Page 14 of Good at Being Alive
Nor does he need to run a thumb over that lush lower lip when I speak, which is weirdly hot and makes me think of sinking my teeth intoit.
Maybe it’s only half irritation and half that I really need to get laid by someone who isn’t my soon-to-be-fake husband…hard to accomplish if I’ve got to delete my dating profiles.
I push those thoughts aside and dutifully follow my boring husband on Instagram (his profile is completely empty) but not on TikTok, which he apparently refuses to be a part of because he “doesn’t want to be used as a pawn by a communist regime.”
Even his activism grates.
“Excellent,” says Lars, clearly relieved to have moved past the second of today’s battles. “Anyway, the wedding. We’re going to need to make sure we get some photos. Perhaps even some handheld video…nothing professional, obviously, just someone filming a minute or two on a phone because if you were really getting married,someonewould have taken a photo or video. Which means I need Theo in a tux or a suit and Bex in a white dress.”
Me in a white dress and him in a tux will make this seem even more real than it already does. “Can’t we just be notoriously private people who demanded no one photograph us?”
Theo holds up a photo from my profile in which I’m doing a keg stand. “Do you really expect anyone to believe thatthiswoman is notoriously private?”
I roll my eyes, though he’s got a point.
Paula’s shoulders are sagging as she swipes through my profile. “Let’s clean up the posts a bit, Bex, when you have time, by which I mean right now. We have to assume that once Kylie and Jasper find you online, they’re going to be sharing the most atrocious photos of you they can find and—God, Bex, let’s take down the mug shot, okay? Anyway, how does Friday look for the ceremony? Lars has a friend who can lend us his courtyard, and he got ordained last year to do a wedding.”
My stomach ties itself into a knot. It was one thing when we werehypotheticallygoing to get married at some point. Now I’m going to be wearing a dress and holding his hand four days hence.
I have to slow this down and I really have no idea how.
“Four days isn’t even enough for a bachelorette,” I tell Theo, fighting my panic with forced nonchalance. “I need more time.”
Theo rolls his eyes. “Not that you need a bachelorette before a fake wedding, but that would typically require a night at most.”
“Not mine. There’s the flight to Vegas, a bunch of male strippers thrusting their groins in my face. There’s the night I’ll spend with at least one of them, but probably two, though I’ll lie to you about it later. I can’t possibly accomplish all that in four days.”
“Oddly enough, my bachelor party would have much the same schedule, but we need to get this done.”
“You’d enjoy having all those male strippers thrust in your face, wouldn’t you? Or perhaps not. It might make you feel inadequate.”
His laughter is smug, confident…and a touch filthy. “I assure you I wouldn’t be plagued by feelings of inadequacy.”
Damn.Ignoring that.
I glance at Paula. “Please note that he doesn’t address the part about the male strippers, just the inadequacy.”
She sighs. “I may have misspoken when I said they have Sam-and-Diane energy. Sid and Nancy is more fitting.”
I’m familiar with Sid and Nancy, and I think he eventually killed her. So yes, that does sound fairly accurate.
Theo
In four days, I’ll bea married man if Lars and Paula are able to pull everything together the way they expect.
It feels very sudden. Because itissudden and also because I have no desire to marry the girl waiting for the elevator beside me, who is currently pulling her hair into a ponytail and showing a serious amount of skin in the process: her flat stomach and—the lower curve of her perky breasts. No bra.Jesus.
“No one is ever going to buy this,” I say. Isoundbored. What I’m feeling, however, is…I’m not sure what it is. But it’s something that shouldn’t be there.
“Sure they will,” she says. Her arms come down at last, thank Christ. “It’s a story as old as time: I’m the young, hot wife and you’re the hideous, significantly older husband I’m only with because of your extreme wealth.”
“I hate to point this out, but I can’t be that hideous given that you kissed me within minutes of our meeting.”
“Ah, you’re assuming I have standards,” she says, stepping onto the elevator. “That’s where you’d be wrong. If I’m willing to fuck a glass bottle, I’m willing to fuck a guy pushing fifty.”
“I’m nowherenearfif…you fucked a glass bottle?”
She shrugs. “It was a dare. It’s not like I did it solo for the fun of it.”
