Manwhore +1 (Manwhore, #2)(10)

“Tahoe ROTH?” Wynn asks. “The oil tycoon and Saint’s bestie?”

“He’s not Saint’s only bestie, Callan Carmichael is too,” Gina specifies, then she cuts me an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, Rache. I’m not supposed to talk to you about this. But he’s concerned and so am I. And . . . well, from what Tahoe told me, Saint’s pretty messed up. Colder than usual. Really withdrawn.”

I sit here listening, aching.

“He loves Saint as much as I love you,” Gina says, and when Wynn opens her mouth to ask about the obvious elephant in the room—her plus Tahoe—Gina holds up a hand to stop her. “I don’t care for Tahoe, but he hasn’t enjoyed your breakup any more than I enjoy watching you mope. He called me to ask what was up, ’cause of course Saint’s not talking and he says he hasn’t seen Saint like this since his mother died.”

Knowing what I know—that his mother was the only one who probably genuinely cared for Malcolm while he was growing up, how he felt he’d failed her, how he’d failed himself in failing her, how he’s been trying to fill up an empty hole ever since—Gina’s words wreck me.

Wynn chides, “Stop talking to Tahoe, he’s just using this as an excuse to have sex with you.”

“I know, right?” Gina laughs.

“So? Are you going to let him?” Wynn asks, curious.

“No! He’s gross. I mean, he’s hot, but his attitude is gross.”

I stare at my cocktail and wonder if I’m already getting drunk to the point where I’m getting emotional too easily.

I’ve cried so much I don’t even have to try. The kind of crying where the tears just spill. With no warning. With no effort. They just come. I cry at the thought of never being with him again. And I cry because I know I hurt this beautiful, ambitious, intelligent, generous, caring man. I used to rest my cheek where I could hear his heart. Now it’s locked behind iron doors and ten-foot walls that I put there.

“Rachel, men like Saint never commit. Not for the long term. But . . . he reached out to you. Offered you a job. If you reach back, maybe . . .” Gina trails off and sighs. “Hell, I don’t know. I don’t know how to help you, Rache.”

“Saint is very physical. You know what would do you and Saint a world of good? Tyrannosaurus sex: mean, violent, delicious, painful, and cathartic.” Wynn adds, “That will lead you then to spooning. Emmett and I are still so new though, we can’t even spoon. It’s more like sporking.”

“What the hell is that?” Gina asks us, frowning.

“When they’re hard when they spoon you!” Wynn rolls her eyes. Then she looks at me and giggles. “Did he do that to you too?” she asks me.

“He used to . . . um, pull my ear.” I tug one of my ears absently, helpless not to be drawn into my memories.

“Now that’s because you have really small, cute ears. Emmett likes kissing my nose.” Wynn crinkles hers for emphasis.

My heart has turned into an empty eggshell. It feels ready to crack as my fingers fly up to brush one corner of my mouth. “Saint used to give me these torturously slow ghost kisses . . .”

“Oh, you two!” Gina says in dismay. “You’re making me want to barf.”

Wynn laughs, but I fall quiet as the hurt and the regret and the heartache come back with a vengeance.

“Say, have you heard from Victoria?” Gina asks. “She lost her job after Saint canned her reveal article and all she does is tweet now and complain. She’s just some Tweleb now, but I bet she buys likes for her tweets, ’cause who’s even reading her?”

Then, alarmed by what she said, she adds, “BUT DON’T GO ON SOCIAL MEDIA. Nothing good can come out of that.”

I purse my lips and don’t tell them that I’ve already had a social-media fest recently and now I can’t stop.

“I don’t understand why he didn’t can my article too. Why just hers?”

“Obviously he didn’t care what they said about him.” Wynn shrugs. “Maybe that’s why he only canned Victoria’s, because she talked about you.”

I play email roulette again several times, refreshing and refreshing, checking to be sure I have all the signal bars lit up.

“Rache, we worry, you and those sad panda eyes,” Wynn says.

“I’m not a sad panda, come on.”

“The only times you don’t have the panda eyes is when you get the googly eyes from thinking of him.”

“That, or the screen-saver face when she thinks of him,” Wynn counters.

“Ha ha,” I say, rolling my eyes and pushing my cocktail away. “It’s just that I love him. I love him so much. It breaks me to think I hurt him. I’m so confused, I just don’t know what to do.”

They fall quiet, and I find myself back at M4.

Trapped again by forest-green eyes, cold as winter.





MESSAGE


I wake up in the middle of the night to hear the soft buzzing of my phone on my nightstand. Feeling for it in the dark, I tap it awake and my heart pumps when I see the message icon and then the name “Saint” on it.

Wings flap against the walls of my stomach.

Rachel,

Thursday at 2:15 works for me, I trust we can wrap this up before my 2:30.