Page 48 of Unrealistic Expectations

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Galvin was leaving Erewhon with a green juice that probably cost more than a car payment on a Ford Focus when he ran into Kennedy. He was on his way to a site visit with his landscape engineer and building engineer, so he did not have time for this.

“Galvin. Baker.” Kennedy always said his first name and his surname as though they were complete sentences, with a distinct vocal fry that had made her famous. It had always kind of bothered him. Especially now, when he heard other people do it, so he knew that they followed Kennedy and had probably seen the video.

Still, he turned around and smiled, because he didn’t want any more smoke from Kennedy or her minions. “Kennedy. Mower. How the hell are you?”

She looked him up and down, and he did the same. She’d changed her hair color from a dark brown to a mix of blond and brown. She wore sunglasses that showed his reflection but hid her dead eyes. Why had he ever dated someone with dead eyes? And she smelled like a mix of the expensive self-tanner she used to streak all over his sheets and cigarette smoke from the nasty habit she hid from television viewers and her millions of social media followers.

“I’m good, but it seems like you’re doing even better.” Kennedy sounded like she resented the fact that he hadn’t disappeared off the face of the earth in shame after she’d attempted to humiliate him.

“Yeah, I’ve pulled up okay.” He didn’t want to talk about his relationship with Jessica. Even though it had started out fake, it was real now. He felt the need to guard it, because he knew that Jessica was private with her feelings and emotions. It was part of his job as her boyfriend to guard that for her.

“You’re, like, dating someone normal.” Kennedy also said “normal” like it was a bad thing. “She’s, like, old and a doctor?”

“She’s a therapist, and she’s my age.” He was sort of taking the bait, but he didn’t like it when Kennedy said disparaging things about other women. It was ugly and spoke to her insecurity. Seriously, why had he ever dated her? It was time to change the subject. “You look well.”

She kind of turned and preened so he could see her from more angles. “Don’t I?” Complimenting her appearance was always the one way to distract her. It was like a shiny thing with a squirrel, except it was her own ego. “Do you want to get lunch?”

Months ago, before he’d run into Jessica and started their fake relationship, Galvin might have jumped at the chance to rehabilitate his reputation by renewing his affair with Kennedy. And he thought she was definitely getting at that with her coy hair flip and the way she leaned toward him. But she only wanted his attention because it was clear that he’d moved on.

He should have blocked her social media. But that might have made her mad and provoked her. It was better that she could see he was doing well and then make a few jabs at him out in public. Still, he tried to seem disappointed that they couldn’t “catch up” when he said, “I have some meetings, but maybe some other time.”

Kennedy frowned. “That’s too bad. I want to apologize for all the mean things I said.” She stepped closer to him and put her hand on his chest. It felt way too intimate, and he wanted to remove it. But he also didn’t want her making another angry video. That would both affect his reputation again and probably put his nascent relationship at risk. He felt like he was trying to avoid getting bitten by a pretty but poisonous snake right now.

He knew that Kennedy was more complicated than that, but her real life and public image were enmeshed in a way that made her view all interactions as transactional. And she was a master manipulator in getting those transactions to work in her favor. His first mistake with her had been to worry more about her feelings getting hurt than her ego. The ego was the really dangerous element in the whole deal. If she perceived him as blowing her off, she could go after him. That would suck, but he would be fine. People would view that as her being bitter that he’d found happiness despite her best efforts.

What he was really afraid of was her going after Jessica. She’d hit the bestseller list, but he didn’t want anything to interfere with her career. Even if he had to put up with shenanigans from Kennedy, he would do it to keep Jessica safe and happy.

The idea that he might not be able to do that stopped him in his tracks. His past would always exist. If Kennedy wasn’t coming around to stir up trouble, it could be any one of his previous girlfriends. He’d never felt shame about the number of women he’d dated and the possibility that he’d treated them poorly before. He’d always felt that it was just part of the dating game, and people who didn’t want to play should just stay on the sidelines.

Because his parents’ relationship was purely business, that was how he’d grown up to see relationships. Hell, that was why he hadn’t balked at dating Jessica to earn herself clout and himself redemption.

But all that was before he’d fallen in love.

He’d never been with anyone who made him want to be a better version of himself. He’d never looked back on the things he’d done and felt the need to protect someone else from that. Sure, after Kennedy’s video, he’d realized that his way of doing the business of dating was no longer working—that he’d have to make more convincing sounds about wanting something real. But that had all been in order to gain something.

“You look weird.” While he’d been standing there, feeling like his whole adult life had been a mistake, Kennedy had continued her appraisal of him.

“I do?” He probably looked like he was about to be sick, because he felt like it. His skin was clammy, and his stomach was in knots. He looked down at his half-full green juice. If he did hurl, it would get ugly.

“Yeah, like, I was going to put a selfie of the two of us smiling in my stories, just to show that it’s all, like, water under the bridge or whatever. But you look like you’re sort of constipated and that doesn’t go with my aesthetic.”

There was a lot that Galvin could say to that. First, he didn’t want to seem like a chump by showing up in her stories a few months after she’d tried to blackball his dick. Second, he looked constipated because he’d just realized that his entire dating life had been about his image rather than his growth for almost two decades. Third, he thought she might want to look at the fact that she’d commodified every aspect of her existence, which only revealed that she was just as vacant as he’d been.

But he didn’t say any of that. It would only piss her off. She’d make another video, probably targeting Jessica because that was how Kennedy rolled. And then he’d lose his only chance at redemption—he couldn’t see living a full life without Jessica. If he lost her, he’d just revert to being a calculating fuckboy until he was too old to sustain it. And then he’d be alone.

“Listen, it was great to see you, but I have to run to a meeting.” Then he gave her a look up and down and winked at her, even though he wasn’t feeling winky. “You look great. Take care of yourself.”

When she moved closer to hug him, he grabbed her by the elbow to keep her at a distance. He kissed her on the cheek, though. Just so he wouldn’t offend her.

“Take. Care. Of. Yourself.” This time, each of her one-word sentences sounded bewildered.

When Galvin got in his car, he wanted to call Jessica and tell her everything that had happened. But he held off. She was in session, and she wouldn’t respect him if he called for reassurance that he was no longer the same asshole who had dumped Kennedy Mower.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Why are we doing this again?” Jessica asked. “Neither of us are college reunion people.”

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