Page 57 of Unrealistic Expectations

“They’re both shitheads. But Luke is going to be a father, and I would feel bad if he died and left his fiancée to raise the kid.”

“She was very pregnant, so she was clearly fucking him when you were together. Single parenthood would serve her right, and we might even be doing her a favor. Luke is the king of the shitheads.” Abby had a point. Luke was more of a liability than a help when it came to domestic labor. “But I was talking about Galvin. I knew he was a fuckboy, but the way he looked at you. I thought he had changed—”

Abby had experience with disappointing men—she’d just been through an acrimonious divorce with a very famous and powerful man. She didn’t like to talk about it, and that said enough to Jessica—Abby wasn’t the sort of woman to avoid a subject unless it was truly taboo. Maybe that was why the book had resonated so much with her, and she’d wanted to work with Jessica.

“I think my book is just bullshit.” Jessica had been thinking that her tone had been way too harsh, and she’d been way too prescriptive, the longer she was dating Galvin. And now she didn’t know what to think. The only thing she knew was that going on television and selling that book was going to be nigh on impossible in her current state.

“Shut up. It’s not bullshit. If you could see some of the DMs and emails that my assistant has been sifting through since the release, you would not say that. Men who hadn’t been able to get a date in a decade saying that they have set up appointments with therapists or drinks dates with the woman of their dreams, girlfriends who are getting flowers and help with the laundry the first time in their entire relationships, a couple of proposals, even.”

Jessica was surprised. She’d refused to look at reviews for the book, because she expected them all to be bad. Whenever a woman dared to challenge long-standing ways of relating, there was bound to be backlash. She’d expected people to call her stupid and ugly and go on about doing their business the same way they always had.

“Maybe it’s not total bullshit. It’s academically sound, supported by the literature. But I just don’t have the confidence to appear on national television and pretend to know what the fuck I’m talking about.”

“Because Galvin hurt your feelings? Because his ego made him screw up?”

“It’s not just that. It was fun while it lasted, but it was a rebound. It had to end at some point.”

“You know that I think straight men are dumb, but I think you’re blowing one fight out of proportion. And, if it was so good, why did it have to end? I mean, I’ll trust your judgment if you think he’s an asshole—”

“He’s not an asshole—at least I never thought he was until a week ago. I fell for my own story that he was just misunderstood.” Jessica snorted at her own stupidity. “I fell for the old line of thinking that I could fix or change a man just because he made my pussy really happy.”

“Who hasn’t?” Abby was typing something out on her phone, but she was still engaged in the conversation. “If anything, this makes you more relatable if it goes public, and I can work with that.”

“But I thought it was a disaster if it went public that I can’t make a relationship work.”

“It might have taken some massaging, but I really thought you could use some good dick after spending over a decade with the other shithead.”

Jessica really missed the good dick. And the talented hands. And the way he smelled when he got out of the shower. She missed running her fingers through the hair on Galvin’s chest. She missed everything about him, and he had called every day. Did she really have to give him up?

“You’re not going to start crying, are you? My hourly fee doubles if I have to deal with tears.”

“I have a lot to cry about.” She’d cried more in the past week than in the months since Luke had moved out. She was bereft, and she hadn’t let herself care enough about another person to be bereft when they disappeared in a long time—maybe ever.

“Yes, but you have to stop crying so that we can control the puffiness for your national television appearance on Monday.”

“I’m not flying to New York. You can’t make me get on the plane.”

Abby gave her a look that told her she would not hesitate to call in a group of mercenaries to kidnap her to New York if that was what it came to.

“What do I do if they ask about Galvin?” Jessica wasn’t comfortable lying in general. Lying on TV made her want to break out in hives.

“Be vague, like you have in all of the other interviews.” Abby said it like it would be easy. Maybe for her it was not a big deal to slap down questions about her personal life—she’d gone through a very public divorce not too long ago—but Jessica hadn’t wanted to date for publicity at all. “It’s not like either of you are major public figures. He doesn’t have multiple TikTok accounts claiming to be his wife popping up on the daily.”

There was a hint of bitterness to her tone, but Jessica couldn’t explore that right now. Even though she was desperate to get out of this, she knew that this was what she’d wanted all along. She’d wanted her book to be huge because she knew it would help people. Even though she wasn’t sure whether she was right about anything anymore, she knew there was some value in the insights she’d gotten through clients.

Jessica sighed, though she wasn’t quite ready to throw back the covers yet. “What time is my flight?”

—

Abby had sent him a text with a link to a plane ticket. Her message—If you want your girl back, you will show up. A car will take you to the hotel—was all it took for him to pack a bag. To say he’d been completely miserable for the past week was an understatement. He’d been busy on a project, but every moment that wasn’t devoted to getting his client to agree to the materials that would keep them in budget had been occupied by thoughts of Jessica. And she hadn’t called him back.

He missed talking to her on the way home and asking what she wanted to eat. It made the traffic much more tolerable. She always had a clear idea of what she wanted, and she never threw the answer back to him. One of the things he liked most about her was that he’d never wondered where he stood with her. If she was unhappy with him, she told him. If he inadvertently violated a boundary that she wanted to keep, she made it clear. Her clear sense of who she was and what she wanted made it all the more intoxicating when she gave up her iron control to him in bed or let him surprise her anyplace else.

Her trust in him made him look at himself in a whole new way. He’d always felt like a feckless boy in relationships before. He’d always dated women who deferred to his tastes, but he realized now why they were all probably frustrated with him most of the time. With Jessica, he didn’t feel like she was trying to wedge herself into his life. He felt like they were two individual puzzle pieces that fit together. But they were both full pictures on their own.

But he’d ruined all that by making her feelings about him. He might never stop kicking himself for it. By the time Saturday and Abby’s cryptic text rolled around, he hadn’t slept more than four hours a night all week. He knew he looked like shit, and he definitely felt like shit. He wanted nothing more than to sit in his backyard with a big glass of scotch and his own thoughts.

Fuck, he was becoming his dad.

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