Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 107965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 540(@200wpm)___ 432(@250wpm)___ 360(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 540(@200wpm)___ 432(@250wpm)___ 360(@300wpm)
“I’m not sure I can handle you talking like an altar boy.” I shrugged. “But back to your divorce. You and Antonio don’t share the bathroom?”
“Definitely not. We have three bathrooms—the one in our bedroom is for communal peeing.” He clasped his hands together and then lifted the top one to demonstrate a lid opening. “That seat stays up at all times.” He gator-chomped his hands closed. “The other two are for pooping—his and his poop stations. Antonio uses the one in the guest room, and I use the one in our mother-in-law bedroom. This morning, I went to use my bathroom, and the seat was up! My boar of a husband not only violated our potty pact, but he sprinkled when he tinkled!”
I shook my head. “I think you’ll get over it. Besides, you would shrivel up and die without Antonio, and you know it. Who would cook your breakfast and dinner every day? Who would prepare your morning cappuccino exactly as you like it, with one-point-five teaspoons of sugar—God forbid it be two teaspoons—and a dash of cocoa powder? Who would make your welcome home lemon-drop martini at six fifteen promptly every day? Who—”
Oliver held a hand up. “Whose side are you on?”
“Yours, always. But you’re making a mountain out of a molehill. You should be happy that you have a partner—one who moved from Italy just to be with you and has stuck around for twenty years even though you threaten divorce three times a week.” I frowned. “I can’t even get a man to move here from Maine.”
“Oh, honey.” He leaned forward and patted my hand. “I told you I’d show you my secret blow-job techniques. My flute recitals can make a man give up living in a ten-bedroom palace in Milan for a three-bedroom dump in Queens.”
Antonio really had lived in a ten-bedroom house in Italy, but the three-bedroom place in Astoria his family had bought them as a wedding gift was far from a dump. The inside could’ve been featured in Architectural Digest.
I sighed. “I wish it were that simple.”
“Have you spoken to him?”
I shook my head.
“Texted?”
“Not since the night I got back.”
Brock had asked me to send him a text when I got home, which I did. He’d sent back a sentence or two. But that was it. I hadn’t heard from him again.
I’m not sure what I expected to happen between us once I left Meadowbrook. It wasn’t like we’d made plans to keep in touch. But I hadn’t thought things would come to such an abrupt end. The day after I got back to New York had been super busy. I’d spent fourteen hours at the office putting out fires and whipping things back into shape. Yet I’d still checked my phone a few times, expecting to see a text from Brock at some point. But none came. So I figured I’d wait until he was ready. Unfortunately, I was still waiting two weeks later.
“Why don’t you just pick up the phone and call him?”
“I don’t want to make it harder for him.” I looked down at the silver coordinate bracelet on my wrist. I hadn’t taken it off since the morning Brock put it on, not even to shower. “Besides, at this point, there’s nothing left to say.”
“Say, come visit me. I miss you.”
The thought of Brock standing in the middle of Manhattan made me smile. “He’s never been to the City. He’d hate it here.”
“He wouldn’t be coming for a tour of the subway, rats, and graffiti. He’d be coming for a tour of you.” Oliver shrugged. “You’ll stay indoors and boink the whole time.”
“That would work if he were just a hook-up, but he’s not. He’s an all-in type man. When he decided to build a cabin, he cut down the trees for the logs and collected stones to build a fireplace. When the small town he grew up in struggled because the biggest employer shut down, he opened businesses to put people back to work. He’s loyal and dedicated, and he deserves a woman who will be just as dedicated to him.”
“You can do dedicated. You’re dedicated to this company.”
“That’s part of the problem. This company takes up all my time.”
“Sell it! Antonio worked in the family business—selling high-end collectible cars worth more than our house. Here he climbs telephone poles for ConEd.”
“But Antonio hated his job in Milan. I love what I do.”
“You could always cut back and work less.”
I motioned to his iPad, which he’d walked in carrying. “Call up my schedule. Show me the next month.”
Oliver pressed some buttons and turned the screen to face me. There were colorful appointments and tasks crowding every day—even Saturdays and Sundays. “You’re a little full right now,” he said. “But that’s only because you were out for a month. It will get better.”