Page 119 of Dear #47, You're the Worst
And caring about people is dangerous for someone like me. People who care about me get hurt. Get disappointed. Get stolen from or lied to or abandoned.
“I should probably get moving,” I say, closing the notebook and standing up. “I have a team meeting this afternoon.”
She watches me retreat. I can see the wheels turning in her head. She knows I’m running from this conversation, from the implications of that sketch, from whatever this thing between us is becoming.
But she doesn’t call me on it. She just nods and sits up. “I’ll let you get ready.”
After she leaves the room, I sit back down and stare at the closed notebook in my hands.
Five months. That was the deal. Five months of fake engagement, then we go our separate ways.
I’m sitting here in my bedroom, still smelling her perfume on my clothes, still tasting her kiss on my lips. I’m thinking the remaining two and a half months are going to go by in the blink of an eye.
And that terrifies me more than any opponent I’ve ever faced on the ice.
Because this time, when I inevitably screw it up, it’s not just going to hurt me.
It’s going to destroy us both.
Chapter26
Juliet
I’m in the kitchen before eight in the morning, standing on tiptoes in a short black skirt and thigh high socks. Currently, my arms are elbow-deep in a bag of Pillsbury flour. I’m not even sure where the flour came from. This apartment had never had real groceries before I moved in.
But last night’s sex left me feeling restless and sugar-starved, so I impulse-bought chocolate chips, brown sugar, Tahitian vanilla, and eggs. The flour puffs in a slow-motion mushroom cloud as I pour, dusting the dark countertops and sticking to my arms, the dark gray sleeve of Hunter’s old hockey hoodie rolled up over my elbow. The place smells like cinnamon and butter, the way I always dreamed my home would smell one day when I grew up.
My childhood kitchen was spacious and even more luxurious than this one, but I can’t recall anyone ever using it. My mom and dad took me out to dinner a lot, or when left to my own devices, I ate pizza or Chinese. I don’t think a tray of cookies ever made it into my oven at my parent’s house.
That’s what you get when your parents work really long hours and leave you to fend for yourself. But today, I woke up wanting fresh-baked cookies. And the easiest way to get them seemed to be… this. I look around at the flour and eggshells scattered across the counter.
I’m trying somethingnew.
I have to stop and check the recipe at every step. My hands move clunkily. Crack the eggs, whisk the sugar, add too much vanilla, mess up the order of the steps and pretend it doesn’t matter. All the while, my brain is running a slow-motion reel of every second spent with Hunter in the hours before dawn.
The way he took me apart, piece by piece. He acted like I was the first beautiful thing he ever touched and he wanted to learn how I worked. The way he called me a good girl, over and over, like no one else had ever been good for him. Plus, he made me come so hard my vision went white, then cleaned me up with a hot rag and tucked me in like I was his.
If there is a heaven, I’m pretty sure that was it. I’ve never felt so delightfully boneless before.
It’s embarrassing how badly I want to replay it. My entire body hums when I think about him calling me Monroe in that gruff voice. His hands gripped my waist, guiding and steady, even when I tried to act like I was in control. He made me come three times and never once called me the wrong name.
Something that I must admit was a regular occurrence with Patrick. I figured all guys just had terrible memories when their dicks were hard. I think Hunter broke that illusion, but I’m not mad.
Is it a problem that I can’t think of Hunter Huxley today without a secret little smile?
I slide the first tray of cookies into the oven and set a timer, leaning against the counter. The kitchen is warm, and the city outside the window is all wet light and noise, early morning delivery trucks echoing off glass towers. My phone is face-down on the counter, vibrating every few minutes with notifications I’m ignoring.
Probably Ivy texting a million fire emojis or Jessa sending the latest photoshopped meme of me and Hunter. I don’t check. I want this domestic bubble to last five more minutes before the world calls bullshit.
The oven ticks. The smell gets sweeter, richer. It almost drowns out the low-grade dread building in my stomach.
When the cookies are finally done, I pull the tray out with my bare hands, hissing as I remember too late that I’m not immune to heat. I drop the pan back on the rack and pick up a kitchen towel, cursing. I set them down on the stove and blow on my fingertips, watching the chocolate chips bubble and settle.
The cookies are irregular, mutant, nothing like the Instagram-perfect plates on my feed, but they look good. Maybe even good enough to eat with someone else.
Before I can psych myself out, my phone pings again, this time with a distinct vibration pattern. A news alert. I fumble for it, my thumb leaving a crescent of chocolate on the home button. The headline is already trending.
“HAVOC STAR’S FIANCÉE BLINDSIDES EX WITH NEW ‘ENGAGEMENT’,” the push notification screams. My stomach drops. There’s a subhead: “Patrick Delacroix Breaks His Silence on Juliet Monroe’s Wedding-to-Be.” I scroll through, seeing that it links to Patrick being interviewed by some bro-dude for his podcast.
