And by interesting, I mean depressing.
Because this guy I am attracted to—the first guy I’ve been attracted to in years—has had three calls from three different women in the span of . . . if I had to guess, it’s been less than twenty minutes. And at least one of these women is someone he speaks to in that voice. That not-a-jerk voice he’s never once used with me.
All of which is really friggin’ annoying.
Because I’ve only known him a few days. And I shouldn’t care who he uses his not-a-jerk voice with. And I shouldn’t care that he acts like a misanthropic jerk to me. But it’s just an act. Because apparently there’s a whole legion of women he chats with on the phone often enough that they freely call him on the weekend and have snarky avatars in his phone.
They’re probably all tall, beautiful, PhD candidates. Or they already have a doctorate. Or two.
But you know what really gets me? What annoys me the most?
It’s that I shouldn’t care about any of this. Because I do not have the time or space in my life to be attracted to anyone. Misanthropic, judgmental jerk or not. I don’t care how good he smells. Or whether or not he has an eight-pack. He could have a twenty-four for all I care. (Though, I’m pretty sure he’d have to be some kind of anthropoid to have a twenty-four pack.)
The point is, I shouldn’t care how many women are calling him.
But I do.
Chapter 10
Max
“Okay,” Tavey says twenty minutes later. “When I said you should call me later, I meant after she left.”
“I did wait. She’s gone.”
As soon as I got off the phone with Tavey, Holly breezed through the rest of the steps to setting up my social media in less than ten minutes. I’d even had time to take a shower before calling Tavey back.
Which, for reasons I don’t understand, only irritates Tavey.
When I tell her that, she grumbles. Then hisses, “What did you do?”
“What do you mean what did I do? She left. I took a shower.” During which I absolutely did not jerk off while thinking about Holly. “Then I called you back. Like you made me promise to do.”
Holly did all the social media stuff so quickly, I couldn’t help wonder why she needed to come all the way to my house to do it.
And now that she’d been here?
Fuck.
My house smelled like lemons, she’d sat in my chair, and I’d seen her bare feet on my floor.
Why did that matter?
I didn’t know.
Yeah, the house-smelling-like-lemons thing is a pain. But why does it matter that she sat in my chair or had her bare feet on my floor?
Why had the sight of her tiny shoes next to mine seemed . . . weirdly intimate?
I didn’t know that, either.
And I don’t want to talk about any of it.
But this is Tavey and she never fucking lets anything go.
“That beautiful woman was there. At your house. And you were shirtless. And somehow she left after twenty minutes? Why did you let her leave?”
“Because forcing people to stay in your house is kidnapping.”
