Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 71403 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71403 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
I don’t understand boundaries.
And I’m really the first person who should, considering how many people in my life have crossed mine.
Last guy I dated, he was a total disaster and left me doubting whether I knew the first thing about love at all. The one before that moved in after dating me for a week, then cheated on me with my local hairstylist. And the one before that got my face tattooed on his back, which I only found out about the final time we had sex and I stared at my own face the whole time, distorted across his shoulder blade in off-putting bluish-black and red ink.
I have no savable history with love.
Might as well flush it all away and call me a virgin.
I’m probably a decent handful of years older than Finn and here I am, playing the role of a lovesick schoolboy. No clue what to do with my big feelings. No friend to process them through. I don’t know what’s right or wrong. What’s too much or not enough.
Finn makes me wonder if I ever even had feelings for someone before. Real feelings. This might be the first time in my life that someone has meant something to me.
Is it possible for something like this to develop so fast? How am I supposed to know, considering my history with men? Against what standard can I possibly measure this?
Either I’m playing the role of a lonesome actor who’s caught feelings and is losing his mind, or some sad stalker fan with an obsession. I’m not sure I’m comfortable with either role. Bit off-brand for me.
Regardless of which role I’m cast in, it doesn’t help me get any closer to ridding my mind of Finn’s face when we spoke at his bedroom door the other night. If only he knew how unappealing the idea of returning to my life is at this moment. How meaningless it feels. How lonely.
But no text is going to convey that.
It’s a miracle I ever fall asleep, because the next time I open my eyes, it’s morning.
My texts have gone unanswered. That’s for the best.
I have a bowl of cereal while thumbing through my social feeds. Stunningly, I am hard-pressed to find anything about me being an arrogant director-hating fiend anymore. The entire conversation has shifted to how “relatable” and “dorky” and “cutely clumsy” I am.
I don’t feel like any of those things right now. Maybe being a lovesick monster really is more on-brand for me.
And it honestly doesn’t matter anymore.
Next thing I know, I’m pacing the house, one room to the next. Then I’m jogging circles. I know every creak of every floorboard. Every discolored spot on every wall. And the number of steps it takes to get from one end of the bungalow to the other. It’s not many.
Would it kill you to reply to a text, Finn?
Even if you just tell me to give up and fuck off?
I’m on my fourteenth lap when I hear the knock.
I freeze in place.
Finn. It’s Finn. He finally decided to put me out of my misery, heed my annoying texts, and came here in person.
I rush eagerly to the back door—only to realize there’s no one there.
The knock comes again.
From the front.
I turn, alarmed.
He wouldn’t knock at the front door. Why would he do that? To drive the point home that he’s being professional? That whatever we had is truly over with? That I really am, by all definitions, simply his family’s tenant?
I go to the front door and put an eye to the peephole.
What the fuck?
I open the door. “Anya??”
Anya, my loving lesbian lawyer friend whose height is always greater than I remember, sidesteps her way into the house and shuts the door on my behalf without a word. All six-foot-yikes of her faces me, her short hair matted to her head and sweaty from the heat, despite her short shorts and tank top. “I’m gonna step out on a limb and assume your team is, as of yet, still completely fucking useless.”
“How’d you find me?” I blurt out before anything else.
“Remember the night your booty-call boy toy showed up with food? You never hung up with me. I heard it all.”
I blink, completely lost for a second. “You mean Finn? The night Finn came over—?”
“And after you had words, you offered to rub his dick, or his shoulders—I don’t know, I tuned out by that point as I’d gotten what I needed to track you down. Hopewell Fair. Rentals. Dreamwood. Bungalow. Took little effort to figure the rest. So after I sorted out some affairs at the office, I packed a bag and—Do you have water? You’re being a terrible host, and I’m fucking thirsty.” She marches right to the kitchen, leaving me at the door, head spinning.
Anya is very quick.
And aggressively smart.