Page 43 of My Favorite Lost Cause
“I’m thrilled for her,” I tell him before he’s had a chance to ask.
I groan, because this is what I’m in for now: months and months of people assessing my reaction and looking for distress. “You don’t seem surprised.”
“I helped Miller pick the ring and you don’t seem surprised either. We all knew this was coming.”
Charlie still doesn’t look convinced, perhaps because I’m not being all that convincing. Iamthrilled for Kit, but it’s hard not to feel as if my star is dimming while hers is on the rise, like an aging actress gently being shoved aside in her recurring role by some younger, hotter ingenue. Kit’s gettingcongratstexts and I’m getting ones that say, “So how many times a day do you suck Charlie’s dick?”
Her whole life is ahead of her, and if I don’t find someone soon, it’s going to feel like mine is in the past. It can’t be over for me, right?I can still meet someone. I can still have a family. I’ve just got to get my ass in gear and?—
No. Not like that. I’m not going to look for someone because I’m panicking. I’m not.
“I’m going on a cleanse,” I tell Charlie, setting my juice down.
He groans. “Maren, your whole fucking life is a cleanse. What’s left to even give up? You barely drink. You don’t eat sugar. Or carbs. You appear to have given up sex, although you were married to Harvey, so I don’t blame you there, but what the fuck is even left?”
“If you’re entirely through, I’ll tell you. It’s not that kind of cleanse. I’m going to give up all the stuff about getting pregnant.”
He blinks. There’s a long pause before he finally speaks. “That seems like a pretty sudden change. I haven’t heard you express an interest in anythingbutgetting pregnant for years.”
“I know,” I say, “and I’m not writing it off. I just think I need a break from all the worry. And I need to start wanting something else.”
He tips back in his chair. “So what’s the new pastime going to be? Gambling? Sex addiction? I can probably help you with both.”
I laugh. “I’m not planning to get addicted to anything. I just want to spend a little time being open to what life brings me. Not panicked about fertility.”
“That is an incredibly boring cleanse,” he says, “but not as boring as I assumed it would be.”
My mother calls not long after breakfast, excited about Kit, already planning some surprise engagement party in the Hamptons a few weeks hence.
“Miller’s taking her to Turks and Caicos as soon as they return from Everest,” my mother informs me. I don’t mention that I already knew this, that I packed the suitcase, just like I didn’t mention that I helped choose the ring. My mother would be testy for weeks that I was given the inside scoop, and she was not.
“That’s great,” I reply mildly.
My mother’s tongue clicks. “I know the situation is tough, but you’re going to have to try a little harder than that while we’re setting up for the party.”
I groan audibly, plucking Echo from the marsh. “Mom, I’mfine. Happy.But I don’t know that I can get there early. I’ll still be down here helping Charlie.”
“No offense, but nothing you’re doing down there can be all that vital. What skills do you even have?” Her point is hurtful, but accurate. I have no skills, and I’m sure one of Elijah’s guys could tackle every job I’ve done since I got here and complete them in a day’s time.
“You should be up here on go-sees anyway,” she continues. “You’ll need to get back down to a sample size two, but I think you can still recover, though honestly, you’re pushing it at thirty-two.”
Wow. She just managed to take a hit at both my age andweight.Impressive. “Let me look at the calendar and get back to you,” I reply before I hang up.
Because it’s a Sunday, no one’s working at the house. We bike down to the beach, each of us carrying one puppy in our bike’s basket, which Charlie says is the least manly moment of his life, “including infancy.”
Echo and Narcy exhaust themselves and lie at our feet as we spread out a blanket and lie down side-by-side. I grab the book I pilfered from Charlie’s mom’s collection—one in which the vampire hero willliterallydie if he doesn’t mate with his other half, who can’t accept his “massive cock, twice the size of a human’s” until she’s fullyripened.
“What’s that?” Charlie asks, and before I can stop him, he’s snatched the book up and has begun to read. “‘The time is nigh, little witch. I’ll plunder ye until’—oh, wait. He’s Scottish? Apologies. Let me start over, with the accent. ‘The time is nigh, little witch. I’ll plunder ye until yer belly is full of my seed. And when you drip with?—”
I snatch at the book. “Stop. Sidenote: your accent is terrible. You sound like a leprechaun.”
His accent is perfect. I’m so turned on right now I could die from it.
“Then apparently you’re turned on by leprechauns because I can see your nipples straight through that shirt.” He grabs the book back. “What a filthy little girl you are. I had no idea. I can just read the rest for you while you finish yourself off. Go ahead. No one’s looking. Where were we? Belly full of seed. Right. Dripping. There we are. ‘And when you drip with gallons of my come.’Gallons? I hope he’s speaking metaphorically because Jesus. Gallons,multiple? That could probably kill someone.”
I huff out an exhale. Sweat’s begun to drip from my hairline. “You realize this was yourmother’sbook, right? And let me tell you…the pages wereworn. She read this book repeatedly. Do you want to read the passage where he describeshowthey’llmate, once it happens? It involves several holes. And his brother.”
Charlie stiffens and throws the book back to me. “I’m not sure why you had to ruin everything by bringing up my dead mom. I mean, you didn’tentirelyruin it. I’m still going to jerk off to this, and I really hope she’s not watching.”
