Page 168 of My Rules

“Oh.” Her face falls.

“Do what you want with them,” I murmur.

“Like what?”

“Throw them in the trash for all I care.” I stuff the card into my handbag and clap my hands loudly as I march toward the door. “Let’s go to the library. Mrs. Jones is waiting for us.”

Marlene awkwardly toddles back to the front office with the huge bunch of roses as my eyes glow red. If he thinks he’s going to ruin one more day for me, he has another thing coming. What a joke of a man he is.

How dare he send me flowers.

“So what are we looking for?” Chloe asks as we walk through the lingerie store.

“Something that doesn’t say I haven’t had sex in eighteen months, and my vagina is probably closed over by now, and I’ve totally forgotten what to do.”

“Got it.” She keeps looking through the racks. “Did Juliet tell you she’s thinking of renting out her house?” she says.

“No.” I stop what I’m doing and look up at her. “Since when?”

“Since Liam is looking for a new place to live.”

“Liam, her brother?”

“Yeah.”

“What happened to his house?”

“Juliet thinks that as long as he’s living in the house he shared with his late girlfriend, he’s never going to move on.”

“That’s a good point.” I think about it for a bit as I keep looking through the underwear. “He’s like the catch of the century; I don’t understand how someone hasn’t snatched him up. Gorgeous as hell too.”

“I don’t think he wants to be.” She holds up a pink lacy bra-and-G-string set. “This is nice.”

“It is.” I flick through to find my size. “Hmm, probably true.” I put it into my basket.

“I can’t imagine what it’s like losing someone you love to death.”

“You know, as horrible and as selfish as this sounds, I think it would be easier than loving someone with your whole heart and finding out your entire relationship has been a lie,” I say as I keep looking. “I mean, at least you know they loved you back.”

“Yeah, but you get over assholes. Sure, it takes a while, but eventually you just do. But do you ever really recover from grief?”

“This is true.” I throw another set of underwear into the basket.

“Oliver asked me to move in with him last night.”

“He did?” I smile, but I notice her face is flat. “What’s wrong? You don’t want to?”

“I do ...” She shrugs. “I don’t know. I just kind of thought I wouldn’t live with someone until we had some kind of commitment in place, you know?”

My eyes flick up to meet hers. “You want to get married?”

“No, but ...” Her voice trails off.

“No, but what?”

“I just don’t know if I want to live with him yet.”

“So don’t.”

---