Page 66 of 10,000 Hours With A Rich Menace

“You apologizing to me.” I walked over toward him.

He pulled me into his arms, causing me to squeal and laugh. “I don’t like hurting your feelings, Wonder… it hurts my feelings.”

“Is this another date? We’re going to paint?”

“Figured after you tried to run from me that we needed a redo.”

“No… I enjoyed that date.”

“Yeah?”

“Uh huh… aside from the part when I thought I was going to die.” I giggled as I stared up at him.

We sat at the table, illuminated by the candles and this felt perfect. Maverick messed with his hands when he was nervous. It was a little tick that I noticed about him, and right now as we sat at this table, he was nervous, though he wouldn’t show it through his emotions.

“Are you nervous, Mavie?”

“Yeah.”

“I half expected you to lie to me.”

He smirked. “You make me nervous, Wonder.”

“Why?”

“’Cause you do.”

“I think someone has a crush on his future wife,” I teased and dusted his nose with the dry paint brush.

“Haven’t had a crush in a long time.”

“When was the last time you had a crush?” I asked, curious to know more about him. He had been slowly piecing me together, and I didn’t know anything about him.

“Since I was seventeen.”

“Awe a little schoolboy crush. The popular girl at school? You seem like you were popular back in school.”

He wet the brush and dipped it into the gold paint and started to paint as I watched him. “She was a grown ass woman, Wonder.”

“Wait, what?”

“Jeffie’s mom… Angelica. She’s the reason that I was diagnosed and took care of me… never made me feel different. Did everything for me, so naturally I had a crush on her.”

“Well, having a crush on an adult is normal. I had a crush on my tenth grade art teacher. Mr. Woodson was fine as hell, and he wasn’t much older than us.”

“Don’t make me go fuck Mr. Woodson up.”

“As you’re telling me that you had a crush on Jeffie’s mom,” I giggled. “Did she know you had a crush on her?”

“Yeah… she took my virginity.”

I choked on my spit when he said the shit so casually, as if that was normal and everyone was doing it. “Wait, what?”

“We fucked around until she met her little husband and ended shit. First and last time a woman broke my fucking heart.”

I couldn’t focus on painting anymore because I was concerned. “Mavie, she groomed you… I’m sorry.”

“The fuck? I wanted it just as much as she did… I wasn’t fucking molested or no shit like that.”

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