Thin arms wrapped around my torso, and Lily’s body made a second appearance, draping around me like an octopus. How many limbs did this woman have? I shook her off again.
“Have you lost your mind?” I turned around, pushing her away. I’d been candid with her from the beginning when I’d agreed to take her back. The chances of us being intimate again weren’t much better than me spontaneously joining the circus.
If she wanted kids, she was welcome to have them with someone else.
If she wanted sex, she was welcome to fuck around.
If she wanted both, she could move one of her one-night stands into the three-story refurbished house her father had purchased for us ahead of the wedding. Because I sure as hell wasn’t going to be found anywhere near it.
“Don’t pretend like you’re immune to sex, Célian. That’s what we do. We’re a mess, but we’re a hot mess.” She slid down to her knees and started fumbling with my zipper. I stared at her in disbelief, swatting her hand away like she was a nagging fly. Someone here was a hot mess, but it sure as hell wasn’t me.
“Are you drunk?” I asked, point blank.
“Drunk enough that you can’t kick me out of here,” she sneered, licking her red-glossed lips.
She underestimated my dislike for her. Because twenty minutes later, she was already tucked inside a cab, me sitting beside her and staring out the window.
“You can’t take me to my apartment. There’s no way to tell what I’ll do to myself. I’m depressed. My fiancé doesn’t want to touch me!” she wailed, sniffling and puffing her hair in the rearview mirror. Our driver, a young Indian man in a Manchester United shirt, rubbed his face with his hand, shaking his head. He had a picture of a woman—his wife, I assumed—and two small boys dangling from a keychain on the rearview mirror. They were all smiling, wearing cricket gear.
I wondered if he wanted my Rolex and three-grand suit like I wanted his normalcy and family life, and if that shit mattered. At all.
“I’m not taking you to your apartment. I’m taking you to your parents’.”
I didn’t believe for one second that Lily would hurt herself—this chick would cold-bloodedly kill a puppy before letting someone who wasn’t a professional cut her bangs—but I wasn’t one to take chances, either. If she was feeling suicidal, her parents could take care of it. I’d been a very doting boyfriend while she went through her dramatic phases, prior to the moment she’d decided to give head to the man who’d created me.
Lily kicked her feet against the driver’s seat. He winced.
“Ugh! I don’t want to go there,” she hiccupped. So fucking drunk. “It’s depressing. My mother cries all the time, and my grandmother looks like a mess. Besides, my sisters are bitches.”
Her sisters, Scarlett and Grace, were a nurse and a physical therapist—both decent women who’d opted out of the media life. Unfortunately for Lily, they frowned upon the lifestyle she led, in which her only contribution to society was having a fine ass and tipping service providers well. She was the only person in her family who didn’t hold a job. Lily claimed there was no need. She was busy planning a wedding, a bachelorette party, and a honeymoon. I wasn’t entirely sure who she was going to take the honeymoon with, but we both knew I’d board a spaceship with a one-way ticket to the sun before getting on a plane with her. At least I hoped we did.
“Your sisters don’t live at home, and what do you mean your mother is crying? Is Madelyn okay?”
Lily tucked her chin and fiddled with her fingers. She looked guilty, and that worried me, because this girl had the moral compass of a human-trafficking pimp.
“Lily?”
My fiancée shot the driver a dirty look through the rearview mirror, asking him not to judge her without realizing she was ten minutes too late. “Scar and Gracie moved in two weeks ago because Grams is not feeling very well.”
I dropped my arm to my side. “What do you fucking mean, not feeling well?”
The one thing I always loved about Lily was her family. Hell, I’d started dating her solely for the fact that her grandmother was always there, with a homemade pie and crazy stories about the guys-and-dolls era of New York. My entire senior year had been spent stuffing my face with Madelyn’s cherry pie and listening to Broadway gossip from the fifties, then stuffing my face with Lily’s pussy and hearing her moan my name like a prayer.
Up until a year ago, I’d taken Madelyn out to Broadway every other month. We’d watch a show, go to a small Italian place, and talk about the news. Her late husband had incorporated Newsflash Corp. It made me a first-class asshole that I’d cut the tradition short when Lily and I broke up. Even after we were back together with our new arrangement, I couldn’t face Madelyn, knowing I lived a lie—one in which I fucked over her family and what her husband had worked for to get ahead in the game. I didn’t offer her granddaughter love. I merely offered her a semi-tolerable relationship.
Lily averted her gaze to the window, blinking away tears.
“She’s…been drifting in and out of consciousness. She’s really old, baby. Ninety-something, or whatever. She had a good life. She lived with us the entire time after my granddad died.”
“Any particular reason I’m just finding out about this now?” I always asked Lily about Madelyn and her parents. Always. Six months ago, when Madelyn was admitted to the hospital with chest pain, I’d rushed in and stayed by her side all night because Lily’s parents were abroad and her sisters lived on the outskirts and couldn’t make it. Of course Lily had been too busy partying.