–Me: Thanks!
–Max: Good luck!
I send him a heart emoji and start looking up flights. I have to drive to Dallas to grab one, and there are only three direct flights…and the ones leaving tomorrow are all full. Killian’s place is a little over two hours from the airport, according to Google.
Screw it. I’ll just drive. It’ll only take about a day. Maybe a little longer if I stop and sleep on the way. But it should still be faster than flying.
Anxiety shivers through me. I’m shedding the dead weight in my life. And I’m going to fight like hell to get the man I love back.
Chapter Forty
Devlin
“You’re going to end up looking like a blimp if you keep that up.”
I lift my head from the tub of ice cream. Emily’s mad that I went to the store last night and bought out all the Bouncy Bare Monkeys ice cream. It’s made by Bouncing Cows, which is a local company that can never seem to make enough to satisfy the demand in Kingstree. Or Emily.
I haven’t shared a single scoop with her or Killian because I need it more than them. I never understood why women binged on sugar and fat until now. I need all the dark chocolate chunks and marshmallows in the rich chocolate ice cream to soothe the weird, empty achiness inside me. And ice cream is doing a fabulous job of filling me at the moment.
“Nobody likes a sloppy rock star,” Emily adds, quite determined to get a tub out of me.
“It’s okay,” I say. “I’m still famous. Besides, dieting is overrated. I have this thing called a functioning metabolism.”
“Men-tabolism!” She throws her hands in the air. “It’s not fair that men can eat anything they want and still stay trim!”
“Don’t hate the player, hate the genetic lottery,” I say, then point at her laptop with my spoon. “Don’t you have a deadline?”
“Yes.” She spits the answer like it’s my fault.
I gesture at her to keep on typing. I don’t want to be responsible for her missing anything. She glares at me over the laptop.
“I’m doing this for you. You can’t eat and type at the same time.” I shovel another huge spoonful into my mouth. This is almost as good as being with Becca.
Okay, not really. But whatever works to make me feel less like shit, especially when I have too many worthless thoughts in my head.
Like…
Why did this happen to me again?
Why is it that the women I like can’t stay true to me?
Is it me? Am I the common denominator?
The voice that sounds awfully like my dad intones, It’s because you’re not a Harvard cardiologist!
Fuck. Shut it!
“Ice cream helps me think,” Emily says plaintively.
“I could drum a little if you want…”
“No!” She looks at me like I just told her I’d like to munch on a poodle for lunch. “Most definitely not!”
That pulls a faint smile from me, and I go back to my ice cream. Killian’s out running because he’s a responsible human being. He asked me to join him, but I turned him down. I can’t even gather the energy to look for my phone, which I placed somewhere I can’t recall.
I look down. This is my third tub. Probably a bad idea, but I can’t muster the desire to stop or go out and exercise like Killian. If I had a burning need to crush Becca for her betrayal, I would’ve turned into Batman…but I don’t. I totally understand why Thor let himself go in Avengers: Endgame.
Emily said something about love yesterday. Fuck love. It’s overrated. Besides, I don’t have to be a genius to know you shouldn’t want something that hurts this bad.