Page 25 of My Favorite Lost Cause
“Harvey gave me a boob job for Christmas.”
“What? He’s not even a doctor.”
I laugh. “He didn’tperformone. He paid for the surgery and gave me a gift certificate.”
Charlie sets a pan down with a thud. “Had you told him you wanted one?”
I shake my head. “No. I mean…I know he likes them big. Bigger than mine. But—” I shrug. “I assumed mine were okay and now I’m not sure. Kit will tell me they’re fine if I ask, and any surgeon is going to tell me the choice is mine. You’re sort of the only unbiased source I have.”
His nostrils flare. “Let me make sure I’m understanding this correctly. You never expressed any dissatisfaction with your breasts, and he bought you a boob job. As agift.”
I told Harvey to get a refund because I wasn’t interested, but hearing Charlie state it the way he just has makes me wonder if I underreacted. “Yes, pretty much.”
“Why the fuck do you care about anything this man thinks?” Charlie asks, grabbing the pot I just dried and shoving it in a cabinet with unnecessary force. “Fuck Harvey. Not literally. Literallydon’tfuck Harvey ever again. He needs a lifetime of fucking therapy.”
“But…what if he’s right?” I ask. “I mean. I know, I know, beauty is relative or whatever, but…if he had snot running down his face, I might be a little repelled, so…”
His jaw gapes. “You’re comparing your breasts tosnot? Are you serious right now?”
“It was just a metaphor or analogy or whatever. You see my point. It’s entirely possible they’re…not their best.”
“Let me see,” he demands.
I cough. “What?”
“Let me see them. I promise to tell you if they look like two sad deflated balloons.”
“Forget it.”
“You want an honest opinion, yes? You know you won’t receive one from Kit or your friends—I’ve seen the way you comment on each other’s shit on Instagram. Post a single terrible picture and a hundred women will say, ‘Literally agoddess.’ So let me see them, and I will kindly but firmly tell you if they are a bit repulsive.”
I’m waiting for the punchline. I’m waiting for him to say he’s going to jerk off to the image later, the way he did to my mom’s. But he looks more bored than anything else, and this is Charlie, who’s seen most of the breasts in Manhattan, so of course it’s boring.
He might be the one straight man I know who’s capable of making this call with utter detachment. Maybe it’s the wine, or maybe it’s just that I spent so much time being observed and judged by strangers during my modeling days, but it doesn’t feel like a big deal.
I shrug. “Okay. But this stays between us,” I tell him, and somehow, keeping this our little secret makes it all feel…a little dirtier than it did before.
I pull my tee up to my collarbone, swallowing down my discomfort. I’m still mostly dressed, but I’m also standing in front of my stepbrother in a bra.
“Remove the bra, Maren,” he says, rolling his eyes. “You know those things hide a variety of sins.”
He’s completely uninvested in the process, which makes this all a little easier. I unhook the back and slide it off before forcing myself to meet his gaze.
He pours the last of the wine into the sink and glances over. “They’re fine.”
I roll my eyes as I tug my tee back down. “They’re ‘fine?’” I demand, crouching to the floor to grab my bra. “That means they’renotfine. Just say it. You promised you’d be honest with me.”
He sighs. “You want honesty?” He turns and nods toward his crotch…where I can clearly see the shape of his cock in a way I couldn’t moments earlier. Given the size, it’s unmissable. “There’s your honesty. Your tits are astonishing and if I were Harvey, I’d have been too busy attempting to fuck them to wonder about how I could perfect them.”
He starts washing our glasses and I turn away, trying to fight off the image of Charlie…doing what he just said he’d do. “Okay, thanks. And this stays between us, right?”
He frowns over his shoulder, as if the question is ridiculous. “I’m not about to run off telling everyone I got rock hard by accident like a teenage boy with the hot math teacher.”
I grab a sponge to clean off the table but turn back toward him before I walk out the door. “Did that really happen with your math teacher?”
“It did.”
“Did she see it? What did she say?” I gasp.
