Page 72 of Ruthless Claim

The coffee situation is its own separate disaster.

She makes her coffee and I make mine. But somehow, she takes mine, drinks out of it, and hands it back before picking up her own cup. Every single morning.

The first time it happens I ask her why. She looks at me over the mug and says, “Yours tastes better.”

“That’s impossible,” I tell her, confusion clear in my voice. “You’ve told me repeatedly that I make it wrong.”

She shrugs. “It still tastes better.”

I have no response to this so now, I make two cups now. But she takes mine anyway. I drink hers, even though it has almond milk in it and neither of us says a word.

We have a bilateral coffee exchange program now that nobody agreed to and both of us have apparently accepted.

This is my life.

Instead of breakfast being quiet with us trying to get out of the kitchen, we argue.

About everything.

We argue about the Knicks—I maintain they’re hopeless but she argues that they’re just one good draft pick away from something.

We argue about whether raisins belong in anything—they don’t, full stop, but she seems to find the dried boogers looking things delicious.

Just the other day we spent forty minutes on whether there’s any legitimate argument for the second season of a television show she’s been watching being better than the first.

I had not seen the show but found myself watching it that evening specifically so I could have the argument properly.

The second season is better than the first, and now I’m addicted to this goddamn vampires and werewolves show.

Fuck.

Last week she left a bookmarked book on the counter.

I read the highlighted section and brought it up over dinner, and we spent forty-five minutes on it.

I did not want the conversation to end.

I need to get a grip.

I’m a grown man.

I operate in rooms with people who are actively trying to kill me and I maintain complete composure.

I am being dismantled by a woman who hides insults around my house and keeps the ones I write back.

The physical thing has also gotten worse.

It was always there, I’ve wanted her from approximately the first ten minutes of knowing her, which is embarrassing, considering I hated her. But it used to be straightforward.

She’s hot, I want her.

That’s a transaction with a beginning and an end. Simple.

It’s not simple anymore.

Now whenever I see her, I get hard. It doesn’t matter if her hair’s done or she’s still half asleep with mascara smudged under one eye and a scowl because the coffee isn’t ready yet.

My brain just—stops. Goes completely offline. I’ve put a mug down because my grip wasn’t reliable.