Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 73699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
He holds his cell phone. “Thai. Ordered.”
“You don’t even know my order!”
“Coconut shrimp, chive dumpling, pad Thai, and you’ll help yourself to my green curry without asking, eat half of it, and then tell me all the reasons you don’t love it.”
“Nice.” I nod in approval. “Keep it coming with all this domestic discontent, especially during your solo meeting with Gordon Price. You’ll sell not only our marriage but also our impending divorce.”
“Only one month to go,” he says, lifting his glass.
I manage to raise mine in an answering toast.
But I can’t quite manage a smile to go with it.
Chapter 33
Thursday, October 29
“Did you find the spare sheets?” I call out, pulling Colin’s pillow off his side of the bed. He’s got a surprising amount of pillows on the bed for a guy who lives alone, and the Thai food churns a little in my stomach as I wonder if the mountain of extra pillows is Rebecca’s touch. I wonder how many times she’s slept over, I wonder …
No. That’s enough. I’ll never be able to get to sleep in this bed if I continue with that train of thought, and I’m not up for another fifteen-minute argument with Colin over who takes the couch.
If I had to guess, I’d imagine Colin a single pillow kind of guy, but on the off chance he likes a mountain of them, I grab three of them off the bed.
“Colin?” I call, tilting my head up so my voice can carry over the pile of pillows. “Did you hear what I said about the spare sheets? I put them in the—”
The rest of my sentence ends with an oomph as I step into the hallway and collide with something—someone. The pillows thump softly to the floor.
“What was the plan, building a fort?” Colin asks, as we both lean down to pick up the pillows.
“Nope. Smothering. I wanted to try out a couple different ones, see which felt the best as I held it over your face.”
“Uh-huh. Also, I’ve already got a pillow,” he says, a pillow under each arm, leaving me holding just one. “I grabbed the one in the linen closet with the guest sheets.”
“Yeah, but these are your pillows. If you’re going to have to sleep on the couch, your head should at least have a pillow that knows how to cradle your skull—”
“What are you—cradle my skull—you know what, never mind. Just never mind.” He shakes his head and moves past me into the bedroom, tossing the pillows back on the bed.
“Well, I need the one that cradles my skull,” I call over my shoulder, going to the living room couch and swapping the pillows.
I’m staring dubiously at the couch as he comes back into the living room. He’s wearing flannel pants and a navy T-shirt; I’m wearing his boxers and undershirt, which has become my nightly uniform. As grumpy as I was about having to give up my expensive silk pajama set, I have to admit, the new PJs are growing on me. There’s a certain comfort in oversized cotton.
Especially when, even after the wash, they still smell a tiny bit like Colin. At least that’s what I tell myself. And yes. I am well aware that I’m acting like a crazy, obsessed weirdo. Don’t worry. It’ll fade when I move out, and he moves on. Probably.
“What’s your issue?” he asks, coming to stand beside me as I stare at the makeshift bed. “Is that pillow not going to adequately cradle my skull?”
“I think you’re going to have bigger problems than the pillow.” I point. “The couch is too short for you.”
“I’ll sleep on my side.”
“You sleep on your back.”
“How do you know?”
“It’s what I told Gordon Price,” I say.
“Who didn’t ask, by the way.”
“Well, I also shared a room with you in Hudson.”
“And what, you watched me sleep?” he asks.
Maybe.
“And then there was the morning I brought you flowers in bed.”
“Which I neither asked for, nor wanted.”
“They were pretty!”
“They were, until they died and basically created their own compost pile.”
“File that one away too,” I say, patting his arm. “Good marriage spat and divorce fuel stuff.”
“You’re really obsessed with this divorce material,” he says, looking down at me.
I turn to face him, hugging the pillow to my chest. “Well, that’s the whole reason I’m here in New York, isn’t it? So we could live together, in order to divorce?”
He studies me, his bright blue eyes even more piercing than usual. “Do you regret it?”
I pluck at the tag of the pillow that’s poking out from the pillowcase. “We couldn’t stay married forever. And while I’m still pissed at Justin for this whole mess, I guess now is as good a time as any to see it through and move on.”
He nods. “You excited to get back to San Francisco?”