AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“There are seven point eightbillionpeople in the world,” I said, shaking my head at the absurdity. “How can you ever be sure you’ve found the one ‘true love’ of your life when you haven’t even met one percent of the people on the earth? You could have the exact same relationship with millions of them as you do with your significant other, simply because of compatibility.”
“That’s fair,” he murmured, even though I didn’t think he fully agreed with me. “So then do you include your grandparents in your everyone-has-the-potential-to-cheat scenario?”
“Absolutely,” I said, nodding. “I don’t want to dwell on it becauseew, but even Don and Mabel would cheat if presented with the right chemistry and opportunity.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Hmmmm.”
“What does ‘hmmmm’ mean?” A giggle gurgled out of me, the seriousness of our conversation juxtaposed over serious tipsiness. “You don’t agree?”
“Honestly,” he said, his dark eyes narrowed as he looked somewhere past my shoulder, like he was lost in thought. “I have no fucking clue.”
four
Max
Did I agree?
Yes and no.
“I’m not sure if I agree entirely about love not existing,” I said, carefully choosing my words so as not to upset the recently cheated-on almost bride. “But Idothink love is a gamble and most people walk away from the table with less than they brought.”
I was a risk versus reward kind of guy, and experience had taught me that the risk definitely wasn’t worth the reward.
No, thank you.
“Nice analogy,” Sophie said, moving so her legs were curled underneath her. “So did you lose at the table and that’s why you do this? Is that The Objector’s origin story?”
I wasn’t going to tell her my life story, because I didn’t even know Sophie’s last name, for God’s sake, but I also didn’t like theorigin storycomment. I wasn’t some mercenary who compulsively broke up weddings for money out of some twisted need for retribution.
“For starters, I don’t really ‘do this’ very often. I helped out a friend in a bad situation, and then through word of mouth, did a few more favors for acquaintances with limited options.”
“Tell me everything,” she said, grinning and leaning her head against the back of the sofa. “But go get the rest of the pizza first, Maxxie.”
“Not my name,” I said, standing. “But I want to make sure I get another slice before you kill it, so I will obey anyway. Just this once.”
“Smart boy,” she replied as I walked over to the bar. “Now tell me about your first objection.”
It was a little surreal when I thought back to it, because I hadn’t even known the woman very well at the time. “Hannah was the administrative assistant at my office. Nice, but pretty quiet. Kept to herself.”
I grabbed the box and carried it over to the sofa, where Sophie was patting the table as if directing pizza traffic.
“She was getting married to the governor’s son, so even though she was an introvert, everyone in the office knew it was going to be kind of a big deal wedding.”
“Ah,” she said, throwing open the box the minute I set it down and grabbing a piece of pepperoni. “The bald douchebag governor?”
“That’s the one,” I said, noting the way she crinkled her nose like she knew every little thing about the former governor and hated his guts. “But two days before the wedding, I left work late, around eight p.m., and she was sitting in her car in the parking lot, crying.”
“Oh, no,” Sophie said through a mouthful of food, eyes wide. “What happened?”
Despite the seriousness of the story, she looked like such a kid that I sort of wanted to laugh.
“She got a call from a woman who’d been seeing her fiancé—apparently Douche Junior had neglected to tell the side piece who he actually was or that he was in a relationship.”
“Gross,” she said, shaking her head and looking disgusted.
“The woman called to warn her so she could call off the wedding—total class act—but Hannah said she couldn’t. Apparently Douche Junior was a master at gaslighting and anytime shequestioned anything in their relationship, he reached out to her parents because her paranoia made him ‘worry she was relapsing.’ ”
God, just remembering made me want to hit that guy again. I plopped down beside Sophie on the couch.
