“Michael doesn’t have horrible flaws.” He didn’t. “It’s mostly irritating things like leaving his beard hairs in the sink and his sterile taste in decorating. The fact that he punches his pillow repeatedly at night before he falls asleep. Wouldn’t the first punch put it into the position you want?”
“I don’t know,” Savannah said. “Sometimes you really need to work it.”
“Those are just pet peeves,” Dakota said, waving her arm frantically to get the server’s attention. “This service sucks. I’m going to order two drinks at once.”
“Ooh, good idea,” Savannah said.
I shook my head at her. “No. Not a good idea, Mommy. You’re going to hate yourself tomorrow when you’re hungover with a crying baby.”
Her nose wrinkled, like she knew I was right and didn’t want to accept it.
“What are the real flaws?” Isla asked. “The potential deal breakers?”
The fact that sometimes it felt like he withheld information. Like about his marriage and researching surrogates. But I wasn’t sure if that was a character trait or just due to the speed of our relationship. There hadn’t been time to just dump everything ever from our past onto each other. For that reason, I absolutely refused to reveal any niggle of doubt to my friends. If Isla weren’t there, I might, but I wasn’t even one hundred percent sure on that.
Time would tell. If it revealed Michael regularly lied by omission, I would tell my friends.
And not marry him.
Even though the thought of leaving him was getting harder and harder.
“He spends too much time focusing on me during sex,” I said, dead pan. “I’m getting tired of all the orgasms.” Which was true when we’d been having sex.
Isla shook her head.
Leah and Savannah laughed. Dakota looked puzzled for a second, then said, “Oh, ha ha, I get it.”
“I thought you weren’t having sex with him,” Savannah said. “Which I think is such a shame.”
“I’m not. Not since we moved in together.” Though every night I questioned the logic in it. “I want to know how I feel about him, not his cock.”
Though there no was denying I had quite the crush on both.
* * *
“Darling, can you stop doing that with your mouth?” Felicia asked me.
“What, smiling?” I looked away from the photographer at my incredibly beautiful but picky-as-fuck fiancée. She’d been nonstop complaining since we’d started the stupid session twenty minutes earlier.
“That’s not smiling. You’re grimacing.”
“I am not.”
“Yes, you are. Why do you look so stiff?”
I raised my eyebrows in amusement. I was about to make a comment about my blue balls when she clapped her hand over my mouth.
“Don’t say it.”
“What?” I said, through her fingers. I pretended to bite one.
She pulled her hand back. “Beast.”
“We’re losing light,” the photographer said. “Can we try that again?”
I actually wanted to walk into the nearest bar and order a bourbon. It was fucking freezing outside, again, but Felicia had insisted we do pictures in the park. I wasn’t sure why it mattered but I wasn’t going to argue with her.
“Of course,” Felicia said. She squeezed my cheeks, trying to rearrange my mouth. “Can you just loosen up a little?”