Page 65 of Fundamentals of Being a Good Girl
Not entirely alone.
Because coming through the walk is a brunette with a dark chin-length bob, bangs cut with an architect’s precision, and lipstick so red it makes everything around her seem colorless. And the outfit she was wearing before—camel trousers and a button-down—have been replaced with a leather skirt that swings around her knees and a slouchy sweater that hints at a silk tank top underneath. It’s still stylish, still TV-ready, but it’sMaddietoo, sharp and crisp and definitive.
And those bloodred lips...
So fucking bratty.
I’m staring at those lips with hooded eyes as she reaches me and stops.
“Well, Professor?” she asks in a smoky voice.
“Full marks, top of the class,” I breathe, sliding my hand into her hair and leaning down. I don’t want to mess up her lipstick, so I press my lips to the underside of her jaw. I savor the soft warmth there, and the subtle hint of jasmine underneath the scents of expensive salon.
“You look amazing.” I speak the words against her neck, hoping I can speak them into her blood, into the air filling her lungs. “Gorgeous. Dangerous. Clever as a snake and bright as a star.”
“Do I look like I could run for office?”
I pull back so I can take in the full effect of her again. Green eyes, red lips, the flawless hair that looks like it’s been cut from the autumn shadows themselves.
“You look like the world belongs at your feet,” I tell her, and I mean it.
She stares up at me. My hand is still in her hair and I drop it to her chest, feeling the warmth from her skin under her sweater. I want to figure out how to cold-wash and line-dry that sweater so that it stays soft for years. I want to feed her an orange from the small tree in the corner of the greenhouse. I want to sit her on this potting bench and push my fingers inside of her while she tells me every plan in her shrewd, feline mind.
“I don’t think you should look at me like that,” she whispers.
I can see my reflection in her blown pupils. “Like what?”
“Like you want to be the one to put the world at my feet.”
For a moment, we don’t move. And then she steps back, her bright red bottom lip tucked between her teeth for a single millisecond and then released again. I can see the pulse pounding in her throat.
“You don’t want me to look at you like that?” I ask to clarify.
She hesitates. “I don’t wantto wantyou looking at me like that.”
I flex the hand that had been pressed against her chest just a moment ago. It feels cold.
“When you look at me like you want to use those giant shoulders to ram people out of my way, I get this—” She gestures to her chest, fluttering her fingers. “That. Whatever that is, that’s what I feel. But then immediately on its heels, I feel...” She trails off. Her hand is flat against her stomach now, like there’s a knot under her ribs and it’s been tied too tightly and now something essential inside her is choked off. Bloodless.
And now I have a knot of my own. Because I’ve known what this is from the beginning—she wrote it out on my glass board, for fuck’s sake—I knew what I agreed to.
Just sex, nothing else.
And it seemed like a good idea at the time. I have the kids and work, and I haven’t dated since the divorce, andwell, if I’m honest with myself, maybe I thoughtnothing elsewas all that life had left to give me. I’d had a pretty good marriage; I had good, adorable kids; I had tenure and moss grants. What more was I allowed to want?
But over the last few weeks, the idea ofmorehas crept in, the way autumn creeps in, under the heat, under the soil, until one day you wake up and the air is keen and the trees are burning orange and gold. I woke up one day and wanted Maddie grading in my office as much as I wanted her bent over my desk, and I wanted her talking politics to me as much as I wanted her naked and wet in my lap. I wanted cuddling and complaining and helping at the Fall Frenzy and her meeting the Andromedas for real and for the things we shared to spore like moss and spread and spread until everything was covered in a soft, living blanket ofmore.
I don’t say any of this, though. Because she doesn’t want it, because it’s not what we agreed to.
Because I abruptly feel foolish and... and old. Every bit a man infatuated with a younger woman.
And I don’t need to say it, because Maddie guesses.
“Bram, I just got out of a relationship that defined me.”
“I know.”
“It ruined my life.” Her eyes search mine. “I don’t know if I can express to you how rare the thing between you and Sara is; if you can appreciate how unlike your divorce this breakup was for me. And I can’t do it again. I can’t.”
