Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 99434 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 497(@200wpm)___ 398(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99434 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 497(@200wpm)___ 398(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
I looked once more at the list, and it hit me that it was the last page of a notebook, and everything had been written on the right side of the page. There was a line drawn down the middle, but the entire left side was empty.
No pros.
Being a glutton for punishment, I turned the page to look at the other side and saw the headings. Pros at the top of the left, cons at the top of the right. Only on this side of the page, the con side wasn’t half full—it was filled to the fucking brim. And the pro side wasn’t empty either. There was one entry on the right.
I love him, even though I don’t want to.
“Gray?” Layla’s voice called from her bedroom.
I hadn’t even noticed the water had shut off. I fumbled to shut the book and stick it back in the drawer.
I shut my eyes. “Yeah?”
“Did you order yet?”
“No.”
“What about sushi? Umi delivers pretty fast, and they have the best tuna sashimi. I don’t think I have the menu, but they have all the standard stuff.”
“Sure. That’s fine.”
I got up from where I’d been sitting to fix the drawer and snoop, wanting to give some thought to how to handle what I’d read before talking to Layla about it. The bottle of wine I’d opened was still on the counter, but I bypassed it and went to the few bottles of liquor I knew she kept in her closet. Pouring a double shot of Jack from a dusty bottle, I sucked it back in one gulp. It tasted like shit, but the burn felt good going down.
I had another and poured a glass of wine before Layla walked out of the bedroom. She flipped on the kitchen light.
“You’re just standing here in the dark?”
I hadn’t noticed the sun had gone down, taking away all the illumination from the window. It must’ve been pretty damn dark.
“Lost in thought, I guess.”
Layla tilted her head. “Anything you want to talk about?”
“No. How about you?”
Her eyes looked away. “No. Just a big day for both of us, I guess.”
I nodded.
She played with her phone and then walked to stand beside me. “I found the menu online.”
Her hair was wet and her face free of makeup. I looked over at her while she scrolled through and read the menu. The freckles I loved so much were more pronounced from this angle. I wanted to memorize the pattern for some reason.
“Here.” She passed me her phone. “I’m going to get the seared ahi tuna. If you like the Amazing roll, I’ll split that with you, too.”
My eyes could barely focus on the menu on her phone. They just kept wandering over to study her freckles. I couldn’t ever pinpoint what it was that I loved about them, but looking at her right now, I decided it might’ve been their girlish quality, which contradicted the strong woman. Layla hid them like she didn’t want anyone to see anything but the strength in her.
God, she’s so fucking beautiful. So real, so intelligent, so…everything.
“What do you think?” she said. “Do you like the stuff in the Amazing roll?”
I hadn’t read a word of the menu. “Yeah. That sounds good. I’ll just get what you’re having.” I hit the telephone number on the screen of her phone and dug my wallet out of my pocket.
“Can I place an order for delivery?”
The woman asked what I wanted. But I’d already forgotten.
I covered the phone. “What did you want again?”
Layla’s face crinkled. “Seared ahi and the Amazing roll. I thought you wanted the same thing?”
“Yeah. That’s right.”
The rest of the night didn’t go much differently than my attempt at ordering. I couldn’t keep up with our conversation or even my own train of thought. The damn pros and cons list kept coming back to haunt me, as did Max’s words.
I just wanted to grab Layla and hold her, tell her that her list was wrong. But the more I thought about her list, the more I realized it wasn’t so far off.
He lies.
There was no denying I’d fucked up with her by not telling her about Max right away. Trust took a long time to build and two seconds to tear down. I’d thought we were making progress, but…
“You see what you want to see in women, Gray.” That’s what Max had said.
I’ll never be his priority.
While I’d like to think that she and Ella would be my top priorities, who was I kidding? Soon enough, I’d be a single dad to a devastated little girl. What would be my priority—taking Layla to dinner or staying home with my daughter?
Never really wanted kids.
We’d never even discussed a family. Stupidly, I’d assumed she wanted kids. But where was the basis for that assumption? She lacked respect for her own mother and father and the situation they’d raised her in.