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I swallow twice. His card. Right. For lingerie. And shoes. And a dress. I rub my nose.
“Well?” Day half-winces.
“He put a ‘u’ in color.”
“Um, what?”
“He put a ‘u’ in color. Fucking British and their stupid spelling.” I fold the note into quarters and tuck it into my purse then grab my wallet and slip my card into it.
“Why aren’t you going batshit motherfucking crazy?”
I sigh heavily and look at her. “What can I do, really? He’s even more persistent and controlling than Aaron—but not in a bad way. And hey, if he’s telling me to buy things that will ultimately get me fucked, who am I to complain?”
Dayton raises her eyebrows and opens her car door. I get out on my side and look up. The Arc de Triomphe towers above us. I know this place. The Champs-Élysées. The most expensive street in the world.
My best friend stares at me for a long moment before we start walking. “I’m not sure what he’s doing to you, but I kind of like it. Is he taming you?”
I laugh loudly. “No, he’s even crazier than I am. He’s wild and crazy and ridiculously impulsive.”
“I know someone else like that.” She gives me a pointed look.
“Perhaps that’s why we make sense in the worst kind of way.” I shrug, looking down the Champs-Élysées.
“The worst kind? No, Liv. You make sense in the best kind of way. Trust me. Opposites don’t always attract and work out. Sometimes you need another version of you, just with a penis instead of a vagina, to make everything seem right again.”
Elevator. Bullet in a restaurant. In a bathroom at a party. In a club. On a bar—an actual bar.
Those are only some of the things on Tyler’s list. He really wasn’t joking when he said he’d think up some places. Of course, I fully expect him to try everything on the list at least once. He’s nothing if not consistent, and he hasn’t yet said that he’ll do something without following through on it.
Shopping is painful. I’ve never been a huge shopper, but I’ve never been a hater of it either. After Day led me to a lingerie store off the Champs-Élysées, one she found after an afternoon of random walking around, we headed back onto the main street and passed a thousand designer stores.
Now, we’re in a high-end store I barely caught the name of, and I’m feeling like a fish out of water. I’m too scared to touch anything or, god forbid, look at a price tag. This is crazy and this isn’t me.
I wish I could be the kind of woman who’s able to spend a man’s money without batting an eyelid.
“How do you do it?” I ask Dayton, watching her hand three items to the clerk.
“I imagine it’s my money and not Aaron’s.”
That would work if I had this kind of money.
“You’re really not comfortable here, are you?” she asks quietly when she comes back to me.
“It’s not that. Maybe a bit.” I run my fingers through my hair. “I don’t have a right to spend his money. It’s not mine to spend.”
“Olivia Warren. You listen to me right now.” She grabs my chin and makes me look at her. “He’s giving you his card. You know why he’s giving you it?”
I shake my head.
“He’s expecting you not to spend anything more than the underwear because you’ll justify it as a business expense. Correct?”
“Yes,” I reply begrudgingly.
“If you go back to him without a pair of shoes and a dress for dinner, he’ll know your decision to remain…uncommitted…is your final one.”
“So you’re saying that, if I spend his money, I’m telling him I’m open to the idea of an actual relationship? You know this is bullshit, right?”
“Men are just as sensitive as we are to this stuff. Just in different ways. So you can find a dress in here and give you both a taste of the future or you can walk out empty-handed and taste loneliness.”
