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“All of them want a future,” Ethan said. “Usually after they’ve been dating him for ten minutes.”
“All of them love you, if you want to put it that way.”
“Not that they actually have a damn clue who he really is.”
Lance nodded. “He doesn’t know them either. When does he have time to get to know someone?”
“How did all this come from my telling you I ended things with Courtney?” Xander asked.
“You ended it because she wanted a ring, and you just didn’t have the time.”
“They’d been dating six months,” Ethan said. “He always needs a regular date over the holidays. And he leaves a little time after, just so they don’t get suspicious.”
“Shit, who have you been talking to? I was getting this same rhetoric last Saturday at Reid’s engagement party too,” Xander said. “Courtney and I were dating six months, so what?”
There was a thread of pity in their next bout of laughter. “He doesn’t even know if that’s an appropriate timescale,” Lance said. “The minute women talk commitment, moving in or marriage, you are out of there.”
“I should stick around?”
“No,” Lance said. “They don’t love you. They want to be with you because you’re rich.”
Ethan shook his head. “If you weren’t rich, your relationships wouldn’t last a week.”
“What’s his average?” Lance asked Ethan. “About ninety days, right?” Ethan nodded. “By ninety days women who’ve only been out with you a handful of times start talking about the next step.”
“Which is right about when you break it off… because you don’t know how to have a real relationship.”
“And the women you choose don’t either. The money’s what they’re interested in.”
“Because no regular mortal woman would put up with you.”
“Nice,” Xander said, nodding slowly. “So all the women I date are shallow?”
Lance shrugged. “And vapid most of the time.”
The guys didn’t mean this. Couldn’t… Except he knew them well enough to read their sincerity.
“You’re wrong,” he said while suspecting they could be right on the money. “Yes, I have experience with different kinds of women—” His friends’ sudden blast of laughter cut him off. “What? What the hell is wrong now?”
“You date exactly the same woman over and over,” Ethan said. “Every one of them is cookie-cutter glossy magazine perfect.”
“Gorgeous, glamorous, money-obsessed.”
“I’m surprised you could even tell them apart. No real woman spends six hours getting ready to meet for dinner.”
“Real woman, real woman,” he said. “Who is this real woman?”
“A woman who doesn’t know you’re worth the gross national product of a small country,” Lance said. “A woman who holds down a job. Who pays her own bills… and doesn’t have an entourage constantly reminding her how gorgeous she is.”
“How come this is all about me?” he asked, leaving the table to go to the wet bar. If ever there was a moment for a drink, he was in it. “I don’t see either of you rushing to put rings on anyone’s fingers.”
“We have real relationships,” Ethan said. “Women actually dump us.”
“Yeah, they bust our balls when we don’t call or show up too. Women hold us to account.”
“And they expect us to share.” Share? His surprised attention sprang from the decanter in his hand paused in midair over the glass. The conversation had taken a sharp, interesting, turn. “Our feelings,” Ethan groaned in explanation, glaring at him. “Not the fun kind of sharing you get with all the models lined up waiting to take their turn in your bed…” Rather than stop at a regular measure, he tipped just a little more into the heavy-based crystal tumbler. Solidarity had to come from somewhere. If not his friends, liquor would do. “I bet you lose count sometimes.”
If that was envy in Ethan’s tone, he didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. “When do I have time for these orgies?”
