Page 148 of The Way I Hate Him
“What?” she yells into the phone. “Have you lost your mind? When I stayed at his place with you, I had sex with him in my head at least a dozen times, and I know he wasn’t ready for that, but it happened anyway.”
“Why are we friends?”
“You have me questioning that very statement right now.” She huffs. “Why aren’t you having sex with him?”
“Nervous, unsure of myself. I think I’ve been through a whirlwind of events the past few months, and I just need to slow down, you know? Find myself, figure out what the hell I’m doing with my life.”
“What the hell you’re doing is graciously taking your clothes off for Hayes Farrow. You can find yourself while holding his dick in your mouth. You’re multitalented. You. Can. Multitask. Have I not taught you anything?”
“You haven’t,” I say on a laugh. “You’ve literally taught me nothing.”
“Clearly,” she replies in exasperation. “Okay, so you’re not having sex with him. Well, good luck with that. Tell me how it goes and how long it lasts because, according to my calculations, it won’t last long.”
“And what calculations are those?”
“Easy, I take your neediness to experience a well-executed orgasm by a real man, combine it with his mad sex appeal, and blamo, two days tops.”
“Is that real math?”
“The most real.”
I chuckle. “Well, we’ll see. It might be fun to just . . . tease around a bit.”
“Ha!” She laughs so loud that I can feel my phone shake. “Teasing, uh-huh, you were ready to pounce him in San Francisco. There is no way you’ll be able to ‘tease around a bit,’ whatever the hell that means. But I think it’s honorable that you’re putting up a front. Shows character.”
“I’m going to go now.”
“Best that you do. I need to go direct a flower girl on how to toss flower petals down the aisle, not eat them. Love you.”
“Love you.”
ChapterSeventeen
HAYES
Shit, I’m nervous.
I haven’t been able to focus all day. I attempted fine-tuning a melody in my head but gave up after an hour and resorted to mindlessly watching reruns ofThe Officewhile doing a set of push-ups and then sit-ups every ten minutes.
Now I’m sore as fuck, slightly exhausted, and still nervous.
Before I left my house, I changed my outfit seven times.
Yup, seven.
And guess what? The shirts I rotated through were all variations of black and gray. There wasn’t much difference at all, but it didn’t prevent me from getting all fussy in front of a goddamn mirror and checking the sleeve length of each shirt to make sure it showed off enough bicep to entice Hattie, but not too much that I look like Danny fucking Zuko strutting down the high school hallway.
And my hair, out of all days to try to style it and not wear a hat. I fidgeted with it for twenty minutes, threatened to flatten it with a hat multiple times, then finally rewet it and started all over.
And I’m still not happy, but I didn’t want to be late picking up Hattie.
I’m also concerned that I put on too much cologne. It’s all I could smell while driving to the farm. I even rolled down the windows to air some of it out, but I went by a cow farm that smelled like last week’s garbage under the hot sun, which caused me to close the window, capturing the hot garbage smell in my car . . . so . . . it’s hot garbage cologne in here.
In addition to the parade of monochromatic shirts, the endless tousling of hair, and the dip into a pool of cologne, I’ve taken down ten Altoids.
Ten!
I no longer have taste buds. I fried them right off.
