Elastic Hearts (Hearts #3)(9)

“What’s the deal? I haven’t seen you this tired in a while.”

“Work. I stayed up late looking into a new client.”

He frowned. “Doesn’t your assistant do that stuff for you?”

I put the butter down and picked up the syrup.

“Your plate looks like a heart attack waiting to happen,” he said. I looked at him as I poured the syrup.

“Oh, yeah? Did Dr. Oz teach you that?” I asked.

Much to his annoyance, I always joked and said his obsession with Dr. Oz rivaled my mom’s with Oprah. He made a face of disapproval, but didn’t bother to tell me he didn’t care for Dr. Oz, the way he normally did. Instead he moved on to serve his measly oatmeal.

“Prisoners eat more food than you,” I said, nodding at his plate.

He chuckled, pushing all that girly hair off his face before taking a spoonful into his mouth.

“I’m not even going to start a debate about prison food right now because I know how much you hate to lose. I’m just saying, you’re not twenty-one anymore. You need to watch the shit you eat.”

I sighed. “I’m tired and I only eat like this on weekends. You know this and you still give me this little speech every f*cking week. I already told you, it’s been proven that if you eat shitty food one day a week it speeds up your metabolism.”

He scoffed. “Keep getting your information from those steroid-injecting wannabe nutritionists on Instagram and see where that gets you.”

I smiled around a mouthful of pancake. I didn’t even have an Instagram account. He knew this. My life wasn’t exciting enough for me to document in photographs. We were eating in silence for a bit before he spoke up again.

“Do you want to go to a charity gold tournament next weekend?”

“Not particularly,” I said. “I’ll donate, though. What’s the cause?”

“Childhood obesity.”

“I’ll donate.”

“You sure you don’t want to come? Lots of single women in those country clubs,” he said in a voice that sounded like something he would use to tease a child.

Again with the trying to set me up with somebody. I resisted the urge to groan, but shot him an annoyed look nonetheless.

“Positive. You of all people should know I don’t need help in that category.”

“That’s the problem. You only meet women who are looking for a good time. These women are looking to settle down.”

“Which is the same thing I want,” I scoffed. “Those country club women are looking for their next sugar daddy.”

“No,” he said, drawing out the word. “They’re looking for men who have drive and know what they want. No shame in that.”

“No,” I said, mimicking him. “They’re looking for money. Money and power.”

As I’d looked at the pictures of Nicole and Gabriel that was the only thing I could come up with. Apparently that’s what women wanted—money and power. It was unsettling though, because Nicole had both without him. Maybe she just liked that he was famous. Still, the Nicole I knew wouldn’t have married a guy for any of those things. Or maybe the Nicole I thought I knew was a more accurate assessment. The Nicole I thought I knew didn’t even want to get married. I wasn’t sure what had changed, or where it did, but the thought that she had sex with me and accepted a proposal a few weeks later was just . . . mind-boggling.

“You listening to me?” Oliver asked. I blinked a few times and turned to set my empty plate in the sink.

“Sorry. I zoned out. What?”

“I asked if you want to talk about the case you’re doing dirty work for.”

I tore my gaze away from his and ran a hand through my hair. It wasn’t that Nicole had been my dirty secret or anything, because in a moment of weakness I’d told Oliver and our other friend Jensen about her, but I didn’t like talking about her. She was mine. Mine. That didn’t seem accurate, though, since she wasn’t mine and never had been. It still didn’t help the sensation I got in the pit of my stomach when I thought about her. When I thought about the sex and the phone calls, and the way they’d all stopped after I broke things off. All of it. I was used to women lingering for a while after breaking things off with them. That didn’t happen with Nicole. She didn’t linger. She just moved on.

She just moved on.

“Vic?” Oliver said, snapping me out of my thoughts. Again.

“What?” My eyes snapped to his again. He was frowning, looking almost concerned.

“You wanna talk about it?”

“No, Dr. Phil, I don’t.”

He chuckled. “You’re such a dick when you’re stressed.”

Stressed. I was used to feeling stressed. This was something else. This was the fear of the unknown—the unchartered—and I hated being faced with things I couldn’t build a game plan for. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I knew I needed to keep my head in the game and thoughts of being between Nicole’s legs out of my head. Can’t say that didn’t cross my mind yesterday when she walked in looking like the queen she deserved to be. Stunning. Sexy. Yet, when I’d seen her sink into her father’s arms, I knew she was hiding behind a well-preserved fa?ade. I had told her she needed to keep her shit together around me, but it went both ways. I would not succumb to her provocative allure. Could not.