
“I’m sorry too.” Even if she was in the wrong—and I’m not sure she was—I’m unable to hold a grudge against Maren for long. “I was mostly mad at Mom, not you, anyway.”
The women beside us huff in irritation—apparently we’re in their space. I ignore them, shrugging off my coat, while Maren returns to her seat with an apologetic smile.
“I should have given you more of an update,” she says. “It’s not like you to just…shut me out like that, and my feelings were hurt. I didn’t put it together until Charlie gave me one of his lectures.”
I grin. “Since when is Charlie the emotionally healthy member of this family?”
“Right?” she laughs, sliding a latte my way—oat milk and cinnamon. Maren, like my mom, has often asked insane things of me, but she also cares enough to remember exactly how I like my coffee, to worry that my nails aren’t done just before I’m wearing an engagement ring for the first time. Even my mother’s obsession with my weight is a bizarre form of care—she wants me to beheridea of my best self: extremely thin, extremely spray tanned, perfectly made up. She just wants me to get the attention and accolades she got at my age, and she’s never been able to understand the fact that I don’t especially want them.
I don’t need accolades. I just need Miller saying ‘You looked beautiful there, and you look beautiful here.’
