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Shaking his head, he raises his hands. “Not judging, little dude. I guess I’m just confused as to why you need this in the first place. Can’t you just?—”
“Have better judgement?” I groan and gently place the book down. Hanging my head in shame, I let out a deep breath. “You would think so, right? This really shouldn’t be necessary, but I’m at the end of my rope here. I have no trouble finding guys… It’s just finding therightguy.”
He places a beefy hand on my shoulder, and I look up to see his sympathetic smile. “I know. I was at brunch too. They really went off on you, didn’t they?”
I wave away his concern. “They weren’t cruel, just truthful, and that’s the part that sucks. Everything they said was right. I guess I just realized that I couldn’t keep going on that way.”
Truthfully, I don’t think I could take another heartbreak. Maybe this whole plan seems a bit ridiculous, and even I can hear that it does, but I’m desperate. I so very badly want to be as healthy as Elton, and I so very want to be as in love as Rhys and Everest. I want to find a guy that won’t treat me likecrap. The trouble is, I don’t even realize they’re doing it. Call this a preventative measure, because if a guy can tick off all the requirements on the list, how can he be the wrong one?
Max must sense my train of thought because he shrugs. “It doesn’t seem like a foolproof plan, but I’m here to help in whatever way you need. I’ll even make a ‘do not’list.”
I raise an eyebrow. “A what?”
“Like a list of things you shouldn’t put up with.” He smiles as he opens the notebook and uses one of my bright purple pens to section off an area near the end of it. With chickenshit handwriting, he writes the words ‘DO NOT’ and underlines it for good measure. “Like things you shouldn’t tolerate from guys. Can you think of anything?”
I gulp.
Well…
“How about, ‘do not let them leave you in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant’?”
“That really happened to you?”
“Max!”
“Sorry, sorry,” he mumbles, adding it to the list. He taps his pen against his chin, and his eyes widen with an idea. “Oh! Let’s add,‘do not allow them to tell your fraternity you sucked their dick’?”
My lips drop into a frown. “Has that happened to you?”
“Yeah, but it’s chill,” he says with a shrug. “Live and let live, right?”
I shake my head. “I don’t think that expression means what you think it does…”
He tightens his lips into a flat line and grunts. Ducking his head, I see his cheeks flaming with embarrassment, and I almost apologize until he snaps his head back up with a smile. Chuckling, he ruffles my hair. “It’s all chill, little dude. When a window opens, the door closes.”
Okay… That also might not mean what he thinks it does, but I let it slide. When you have this sort of youthful optimism that Max does, you just have to go with it. That’s partly why I hired him and mostly why I thought he would fit into the family. We have Elton, but we needed another beautiful himbo with a heart of gold to balance all the brooding boys in our clique. Max is refreshing, gorgeous, and so sincere. Sure, he can’t make a drink to save his life, but that’s no big deal. Not every bartender needs to knowallthe drinks on the planet.
He takes a big bite of his bagel and speaks through a full mouth. “When’s the end date to this?”
I cock my head and think. Shrugging, I hand him a napkin when he gets some cream cheese on the corner of his mouth. “I don’t think there is one. I’m certainly not dating until it’s done. I figure when the time is right, I’ll just know. In the meantime, Cassy is helping me out.”
“Helping you out…” He turns, as if someone is going to hear us despite being in his one-bedroom apartment. “Like, withsexstuff?”
I chuckle. “That’s where your mind immediately went?”
“Well, am I wrong?”
He’s got a point there. Recalling last night, I begin to squirm in my seat. I’ve never seen Cassius so…sorough. He’s usually so gentle with me. I can’t lie and say I don’t like it when he treats me like some sort of precious china because it makes me feel special. But last night…
Fuck me, last night, he was some sort of daddy dom-esque animal, and I ate up every bit of it. I never thought I’d get so turned on around my best friend, but he hit every sexual kink I have. Someone to manhandle me, to take charge, to force me to feel pleasure. Someone with raw sexual magnetism to the point I just want to rip off my clothes, bend over, and wag my ass in the air until I get fucked hard.
“Um, little dude?”
I blink myself out of my daze. “Yeah?”
“You’re sort of developing a…big situation.”
My eyebrows pinch as I follow his line of sight, seeing the tent in my shorts. Gasping, I cover it with my hands, but there’s no use hiding it now. “Oops. Sorry.”
