Page 49 of Best Man
“Well, at least you can say you fucked Zeb Evans. That’s a bloody major win in my book.”
Someone says something in the background and he laughs. “Now, boo, you know you’re my one and only.”
“Excuse me. Can you maybe stop flirting with your hot actor boyfriend and incidentally sounding like a complete douchebag and concentrate on my pain?”
“Sorry, sorry.” He pauses and his voice gets suddenly serious. “And you think he’s in love with his ex?”
“I’m pretty sure of it,” I say glumly. “He binned me off this morning.”
“Babe.” He sighs loudly. “Well, that’s just fucked up.”
“That’s it?” I say incredulously. “Well, I must say, don’t ever write a problem page. You’d be shit.”
He laughs but then goes quiet. When he speaks next his voice is firm. “Okay, so let me get this straight. He fucked you and now he’s having regrets and you have feelings for him?”
“Somany feelings,” I say dolefully.
“Jess, you must have known this was going to happen. He wears responsibility like it’s a fucking hair shirt. I don’t know what happened to him, but he’s as buttoned up as if he’s in a straitjacket.”
“I do know.”
“Was it bad?”
I shrug, forgetting he can’t see me. “Bad enough that it’s completely understandable why he is the way he is.”
He sighs. “Shit, that makes it worse. You can’t even hate the fucker.”
“I think I’m managing quite well with that at the moment,” I say glumly. “And if I waver, I just have to remember the way he looked at me this morning like he’d tracked dog shit over the carpet.”
“He didwhat?” His voice is low and dangerous.
“Eli, calm down.”
“No, you calm down. He gets to sleep with you and bins you the next morning. You, who’s so lovely and fucking gorgeous. The man’s a total fuckwit.”
“He says I’m too young for him. I’m too wonderful and he’s too old. He’ll drag me down and I deserve everything in the world. And blah blah more lovely stuff blah.”
“Jesus, Ihatethat wanker,” he hisses. “He can’t even be a complete bastard to make us feel better.”
I laugh and there’s silence for a second. “What am I going to do?” I say softly.
“Babe.” He pauses. “You still want him, don’t you?”
“How did you know?”
“You’ve wanted him for as long as you’ve known him. That doesn’t wear off with one shag.” There’s a silence, and I listen to him breathe on the line. In my mind’s eye I can see him standing in his kitchen with that wild mess of blond hair and kind face. “Okay,” he says finally. “I want you to go and have breakfast first. You’re awful when your blood sugar goes down.”
“Such a nurse.”
“You know it. An exceptional nurse in this case. It is, after all, how I landed my sugar daddy.”
Gideon, his boyfriend, says something indignantly in the background, and Eli laughs. “Go and have breakfast, Jess, and then I want you to clear off somewhere for the day.”
“Why?”
“If I know Zeb, he’ll be looking for you.”
“Why?”
