Page 17 of Forever Fighting
“I’m so fucking pissed at you, man. You have no idea.”
“I do actually. As pissed as you are at me, I’m a million times angrier with myself. I was selfish. I can get like that sometimes. It’s the billionaire-only-child thing. I was thinking with my dick and not my heart, and now Braelyn is hurting and I might not ever get her back.”
“Yeah. You might not. And you’ll have to live with that. I gotta go.” Without waiting for him to reply, I hang up. I grip my phone, wanting to open the balcony door and chuck it into the water. I held back because she was Nash’s and it felt wrong to try to date my dead brother’s girlfriend or ex-girlfriend or whatever she was after losing him. Plus, I wasn’t in any state to bewhat she deserved. But I waited too long. Played it too cautiously.
This could be my shot but also how the fuck can this be my shot?
I have no answers, and in the absence of answers, I cook. Homemade croissants, maple-glazed ham, eggs, and gruyère. Plus the fruit plate the concierge brought up.
“Do you ever do anything simple?” comes from behind me. I turn to find her in my sweatpants and hoodie again, and fuck, her in my clothes is the best look in the world on her. “That’s an egg and cheese, but it’s not.”
“Is that your way of saying you don’t want me to make you a cappuccino to go with it?”
She squints challengingly. “Is that a threat?”
“Only if you don’t eat my breakfast.”
She rolls her eyes dramatically and crosses the room to climb onto one of the barstools. “Ugh. Fine,” she grouses mockingly. “I’ll eat your fancy, delicious breakfast.”
“Way to sell it there, kid.”
“There is no selling it when it smells this good. How are you still single?” she muses but pops a blueberry in her mouth, not waiting for an answer to her rhetorical question, and I don’t have one I’m ready to give her yet.
We eat breakfast together, both of us quiet and introspective.
“I don’t want to go there today,” she finally says.
“No? Do you want me to do it?”
She shakes her head. “This will sound crazy, and I know it is, but I think I’ll buy some basics and maybe in a day or two I’ll do it.”
“I’ll help you. Whenever you’re ready, if you’re ever ready, I’ll help you.”
“Maybe tomorrow after work?” She scrunches her nose as if she’s not sure. “I think I just want today.”
“I’ll have the concierge get you some things.”
A smile curls her lips. “Fancy.”
“It’s what they’re there for. Give me a list, and we’ll have it in a few hours.”
She starts to tick items off on her fingers. “Lube, butt plug, magic rabbit thing, oh, and condoms, of course.”
I cough and nearly choke on my croissant. “The basics?”
She gives me a sideways look. “Am I forgetting anything?”
“Nipple clamps. Handcuffs or rope. Perhaps a flogger.”
She makes a tsking sound as she sips her cappuccino. “Those don’t sound basic. More like the advanced course. I’m not quite sure I’m there yet.”
Perhaps you just need the right teacher, I think but definitely don’t say. “Just the basics then. Got it.”
“And maybe some clothes and a toothbrush.”
“Obviously,” I tease.
“Obviously,” she parrots, rolling her eyes playfully at me, but she starts to pick apart her sandwich instead of eating it. “Can we watch a movie today? Maybe splash in your cool pool?”
