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All the perfect women I’ve ever brought home have lasted a day or two at most, their bodies fun for an evening but their personalities leaving a lot to be desired. Some of them were even interesting, but I attract the kind of person who wants to suck up to me and take a juicy paycheck. That, or the kind of person who is outrageously inappropriate for the family name. My father always loves tattoos and piercings and hippies.
But Anna isn’t any of that. It’s like she can’t see the money and for some reason my own personality hasn’t scared her off. I want to bask in this for as long as I can before she comes to her senses and gets tired of me.
She wants a guy who can look out for her, to support her and love her. Not some guy who gets drunk in casinos three times a week.
In fact, I’ve barely even had a sip of alcohol in days. I’m weirdly clear-headed and the worst bit is, I think I like it. I think I might be ready to change, for good.
The hunt for a hairdryer unsuccessful, Anna sighs and slams a cupboard shut. She unwraps her hair and rubs it in the towel, leaving it frizzy and wild. She tries her best to tame it with her hands but it doesn’t obey. Resigned, she picks up her yoga pants and shimmies them on.
Much as I love her naked body and would love for us to both be naked all the time, I follow suit, slipping into my own green track pants and T-shirt of a band I’ve never heard of. I think it was a gift.
“I don’t know about you,” I say, reaching out for her hand. She slots her fingers between mine like a key into a lock. “But I want to lie down on the sofa for the rest of the day and not move an inch.”
“Sounds perfect,” she says, squeezing my hand and dragging me out of the steamy bathroom.
We flop onto the sofa in a pile of tangled limbs, wrestling until finally she gets comfortable with her head on my lap, her damp hair seeping into my pants. I play with it anyway, stroking her head with my fingers.
“What do you wanna watch?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Doesn’t matter.”
Sinking back into the cushions, I flick through some channels. Really, I know exactly what I want to watch but it’s a totally secret guilty pleasure. And yet… Anna has already seen my bare soul, so one more embarrassment doesn’t feel hard to take. “Don’t laugh, but how do you feel about crappy dating shows?”
She rolls over to stare up at me, her green eyes wide in surprise. “You like reality TV?”
“Shut up,” I say, cringing.
“No, I mean, yeah! Have you been watchingWhat a Meal!?”
I let out a sigh of relief. “Oh my God, yeah. They’re so stupid, it’s hilarious.”
“Right? They cook just as good as me.”
She laughs at that and curls back up into position, watching as I search for the show. The theme music is as annoying as the people, but it’s just the right level of brainless and entertaining to be worth watching. Plus, the host is pretty hot.
Somehow, hot women seem to be losing their appeal all of a sudden. It’s like having one on my lap to hold is filling all my needs.
When I got banished here, the idea of a sober week of isolation sounded like the worst punishment possible. Little did my father know, it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I don’t want to drink or go out and be stupid. I don’t think he’d believe it either, that I really am changing for good. It seems too fast to really become a new person, but it’s true.
All I want to do is sit here and play with Anna’s hair and listen to the way her laugh lights up the room.
CHAPTER24
ANNA
Iam so tired. Last night, we fell asleep on the sofa watchingWhat a Meal!and, because we were too awake to go to bed properly when we woke back up at like one a.m., stayed up until almost dawn fucking. No regrets.
Watching Joel on his knees while I was sat with my legs spread wide open was a sight that I am never going to forget.
It’s one that I want to repeat many, many times.
But I’m not a teenager anymore and I lost the stamina for multiple all-nighters a long time ago.
I’ve left Joel in bed, dozing. He protested when I got up but rolled over back to sleep again before I’d even left the room. It’s not that I wanted to get up, exactly, but I needed the bathroom urgently enough that I couldn’t ignore it anymore, and on the way there, my stomach started growling so I guess even if my brain has lost all sense of time, my body knows when it wants lunch.
So, like a zombie, I’m opening cupboards and staring into them, waiting for some sort of divine inspiration to hit and tell me what I’m craving. We didn’t have breakfast, so I want something substantial. An omelet, maybe?
It’s easy, it’s quick, it’s not totally unhealthy. And I have no other ideas, so it’s going to have to do.
