Wicked Sexy Liar (Wild Seasons #4)(36)

“Wow.” She rolls her eyes. “Long-term then.”

I take a sip of my water and set it back down on the table. “You wonder why I don’t like talking to you.”

“Oh, please. I’m the only one you like talking to because I don’t stroke your enormous ego.” Punching my shoulder, she urges, “Go on.”

“She’s wary of guys. Her long-term boyfriend cheated, and I get the feeling there’s been a long line of *s in her life. The thing is, there’s attraction there, but I’m not sure she actually likes me. Said I was a cliché, a manwhore, douchebag, whatever.”

“I mean, I really like this girl,” Margot says, digging in the bag and taking another handful of chips.

“But she’s smart and funny and pretty and . . .” I’m so out of practice talking about girls and feelings in the same conversation that I flounder a little, settling on “there was something there. Between us, I mean.” But then I tell Margot about what Daniel said tonight, and about the guys teasing me about sleeping with every hot female bartender in town.

It’s a few seconds before Margot says anything, but when she does, she puts her hand on mine first, to soften the blow. “They’re not wrong.”

“Margot,” I say, turning to face her. “That’s not helping.”

She can tell in my voice that not only am I not in the mood but I really am feeling like complete shit.

“Sorry. I just want to be honest.”

“I know you do,” I tell her. “It’s just that, for the first time in a really long time I feel sort of weird about how I’ve been with girls. I always justified it like they were only after one thing, too, and maybe some of them were. But I know that wasn’t always true. And Cody made some crack about not being able to go anywhere where a woman wouldn’t be crying over Luke and . . . Jesus. Am I that bad?”

“You’re asking your sister if you’re as bad a player as your guy friends who are actually out at bars with you say you are?”

“I mean, does it seem like I’m that bad?”

She adjusts how she’s sitting on the couch so that her knee rests on my thigh. “Honestly?”

“Honestly.”

“Kind of. I mean, sometimes we’ll be out for drinks and your phone will be buzzing constantly. You don’t even notice it anymore. Or, we’ll be having a nice dinner and some girl will walk up and start talking to you and I can see you struggling to remember her name. It’s . . . I mean, I’m used to it now but, yeah. It’s sort of shady.”

I lean my head back against the couch, disengaging from the conversation and tuning back into the TV and whatever game Fallon is playing with David Beckham.

“I didn’t mean to make you feel bad,” she whispers. I know this conversation is making her anxious. Margot has a constant struggle with frankness and guilt when it comes to busting my balls.

“You didn’t.”

“It’s just . . .” she starts, fidgeting with her pajama top, “you went from Mia—and only Mia—to everyone. There was no in-between.”

“I haven’t wanted anyone the way I wanted Mia,” I argue.

“But someday you will,” she says. “Maybe it will be London. And you said she’s wary of guys, and then she sees you tonight at the bar? No wonder she keeps you at arm’s length. Would you trust you?”

A sour weight settles in my stomach. “I know.”

“Look, I’m not saying you need to go through the AA of players or anything, but maybe look at what you’re doing and who you are. Your life is this perfect combination of luck and ambition, but you treat women like gym equipment.”

I choke on a sip of water. “Margot. That’s horrible.”

She raises her eyebrows as if to say, Well?

“Just learn to treat a girl the way you want to be treated,” she says. “And I don’t mean by playing with their private parts.”

I snort. “‘Private parts.’”

Rolling her eyes, she says, “You were a really good boyfriend to Mia.”

This rattles me somehow. It’s easier to remember the end, when I was lonely and she was broken and we didn’t ever seem to get each other right. I turn to look over at her. “Yeah?”

Smiling, she says, “Yeah. You were. You were perfect. Everyone envied her.”

“Well,” I say, turning back to the television, “obviously I wasn’t perfect or she wouldn’t have stopped needing me.”

Margot goes still before she reaches for the remote control on my lap and mutes the show. “?‘Needing’ you?” Her voice is sharp. “She shouldn’t ever have needed you. Wanted you, sure. Enjoyed being with you, sure. Desired you—gross—sure.”

Groaning, I make a grab for the remote but she holds it out of my reach.

“You know what I mean,” I say.

“I don’t think I do. Mia lost every one of her dreams in a single, horrible afternoon. It changed her, and that affected your relationship. That doesn’t mean that you f*cked up somehow.”

“At the end of the day,” I say, sliding my plate onto the coffee table, “what we had wasn’t strong enough to weather what she was going through. End of story.”