The Dating Experiment (The Experiment, #2)(42)

Peyton: WHAT THE FUCK

Peyton: WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN

Peyton: HOW DID THIS HAPPEN

Mellie: I think the how is pretty obvious, Peyt

Me: He slipped on a banana peel, and his penis accidentally ended up inside my vagina.



There. That ought to explain it.



Peyton: Well, shit. Elliott’s been putting it in the wrong hole the entire time.

Mellie: Well, he’ll be disappointed when he moves from your asshole to your vagina.

Peyton: He’s never put it in my ass.

Me: She meant your mouth.

Peyton: Please explain how you ended up having sex with my brother.

Me: Like, from the start? Because I don’t have time for that. I’m in a crisis over here.

Me: We had a fight, then we had sex, then we had another fight, except in that fight he told me he wants me and is crazy about me and all the little things he does that he never told me about.

Mellie: THIS IS GREAT!!! Why are you in crisis?

Me: Remember how your boyfriend got me drunk and I texted Warren?

Mellie: Oh no (Phoebe's voice)

Me: Oh yes. He literally said, “I’m crazy about you,” and idiot over here goes, “I’m seeing Warren tonight.”

Mellie: You’re not still seeing him, are you?????

Me: I don’t know. I’m supposed to meet him in an hour, but I don’t know what to do.

Mellie: You tell him something came up, an emergency, and you order pizza because I’m on my way over.

Me: You don’t need to come over.

Mellie: I’m supposed to meet Jake’s highly-Christian aunt tonight. I need to come over. What a shame. I’ll pick you up on the way, Peyt.

Me: Well, okay, but this is me doing you a favor, you know.

Mellie: I’ll stop for ice-cream, too.

Me: K. We’re even.

***

“Where’s Peyton?”

Mellie put a brown grocery bag on the coffee table and grimaced at me. “I went there, but she said she couldn’t come because Elliott was on his way over.”

I blinked at her. “What? I need her, and what?”

“Oh, he was already there. He laughed and told her she was a shit-ass liar, which she is.” She pulled out two cartons of Ben and Jerry’s ice-cream. “Dom was on his way over there. She didn’t want me to tell you because she didn’t want you to think she was choosing him over you.”

I rolled my eyes. “She’ll be texting you all night finding out what I’m saying.”

“She will.” She grinned, both cartons of ice-cream in her hands. “And I told her to fuck off, she knows where we’ll be.”

A gentle laugh escaped me, and I fluffed my fingers through my hair. I’d taken a shower after texting Warren and canceling due to a family emergency, and my hair had dried in a wavy mess—the kind that looked cute on little kids after they’d had wet, braided hair.

Not so much on me.

“Okay, that’s in the freezer.” She put the bag on the floor and dropped onto the sofa with me. “What happened?”

I told her everything. The words flowed out of me like water from a faucet. From the second he knocked on the door until the moment he slammed it on his way out.

Mellie twisted her lips to the side, looking at me with more than a little sympathy in her eyes. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” she said slowly and softly, “But this is everything you’ve wanted. You’re in love with him. Why do you feel this way?”

“Because I made peace with it.” I pushed my hair from my face and rested my elbow on the back of the sofa to prop up my head. “I put every idea I had of us being together away and, for the first time, I was really serious about moving on. I was totally okay with the idea that I had to get over him, and I think I really could have done it.”

“If he hadn’t kissed you.”

I nodded. “If he hadn’t kissed me.”

“Okay, but you can still do it. Just because you’ve kissed him and had sex with him doesn’t mean you still can’t move on. Or you should get a kitten and fall in love with that instead.”

I paused. That wasn’t really a bad idea. But kittens did need a lot of attention… “I don’t know if I have the patience for a kitten.”

She thought about it for a moment and said, “You’re right. You definitely don’t. But you still have the option to get over him. I think it’s totally okay for you to say, “I don’t want to do this anymore, it’s time to move on.””

I chewed on the corner of my thumbnail. “But are there too many questions with that? I feel like if I do that, then I have to explain why I don’t want to do it anymore. Plus, we work together. We co-own the business. I can’t just turn that off or never see him again.”

“Working together does throw a wrench in the works. Have you considered maybe finding another job?”

“More times than I can count,” I muttered. “I love my job. And I love him. But is it enough to be with each other twenty-four-seven and not want to murder each other? How do you and Jake do it?”

The doorbell went just as Mellie opened her mouth to speak. She held up a finger and jumped up before I could move. Returning seconds later with a grin on her face, she put the pizza box on the cushion between us and got comfortable.