Total pages in book: 30
Estimated words: 28781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 144(@200wpm)___ 115(@250wpm)___ 96(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 28781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 144(@200wpm)___ 115(@250wpm)___ 96(@300wpm)
“Wait, what did we—“
Her eyebrow arched. “And?”
“That, um…” Why was I suddenly nervous at her shoving her hand down my jeans while I felt her up before the doors opened? “We’ll give it a half point for effort.”
“Okay, Mr. I need to go change my—“
“—That never happened!” Liar! She was just trying to get a reaction.
She giggled behind her hand. “Your face just now is what I live for.”
“Yeah well, I live for that ass and it will be red once we’re back upstairs.”
“Promise?”
“Let’s just give up on the money.” I complained. “I’ll start dancing on stage like Magic Mike, I’ll sell myself on the streets, I’ll become a painter!”
She laughed and grabbed my hand. “You’re ridiculous.”
“You love me.” It slipped.
She froze.
Shit.
And then she leaned up and whispered in my ear, “Guilty.”
I wouldn’t survive this last game or the finals if we made it.
“Now!” Max rubbed his hands together. “I’m sure you’ve noticed the monkey bars ahead of you, we’re currently in the company gym. Physical competence is also very important at Emory Hotels, you will take turns hanging from the bar, when you drop your partner will pick up the slack, much like they should in the office. You must each hang a total of three minutes combined, and each person may only do a max of thirty seconds to keep it fair.”
Bri elbowed me. “I’m good at this, are you good at this?”
“It’s a sport, I was born to be good at this.”
She eyed me from head to toe. I was wearing black joggers and a black Nike shirt, she matched except for the purple sweatshirt and white Nike hat with her dark hair tucked underneath. “You’re big.”
“Aw, thank you—“
“—not that.” She smacked me. “I mean, you have bigger body mass, so it’s going to be harder for you to hang even though you’re very, very”—she gulped—“fit.”
“Say very again.”
“One day I’m going to put tape over your mouth.”
“Oooo role play, I like it” I held up my hand for a high five and dropped it when she flipped me off. “We’ll be fine, Bri.”
“Okay.”
“Yup.”
“Totally fine.”
“I won’t let you down.”
Ten minutes later…
“I’m TRYING!” I yelled. “But I keep slipping!”
“It’s been ten seconds!” she yelled. “And we’re losing because you keep dropping! I told you that you were too big!
“Most guys want to be big, Bri!”
“Okay, drop, I’ll do thirty more.”
“No! I need to carry this weight.”
“No.” She glared, hands on hips. “You need to share the weight.”
We both went silent.
It was our relationship in a nutshell.
Sharing the weight, the emotions, the heaviness.
Tears filled her eyes. “Now, let me do my part.”
I dropped immediately.
Not because I had to, but because she wanted to, and this was more than hanging from the monkey bars.
So I hung for ten seconds each time and I let her carry the load and realized in that moment that she’d always wanted to carry something, she wanted to feel needed in our relationship and stupidly I thought all she needed was me.
We won.
It was a blur, a total blur, and when we walked back into the penthouse, one of two teams remaining, I sat at the table and hung my head. “I’m sorry.”
She spun around. “What? Why? What for? We won!”
“It wasn’t just you, Bri. I was so lost in the new job and making more money for our future that I just… I missed you, Bri. I missed all the signs where you wanted to feel needed, did I…” I hated to ask. “Did I starve you for attention sometimes? Make you feel small?”
She sighed and pulled out a chair. “It was my own insecurity.”
“Don’t belittle yourself or blame yourself, did I make you feel that way sometimes?”
She shrugged. “I just wanted to contribute somehow, I wanted to be something more, not just for you, but for me, and sometimes you’d make comments in passing or teasing even about your job and about how I didn’t need to worry about work and it made me feel worthless, I mean when we met I was so depressed nobody would hire me, so it was always this trigger and while I think you meant it as encouragement, I took it as being useless once again. I mean, I was a barista. I wasn’t using my degree, it just fed into more and more insecurity. I never blamed you though.”
“You never told me, but I was too busy to catch on. I’m sorry, Bri. I really am.”
A tear slid down her cheek. She swiped it away. “God, why do you have to be so perfect? I couldn’t even date and one guy picked his nose, then rubbed it on his jeans.”
“You gagged, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
“I’m sorry, at least he didn’t eat it.”
“Yeah, but I think the temptation was there.”
I scrunched up my nose. “Where the hell did you find him Farmers Only?”