Page 24 of My Favorite Lost Cause (The Favorites #2)

MAREN

I ’m woken by Echo and Narcy yipping at the window. Charlie’s outside, tying his shoes as he prepares to run along the path.

I open the French door and step onto the little deck. “I think the puppies want to come with you.”

“Hard pass, unless you’ve had them on an intensive cardio regimen for at least a year.”

“They’re barely a year old now .”

“I guess that’s a no then,” he says, putting in his AirPods and vanishing down the path. He’ll come around to them eventually, I’m sure.

“I guess it’s just us, guys,” I tell them. “You want to go for a run?”

I change into jogging clothes and head in the same direction Charlie went a few moments prior. The puppies crap out before we’re ten minutes from the house, but I’m sort of relieved because I was exhausted five minutes in.

I need to get back into shape. I need to do a whole lot of things—get my career on track, remember what it’s like to enjoy myself, get to the point where I can run a few miles without wanting to die.

But the most pressing voice, the one I’m fighting myself to ignore, tells me to find a replacement for Harvey as soon as possible.

Sure, I could pursue IVF on my own, or adopt, but I watched my mother raise kids solo and it isn’t ideal.

Which leaves me stuck finding someone new, the sooner the better, and it’s haste like that which can lead to disastrous choices.

I almost wound up with Harvey, a man who’d give away my dogs to punish me, and I wasn’t even hasty when I chose him.

I shower and meet Charlie in the kitchen for breakfast. I love these mornings with him, drinking coffee, watching him eat, bathing in that quiet smile of his when he glances up from his empty plate.

My phone buzzes on the table and I ignore it, lifting my mug instead.

Harvey’s been relentless for the past day.

Sometimes he sort of apologizes. Most of the time he calls me a whore and details the pornographic things he assumes I’m doing with Charlie down here.

I thought I was the one of us with an imagination, but Harvey’s puts mine to shame.

When my phone and Charlie’s buzz with a text at the same time, I’m terrified to even look. It’s one thing to read it myself. It’ll be another entirely if Charlie knows what’s being said.

But it isn’t a message from Harvey. It’s from Kit.

Kit

I’m engaged! And I didn’t even run away this time!

This is followed by a picture of her beside Miller at Everest, holding up the ring to the light. Charlie’s gaze darts to me, as if he’s assessing how this information hit.

“I’m thrilled for her,” I tell him before he’s had a chance to ask .

I groan, because this is what I’m in for now: months and months of people assessing my reaction and looking for distress. “You don’t seem surprised.”

“I helped Miller pick the ring and you don’t seem surprised either. We all knew this was coming.”

Charlie still doesn’t look convinced, perhaps because I’m not being all that convincing.

I am thrilled for Kit, but it’s hard not to feel as if my star is dimming while hers is on the rise, like an aging actress gently being shoved aside in her recurring role by some younger, hotter ingenue.

Kit’s getting congrats texts and I’m getting ones that say, “ So how many times a day do you suck Charlie’s dick? ”

Her whole life is ahead of her, and if I don’t find someone soon, it’s going to feel like mine is in the past. It can’t be over for me, right? I can still meet someone. I can still have a family. I’ve just got to get my ass in gear and ? —

No. Not like that. I’m not going to look for someone because I’m panicking. I’m not.

“I’m going on a cleanse,” I tell Charlie, setting my juice down.

He groans. “Maren, your whole fucking life is a cleanse. What’s left to even give up? You barely drink. You don’t eat sugar. Or carbs. You appear to have given up sex, although you were married to Harvey, so I don’t blame you there, but what the fuck is even left?”

“If you’re entirely through, I’ll tell you. It’s not that kind of cleanse. I’m going to give up all the stuff about getting pregnant.”

He blinks. There’s a long pause before he finally speaks. “That seems like a pretty sudden change. I haven’t heard you express an interest in anything but getting pregnant for years.”

“I know,” I say, “and I’m not writing it off. I just think I need a break from all the worry. And I need to start wanting something else. ”

He tips back in his chair. “So what’s the new pastime going to be? Gambling? Sex addiction? I can probably help you with both.”

I laugh. “I’m not planning to get addicted to anything. I just want to spend a little time being open to what life brings me. Not panicked about fertility.”

“That is an incredibly boring cleanse,” he says, “but not as boring as I assumed it would be.”

My mother calls not long after breakfast, excited about Kit, already planning some surprise engagement party in the Hamptons a few weeks hence.

“Miller’s taking her to Turks and Caicos as soon as they return from Everest,” my mother informs me.

I don’t mention that I already knew this, that I packed the suitcase, just like I didn’t mention that I helped choose the ring.

My mother would be testy for weeks that I was given the inside scoop, and she was not.

“That’s great,” I reply mildly.

My mother’s tongue clicks. “I know the situation is tough, but you’re going to have to try a little harder than that while we’re setting up for the party.”

I groan audibly, plucking Echo from the marsh. “Mom, I’m fine. Happy. But I don’t know that I can get there early. I’ll still be down here helping Charlie.”

“No offense, but nothing you’re doing down there can be all that vital. What skills do you even have?” Her point is hurtful, but accurate. I have no skills, and I’m sure one of Elijah’s guys could tackle every job I’ve done since I got here and complete them in a day’s time.

“You should be up here on go-sees anyway,” she continues. “You’ll need to get back down to a sample size two, but I think you can still recover, though honestly, you’re pushing it at thirty-two.”

Wow. She just managed to take a hit at both my age and weight. Impressive . “Let me look at the calendar and get back to you,” I reply before I hang up.

Because it’s a Sunday, no one’s working at the house. We bike down to the beach, each of us carrying one puppy in our bike’s basket, which Charlie says is the least manly moment of his life, “including infancy.”

Echo and Narcy exhaust themselves and lie at our feet as we spread out a blanket and lie down side-by-side.

I grab the book I pilfered from Charlie’s mom’s collection—one in which the vampire hero will literally die if he doesn’t mate with his other half, who can’t accept his “ massive cock, twice the size of a human’s ” until she’s fully ripened .

“What’s that?” Charlie asks, and before I can stop him, he’s snatched the book up and has begun to read.

“ ‘The time is nigh, little witch. I’ll plunder ye until’ —oh, wait.

He’s Scottish? Apologies. Let me start over, with the accent.

‘ The time is nigh, little witch. I’ll plunder ye until yer belly is full of my seed. And when you drip with ? — ”

I snatch at the book. “Stop. Sidenote: your accent is terrible. You sound like a leprechaun.”

His accent is perfect. I’m so turned on right now I could die from it.

“Then apparently you’re turned on by leprechauns because I can see your nipples straight through that shirt.

” He grabs the book back. “What a filthy little girl you are. I had no idea. I can just read the rest for you while you finish yourself off. Go ahead. No one’s looking.

Where were we? Belly full of seed. Right.

Dripping. There we are. ‘ And when you drip with gallons of my come.’ Gallons?

I hope he’s speaking metaphorically because Jesus.

Gallons, multiple ? That could probably kill someone. ”

I huff out an exhale. Sweat’s begun to drip from my hairline.

“You realize this was your mother’s book, right?

And let me tell you…the pages were worn .

She read this book repeatedly. Do you want to read the passage where he describes how they’ll mate, once it happens?

It involves several holes. And his brother. ”

Charlie stiffens and throws the book back to me. “I’m not sure why you had to ruin everything by bringing up my dead mom. I mean, you didn’t entirely ruin it. I’m still going to jerk off to this, and I really hope she’s not watching.”

“Do you want to borrow the book?”

“Nipples, I wasn’t turned on by the book ,” he replies as he rolls onto his stomach.

Which means…he was turned on by me? I like the idea of that way more than I should.

In the evening, we go into town for dinner. There are two bartenders working, including the one with a crush on Charlie. Not that I blame her—Charlie would stand out almost anywhere, and this restaurant is a sea of balding, middle-aged men gone soft aside from him.

“That toothsome bartender is staring at you again.”

He raises a brow. “ Toothsome ? Have you suddenly turned into one of the Bronte sisters?”

“I meant…the girl with the teeth.”

“Toothsome means attractive, I believe.”

“Eh,” I say with a shrug. “I don’t know if I’d go that far in describing her. Let’s stick with my definition.”

He turns to glance over his shoulder. “Maren, perhaps she’s never been the face of a Tom Ford campaign, but that girl is definitely attractive. Or maybe it’s just that I haven’t had sex in over a week, and she looks more attractive than my right hand.”

I glance at Charlie’s right hand reflexively. His lovely, large hand. I picture it grasping his lovely, large... stop Maren .

“You should ask her out then,” I say, picking up my fork, focusing on my plate, as if the suggestion means less to me than my next bite.

He raises a brow. “Is that what’s going to happen here, now that you’re single? Are we going to be each other’s wingmen? ”

“No, because I don’t need a wingman. What would be the point of me dating someone here? I’m not staying.”

Which again has me thinking I shouldn’t be on a cleanse at all. I should be back in Manhattan, being introduced to better men than Harvey.

“Maren, have you ever dated anyone without hoping it would lead to marriage and children?”

“Why would I?” I demand. “What else is in it for me? I don’t need some guy’s money.”

He shoves his plate away, laughing. “Companionship? Sex?”

“I have my family for companionship and sex is—” I shrug. “Not all it’s cracked up to be. Unnecessarily stressful.”

That brow of his raises again. I swear to God I’m going to Botox it in his sleep if he keeps it up.

“How the fuck is it stressful?” he demands.

“Then again, I’m speaking to a woman who’s admitted to freaking out about the healthfulness of her green juice, so if there’s a way to make it stressful, I’m sure you’ll find it. ”

I shrug. I could blame Harvey—he certainly didn’t improve the situation—but that stress existed long before him.

“You never know what someone’s going to think.

If he’s comparing you to his ex; if he’s decided he prefers someone curvier than you or less curvy.

Or he wants someone louder. Or quieter. There’s no standard.

No way of knowing what any guy wants or if he’s happy with you. And I just don’t like it that much.”

Harvey was so consistently unhappy with me—not just in bed but everywhere—that it’s almost impossible to imagine anyone could feel otherwise.

Charlie runs a hand through his hair. “Of course you don’t like it much if that’s what you’re thinking the whole time, and if you’re this insecure, my heart breaks for all the women who weren’t models at some point.

Maren, if a guy wants to sleep with you in the first place, consider the challenge won. ”

“But you need him to enjoy it enough that he wants to stay,” I argue. “Something no female has managed to pull off with you, apparently.”

He finishes his beer. “Exactly. Because it’s not about whether or not you’ve succeeded in some way…

Some men, like myself, don’t want a commitment, so there’s no chance of success.

You sleep with them just for the fun of it—no other reason.

Before you start looking for husband number two, why not attempt to enjoy sex, just for what it is? ”

Charlie clearly has no understanding of how deeply I want the things I want. I’ve never felt like a full-fledged member of my family. I’ve woken each day of my sentient life craving a family of my own—a group of people I could love unreservedly without fear that they’d shut me out.

“I don’t think I’m capable of it. If I like someone enough to sleep with him, then no matter what the guy said about commitment, I’d be hoping to change his mind.”

He gives me that cocky half-smile of his, high on one side, full of mocking doubt. “So you’re saying you think you could change me?”

“You might be the only person I know who’s douchey enough that I’d never think I could change.”

Charlie’s smile spreads to both sides of his face. Dimples emerge. The bartender would piss herself if she could see it. “Well, that presents us with an interesting predicament.”

I laugh. “I don’t think it does.”

But for just a moment, his gaze catches mine, and neither of us are laughing.

It’s sort of a joke.

But also sort of not one.

“I guess that means you’re going home with the bartender,” I say, forcing myself to smile. It takes way too much effort.

His tongue glides over his upper lip before he casually glances over his shoulder toward the bar. “Nah. You can’t wave top-shelf whiskey in my face and ask me to settle for light beer instead.”

I could argue that I wasn’t waving it in his face and that I don’t love being compared to something known for its age, but I don’t. I’m too damn happy he’s coming back home with me.