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“Nigel and I have a good relationship dynamic,” she pointed out. “We communicate. We’re not living together because he has a rent-controlled apartment and I just signed a lease three months ago, so probably, most likely, when my lease is up I’ll move into his place. It’s practical because subletting is messy. And so maybe we don’t go to cute couple cooking lessons together or play in a rooftop shuffleboard league with matching shirts, but we work together. And when we work late at the office, we order takeout and eat it together in his office and it’s fun, damn it. We’re cute.”
She was selling it hard.
He wasn’t even going to ask why she hadn’t moved in with Nigel three months ago instead of signing a new lease. She’d probably walk out of Winterhaven and pack her suitcase and head back to New York if he posed that question.
“Uh… there are rooftop shuffleboard leagues?” he asked.
“Yes. Couples have cute shirts like ‘Every day I’m shuffling’ or the husband’s will say, ‘Trust me, I’m a shuffleboard player,’ and the wife’s will say, ‘A shuffleboard player loves me’ or ‘Shuffleboard Babe.’ And just because me and Nigel don’t do that doesn’t mean anything. He would think that was ridiculous, anyway. He’s too fashion forward for graphic T-shirts.”
Sullivan couldn’t even process what fashion forward meant. He was completely distracted by the entire concept of shuffleboard in Brooklyn and the mental image of her in a tight Shuffleboard Babe T-shirt. He could picture the tight T-shirt, no problem. But with shuffleboard babe on it? No way.
Plus, he was stuck on the concept itself. “No one in New York can possibly do that. That is the most Midwestern thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life. Now I have a whole new idea for the back of the bar though because that’s fucking awesome.”
“People do it. But not me and Nigel.” She shook her head vehemently. “Because we’re busy. We run a business. It’s not even shuffleboard, specifically, I just mean hobbies, spending time together. All we do is work. Which is also why we only have sex once a month, in case you’re wondering.”
“I wasn’t wondering.” He didn’t want to think about her in bed with Nigel. At all. He really fucking didn’t want to go there because once it was in his head, it would never get out of his head and it would destroy any ounce of peace he had in his life.
She kept talking though, explaining their sex life.
“Nigel is always putting out work fires and I’m always exhausted from the stress. Then when you don’t have sex very often there is all this expectation that it’s going to be amazing, like thebest sex ever, and that’s a lot of pressure, you know? Because it’s mostly just fine, but I get in my head because I don’t usually have an orgasm, and then Nigel gets aggravated with me because I can’t, and then he feels like it’s just easier to handle himself in the shower.”
Holy shit. Sullivan glanced around, concerned someone might overhear. No one was in immediate earshot. “Eddie. Maybe we can discuss this later.”
Or never. They could discuss how often she had sex with her boyfriend never. He was tempted to text Winnie to get her ass to the rink and rescue him because not only was Eddie discussing what she and Nigel did, she was discussing what theydidn’tdo.
They were not having a healthy sex life from the sound of it, and damn it if it didn’t spark a bit of hope in him.
Like his dick just stood up and announced,hey, asshole, we’ve got a shot. Make your move.
Which he couldn’t do because she was still with Nigel. Maybe getting a ring sooner than later.
“But it’sfine,” Eddie said, her voice shrill. “That’s all normal. No couple is having sex every day. They’re not. I know they’re not. That’s a myth designed to make women feel inadequate.”
It wasn’t a myth. He and his friends didn’t talk about their sex lives all the time, but he knew enough to feel comfortable saying every guy he knew in a relationship was getting laid more than once a month. He also knew that hadn’t been the case in his own marriage. He wasn’t going to point that out to Eddie though.
He put his hands on her shoulders. “Let’s go to the concession stand and get you some water. Then we’ll sit down and talk about this.”
“Do they sell wine here?” she asked. “I am thirsty.”
“They do, but it’s the kind that will make your head hurt if you drink more than two sips.”
“I don’t care. My head already hurts.”
So did his. Eddie wasn’t having orgasms.
She was killing him.
Chapter8
What the hell was she doing?
Edwina had just told Sullivan O’Toole, her first crush, that she and her boyfriend had sex once a month.
She was completely mortified.
Yet, she couldn’t seem to stop talking.
Which must mean that Sullivan did feel like a friend to her. Like a girlfriend. She was sharing, venting like she would with a female bestie. That made total sense. Back in New York, there really wasn’t anyone she could talk to about this because all her friends knew Nigel and she didn’t want anyone to have a negative impression of him or their relationship. She obviously couldn’t discuss her personal life at work since they worked together. So she had bottled up all her concerns and then they had just all spilled out when Sullivan had asked her about having kids.
