You Deserve Each Other(38)

No matter what he wears to disguise it, Nicholas was bred to host balls at Pemberley. He’s got an aristocratic, pretty-boy face, all sharp angles and quiet allure with pale skin, delicately disheveled dark chocolate hair, and a widow’s peak. His gaze should be wicked to reflect the type of man lurking beneath, but instead it projects wide-eyed innocence, an inborn predatory trait to allow the wolf to roam among sheep undetected.

The architecture of his face is intriguing when he smiles: skin stretching over enviable cheekbones with hollows carved beneath, making him look like he’s perpetually sucking in his cheeks. It’s a pouty, prissy sort of beauty that screams drape me over a leather chaise to contemplate ennui. The idea of him strutting into a forest to chop firewood makes me choke. Rugged, this man is not.

“Are you Nicholas’s evil twin?” I ask. “Or are you the good one?”

He scowls.

“Seriously, why are you dressed like that?”

“Shh.” He glances at the doorway to the adjacent room where the movers are loading up the washer and dryer onto dolly carts. Their work boots are scuffed and dirty, whereas Nicholas’s gleaming kicks emit a fresh-from-the-box chemical odor. “Can you just be cool? God.”

“Nope. Are you trying to impress those guys or something?”

He changes the subject before the cool kids hear us. “Why do you keep running into the bathroom?”

I waffle between two disgusting possibilities, trying to decide which he’d find more repulsive. “Period stuff.”

He looks skeptical.

“Do you want details? If you prefer, I won’t flush next time and you can see for yourself what I’m doing in there.”

“What is wrong with you?”

“You. You’re what’s wrong with me.”

He stalks off and I’m feeling pretty great, I have to say. One of the movers clomps heavily my way and I rethink my strategy to slink off to a hidey-hole. The air is buzzing with testosterone, and I’m starved for a hit of it. Have I mentioned how excellent it is to have professional manly men come do physical labor right in front of you? Strapping men with sun damage and large, coarse hands and veiny forearms with hair. One’s got a tattoo on his leathery bicep of a pinup girl reclining on the hood of a convertible.

Supervising is a tough job, but someone’s got to do it. I stand in positions where their lifting, bending, and groaning is most advantageous, watching their muscles bulge and strain. Back muscles! Who knew there could be so many muscles in a person’s back? I do now. Forget Tinder; after Nicholas throws in the towel I’m going to hire a batch of movers and find my next boyfriend that way.

Nicholas has a nice body. It’s elegant and toned—the sort of body you could see mastering a piano as well as running across a rugby field. Currently, I’m not privileged enough to enjoy the benefits of his nice, elegant body, so men who were not previously my type are all hot to me now. I’m in a bad way. Boulder-size men with ZZ Top beards and face tattoos. Balding mad scientists. Count Chocula. The silhouette from Mad Men’s credits. If this drought goes on any longer I’ll be lusting after the featureless figure on men’s restroom signs.

I watch one of the men with a little too much interest and feel the heat of Nicholas’s glower. I clear my throat and excuse myself from the room.

Later, he tracks me down and throws dirty looks in my direction until I give in and sigh. “What?”

“Could you be a little less conspicuous, please? How would you feel if you saw me ogling other women?”

I assume he ogles other women on the daily. I know they ogle him.

“I wasn’t ogling anyone. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He rolls his eyes. “Please. I’ve never seen a human go so long without blinking.”

“I was … observing,” I say primly. “Don’t make something out of nothing. Anyway, no one could blame me even if I was looking, which I wasn’t. It feels like it’s been forever since I’ve gotten properly laid by someone who wants it.”

Nicholas’s mouth is a thin line. His stare is unwavering. I start to get a little apprehensive and break the silence with another “What?”

His shake of the head is curt. “Nothing.”

Nicholas is lying. When he says Nothing, what he really means is I need time to come up with something devastating to say.

I’m all braced for it after the movers have left and we’re standing outside our new house that’s actually his house, which I’m still calling Disaster.

I’m watering the Charlie Brown tree because I have love to give and nowhere meaningful to dump it. This tree needs me. I’ll feed him and sweep away his dead needles and he’ll grow to be the best and biggest tree in the yard. He’ll give pollination-birth to a hundred new trees, which I’ll string with tinsel. He’ll be the patriarch and general of my new tree army.

His name is Jason. Right now he’s my number one priority on this earth.

Nicholas watches me closely as I pat Jason and murmur affirmations. I’ve heard from science that it helps the plants if you talk to them.

When I’m certain Jason is taken care of, I march up to the house. I haven’t even taken off my shoes when Nicholas starts in on me.

“There’s a difference between being needed and wanted. In some things, I like to be needed. With sex, I need to be wanted. I can’t be just some guy in your bed getting the job done. I’m not having disconnected, going-through-the-motions sex with you. Not you. You’re supposed to be the person I connect with the most deeply.”