Page 14 of My Favorite Lost Cause (The Favorites #2)

MAREN

T he next morning, I’m in my cottage, looking out the windows and bickering with Harvey when Charlie comes into view, running hard along the trail.

“I just don’t see why it matters if I stay a few more days,” I tell him as Charlie nears. He’s removed his shirt and is carrying it balled up in his hand now. Charlie, shirtless, is a thing of beauty—all sinew and flashing muscles, his skin gleaming with sweat.

If there were a calendar of Charlie, shirtless and sweating, I would buy every copy and paper the walls of my home with it.

If I was still single, that is.

And if he wasn’t a relative.

“For starters, because my wife shouldn’t be sleeping under the same roof as another man.”

“I’m not. I’m sleeping in this little cottage on the shore by myself.” Ten feet from Charlie, but Harvey doesn’t need to know that part.

Charlie slows as he nears the house and then drops down to the grass to do push-ups. I press my face to the glass to get a better view .

“Maren,” Harvey says, “if you care this little about getting pregnant, I don’t know why I’m blowing twenty grand on in vitro.”

I blink, refocused on the conversation. He doesn’t give a shit about twenty grand. I’ve seen him lose that in a couple hours in Vegas. But of course the money isn’t the point. Reminding me I can still be punished is the point.

“If money’s an issue, I’m sure Henry would be willing to pay,” I reply, innocent as spun sugar, knowing it will silence him. Harvey seems to want to get in a dick-measuring contest with the men of my family, so asking them for help would be a blow he couldn’t recover from.

“I don’t need Henry’s fucking money,” Harvey explodes. “You seem to be missing the point, which is that you’re not acting like someone who’s really invested in starting a family, and maybe that’s why we don’t have a fucking kid yet.”

Tears sting my eyes. I’ve given up everything for this, and he knows it.

I gave up my career, and when we’d gone a full year with no pregnancy, Harvey started blaming everything else—running, coffee, alcohol, sugar, simple carbs—and one by one, I relinquished each.

Everyone else laughs about how boring I am, but nothing is enough for Harvey.

“I’ve got to go,” I whisper, hanging up the phone. He calls again but I ignore it and walk out on the deck, trying to pull myself together.

The waves lap gently against the shore. The marsh grass and Spanish moss wave in the slight breeze while seagulls swoop overhead. Charlie is still doing push-ups and my God, I don’t know how many he’s done, but he may be breaking a record.

I’d forgotten what a beautiful place the world was until I arrived here.

Charlie agreed to postpone leaving until a week from Monday. If it wasn’t for the dogs, I wouldn’t want to leave then either.

I spend another day removing wallpaper. It’s slow going, and all the while, I can feel the upstairs tugging at me, the way a child tugs at your hand when she wants to leave a store.

It’s exhausting. My shoulders ache from the hours spent fighting that pull. Charlie told me not to go up there, but I think the real reason I’m fighting it is…when in my life has a house ever exerted anything on me?

Especially a house that’s already tapped me on the shoulder.

“How’s it going?” asks Charlie, emerging from the powder room.

“You’re covered in mud, so I don’t feel like I’ve got the right to complain, but…how much of the upstairs is wallpapered? Because this is taking a really long time.”

He laughs. “You don’t want to know. Regretting this yet?”

My arms ache, I’m sweating and filthy, and…no. Weirdly, I don’t regret it at all so far.

“Only if I contract bubonic plague over the course of the week,” I reply.

“You probably already have it,” he says with a blithe smile, and I laugh. Charlie Dalton is the only person alive who could make me laugh over contracting a fatal illness.

I make a simple dinner that night while Charlie showers in my cottage. We eat out on the back deck—I bought a little machine at the store to run off the mosquitos—and I am slightly tipsy though I’ve only had one glass of wine.

Charlie’s telling me about this woman he took home once who wanted him to rate each of her parts on a one-to-ten scale. He was—typical of Charlie—slightly too honest .

I swirl the remnants of the wine in my glass as I turn toward him. “Can I ask you something?”

He raises a brow. “The fact that you think you need permission to ask means this must be incredibly invasive. Fine. Yes, I’ve jerked off to a photo of your mom. Are you happy? It was way before my dad married her.”

“Charlie!” I scream. “Jesus. No. That is not what I was going to ask. For fuck’s sake. My mom ?”

He shrugs, entirely without guilt. “She was in Sports Illustrated and I was, like, twelve. I mean, if it helps, I was kind of thumbing through the magazine, so it was maybe only twenty-five percent Ulrika. Okay, thirty percent. Thirty to forty.”

I push my plate away. He’s destroyed my appetite—probably forever. “Does your dad know?”

“My father is a man,” he says, “and as a man, he recognizes that any straight male with access to a picture of your mom straddling a beach ball has jerked off to a photo of her straddling a beach ball. It’s like asking if I’ve ever coughed.

Of course I’ve fucking coughed. I’m human and my lungs function. ”

Ugh. I really wish I didn’t know this. “You don’t still…?”

He flinches. “God, no. I mean, don’t get me wrong, your mother is still attractive. But to know Ulrika is to see below the surface and…no offense, but it’s pretty murky down there.”

I rise, stacking his plate atop my own. “I can’t tell if you’re referring to her soul or something sexual.”

“I was referring to her need for attention and her constant self-focus, but given how many men she’s been with, she strikes me as being somewhat murky in other regards as well.”

“Nice double standard, Whore of Manhattan.”

He laughs, following me with the wineglasses as I head into the kitchen. “That’s fair. Now, what did you want to ask?”

“Never mind.”

“Oh Maren, how little you know me after all these years.” He bumps me out of the way at the sink and begins washing the dishes, as we’ve discovered that though the dishwasher works, it doesn’t work well .

“Surely you realize that I’m going to continue suggesting disturbing things until you tell me?

Do I think my father has ever peed on your mother?

Perhaps, but by accident. Are they into role-play?

I guarantee your mother has a schoolgirl uniform.

Do I think they have anal? There’s a ton of lube in their bathroom.

More than two people could ever require. At least three times a?—”

“I’m begging you to stop.”

“Then ask me your question.”

I grab a dish towel and start drying. “You need to be honest.”

“Brutal honesty is all I’m good for, as you well know.”

“Do I need a boob job?” I ask, releasing the breath I’d held a moment too long. “I know you probably feel like you’ve got to say no, but I just want an honest?—”

“Yes,” he says firmly.

My heart sinks. “Really?”

“If you’re asking me, that must mean that you’re insecure about them.

If you’re insecure about them, nothing I or anyone else says is going to change that.

So do what will make you feel best. If you’ve got to go shoot some silicone in those puppies to feel good about yourself, then knock yourself out. ”

They don’t shoot the silicone, but that isn’t what matters right now.

I shake my head. “I…I’m okay with them. I mean, they’re not huge, but I think they’re a decent size for my frame.”

“Then why are you asking?” He turns toward me with narrowed eyes, as if he already knows the answer and is waiting for me to confirm it.

“Harvey gave me a boob job for Christmas.”

“What? He’s not even a doctor.”

I laugh. “He didn’t perform one. He paid for the surgery and gave me a gift certificate. ”

Charlie sets a pan down with a thud. “Had you told him you wanted one?”

I shake my head. “No. I mean…I know he likes them big. Bigger than mine. But—” I shrug. “I assumed mine were okay and now I’m not sure. Kit will tell me they’re fine if I ask, and any surgeon is going to tell me the choice is mine. You’re sort of the only unbiased source I have.”

His nostrils flare. “Let me make sure I’m understanding this correctly. You never expressed any dissatisfaction with your breasts, and he bought you a boob job. As a gift .”

I told Harvey to get a refund because I wasn’t interested, but hearing Charlie state it the way he just has makes me wonder if I underreacted. “Yes, pretty much.”

“Why the fuck do you care about anything this man thinks?” Charlie asks, grabbing the pot I just dried and shoving it in a cabinet with unnecessary force. “Fuck Harvey. Not literally. Literally don’t fuck Harvey ever again. He needs a lifetime of fucking therapy.”

“But…what if he’s right?” I ask. “I mean. I know, I know, beauty is relative or whatever, but…if he had snot running down his face, I might be a little repelled, so…”

His jaw gapes. “You’re comparing your breasts to snot ? Are you serious right now?”

“It was just a metaphor or analogy or whatever. You see my point. It’s entirely possible they’re…not their best.”

“Let me see,” he demands.

I cough. “What?”

“Let me see them. I promise to tell you if they look like two sad deflated balloons.”

“Forget it.”

“You want an honest opinion, yes? You know you won’t receive one from Kit or your friends—I’ve seen the way you comment on each other’s shit on Instagram.

Post a single terrible picture and a hundred women will say, ‘Literally a goddess.’ So let me see them, and I will kindly but firmly tell you if they are a bit repulsive. ”

I’m waiting for the punchline. I’m waiting for him to say he’s going to jerk off to the image later, the way he did to my mom’s. But he looks more bored than anything else, and this is Charlie, who’s seen most of the breasts in Manhattan, so of course it’s boring.

He might be the one straight man I know who’s capable of making this call with utter detachment. Maybe it’s the wine, or maybe it’s just that I spent so much time being observed and judged by strangers during my modeling days, but it doesn’t feel like a big deal.

I shrug. “Okay. But this stays between us,” I tell him, and somehow, keeping this our little secret makes it all feel…a little dirtier than it did before.

I pull my tee up to my collarbone, swallowing down my discomfort. I’m still mostly dressed, but I’m also standing in front of my stepbrother in a bra.

“Remove the bra, Maren,” he says, rolling his eyes. “You know those things hide a variety of sins.”

He’s completely uninvested in the process, which makes this all a little easier. I unhook the back and slide it off before forcing myself to meet his gaze.

He pours the last of the wine into the sink and glances over. “They’re fine.”

I roll my eyes as I tug my tee back down. “They’re ‘fine?’” I demand, crouching to the floor to grab my bra. “That means they’re not fine. Just say it. You promised you’d be honest with me.”

He sighs. “You want honesty?” He turns and nods toward his crotch…

where I can clearly see the shape of his cock in a way I couldn’t moments earlier.

Given the size, it’s unmissable. “There’s your honesty.

Your tits are astonishing and if I were Harvey, I’d have been too busy at tempting to fuck them to wonder about how I could perfect them. ”

He starts washing our glasses and I turn away, trying to fight off the image of Charlie…doing what he just said he’d do. “Okay, thanks. And this stays between us, right?”

He frowns over his shoulder, as if the question is ridiculous. “I’m not about to run off telling everyone I got rock hard by accident like a teenage boy with the hot math teacher.”

I grab a sponge to clean off the table but turn back toward him before I walk out the door. “Did that really happen with your math teacher?”

“It did.”

“Did she see it? What did she say?” I gasp.

“You just got an eyeful,” he says with a grin over his shoulder. “Obviously she asked me to stay after class.”