Page 4 of Unrealistic Expectations

But he couldn’t live that way anymore. And that wasn’t his fault, either, which was why it had taken him months to come to grips with the fact that his old mix of casual relationships and one-night stands—the very efficient way that didn’t involve allowing anyone to ingratiate themselves too far into his life—wasn’t going to work for him anymore. Not after his mega-influencer ex-girlfriend had lambasted his sexual prowess on her social media platforms after he’d ended their relationship.

The new Galvin was trying to be better, but it wasn’t his choice. He was actually going to have to put in an effort, but that didn’t mean he had to be happy about it. The blonde finally looked at him, so he gave her “the look,” which was a holdover from the days before he was dicksona non grata, but he figured it was still worth a try.

The blonde met his gaze and returned her own sultry look before flicking her hair over her shoulder. Galvin took that as his signal to approach. When he reached her, he put down his glass and said nothing. Anything he could say at this point would be irredeemably cheesy, so he kept his mouth shut. He took his time looking the perfect woman up and down, though. She was athletic, curvy, and shorter than him by a few inches. Close up, he realized that she was a little bit older than he’d originally thought from far away. That was great for him—younger women often expected the sex to turn into a white picket fence. They still bought into the unrealistic expectations of a fairy-tale romance. Older women had their heads on straight. They never tried to paint his red flags green in their minds. Their more robust experiences taught them that there wasn’t anything beneath his rakish exterior. They could have their fun and not get attached.

New Galvin still didn’t want to get attached long-term. From the therapist he’d reluctantly started seeing, he knew that it was dysfunctional. Though he didn’t agree that he was afraid of commitment. He just wasn’t capable of it at this point because he’d avoided it for so long. He couldn’t imagine himself actually wanting to talk to someone after the postorgasm haze wore off. The only feeling that settled into his gut after getting off was the slight nausea that told him it was time to leave the premises.

Finally, the blonde said, “I know you from somewhere.”

Dread lodged itself in Galvin’s gut. There was really only one way this woman would know who he was—if she was one of Kennedy’s 450 million Instagram followers. Still, he tried to keep the facade going that he wasn’t notoriously deficient at doling out pleasure. “I would definitely remember you if we’d met.” He was trying to sound charming, but he truly felt like such a douche.

The blonde scrunched up her face in this cute way that made him even more attracted to her, but he knew she was trying to figure out where she knew him from. And she would never sleep with him once she knew. He actively began making an extraction plan.

But he wasn’t fast enough, because Blondie decided to yell, like she was trying to get on the Family Feud board for the category “Men You Wouldn’t Set Your Worse Enemy Up With,” when she said, “You’re Galvin Baker, and you dated Kennedy Mower!”

Galvin looked around to see if anyone was paying attention to him, wishing there was a kind of witness protection program for Kennedy’s ex-boyfriends. Even though Kennedy was on the longest-running reality show in history and had hundreds of millions of followers on social media, he hadn’t even known who she was when they’d met at a party at some actor’s house. He’d only been invited because he had designed James Fahereghty’s new home. He’d only attended because it would be good for business, and all the devotion that he refused to put into romantic relationships he put into his career. He may not have much of a love life, but he loved his work. Although he’d started out in residential architecture rather than commercial to spite his parents, he never regretted his choices.

Somehow, in three short months, he’d gone from a relatively unknown figure to a guest star on reality television to a widely reviled laughingstock.

“I am and I did.” The old Galvin probably would have denied it and tried to gaslight this woman into believing she was mistaken, not to do her harm, but to save face. The new Galvin could own up to his mistakes.

The blonde cocked her head at him and said, “Honestly thought you would have left town and gotten a new face.”

Galvin let out a tight laugh. “Yeah, the U.S. Marshals wouldn’t agree to my terms regarding relocation, so here I am.”

She put her hand on his arm and looked at him with immense sympathy on her face. The touch was promising, but the pity said that she believed what Kennedy had said about him and was not going to fuck him.

It was really the most brilliant thing she could have done—telling everyone in the world that he was terrible in bed. It wasn’t like he could do anything to disprove it. He didn’t always get phone numbers, even after a particularly stellar performance on his part, so character witnesses for his generosity as a lover were pretty thin on the ground. Even though she’d lied—at least, that’s what he had to believe not to hide his head in eternal shame—he was never going to get laid again.

CHAPTER THREE

Jessica did not want to be out with her girlfriends right now. She wanted to be curled up on her couch with her long-term boyfriend, drinking the champagne she’d been saving for her cozy little release party for two since she’d signed the book contract. Instead, she was in a crowded bar, wearing a cocktail dress so tight that it cut off circulation to her extremities. She wasn’t sure if this was preferable to lying on the love seat that Luke hadn’t taken with him earlier when he moved out. She winced at the thought of returning to her apartment. Somehow a completely empty apartment would have been better than half the clothes and toiletries, half the kitchen appliances, and half the furniture gone. Besides, Luke had taken the good TV.

Eventually, she’d have to fill the condo with new furniture. But she didn’t even know if she wanted to stay there. And she didn’t know if she could afford it long-term—especially if the book wasn’t a success.

But her friends weren’t going to allow her to be depressed. Barbie—named for the doll—and Kelly had known her since freshman year of college, and they weren’t going to let her lie in bed and watch costume dramas on the small TV Luke had left for her. Kelly was a pediatrician, but she’d told Jessica that, in her learned medical opinion, they needed to have drinks. She and Barbie, a makeup artist, had ambushed her at her condo about ten minutes after Jessica had apprised them all of her in-progress breakup. Their other friends would have been there, but they all lived thousands of miles away. However, they’d promised to cover Jessica’s bar tab and restitution for any property crimes she might decide to commit against her newly minted ex with Barbie and Kelly’s encouragement.

But Jessica wasn’t angry. That phase of grief had passed relatively quickly. She had cycled back around to sadness and a flavor of paralysis.

“It was like being in a car crash,” Jessica said. “I felt like I was watching it happen to someone else. And I couldn’t feel anything. I wanted to do something to brace for impact, but I couldn’t move. I could barely say anything. All I could do was screech, and it all sounded like utter nonsense.”

Barbie shook her head, a sneer on her face. “I never liked Luke.”

Jessica wanted to put a stop to this particular postdumping activity. From a psychological perspective, the trashing-the-ex-even-though-you-were-also-friends-with-the-ex ritual wasn’t terribly useful. If she wanted to move forward, Jessica would have to just allow herself to feel all the shitty feelings that being broken up with in such a brutal manner brought up. “He’s not that bad.”

“And that’s the issue,” Kelly said. “He was never that bad, but he was also never that good.”

“We were together for over a decade.” Jessica knew that wasn’t much of a defense for their relationship, but there had to have been something good there for both of them to stay for so long. Now that she wasn’t in the eye of the shock hurricane, she could look to the recent past and acknowledge that she and Luke hadn’t been really connected and tuned in to their relationship for a long time. She’d been busy with her practice and writing and editing her book, and he was constantly working and on call. It hadn’t left much space for them to take vacations or even to cook dinner together.

But she’d thought that there was still enough of a connection there that Luke would at least put in one last effort before throwing in the towel. They’d been together for so long Jessica had felt completely secure in their relationship. She’d taken that security for granted, and now the very ground beneath her felt frighteningly shaky.

He was clinical about their breakup. After he’d walked out the door, she found a letter on the dining room table detailing how he’d set her up with a separate cell phone plan and transferred all the utilities to her name. She’d called him to clarify a few points, and he’d responded to her voice mail with a bullet-pointed text.

The fact that she wasn’t still crying, screaming, and throwing up was a miracle. She knew she wouldn’t get through this massive, stressful upheaval without a support system, so she was grateful for her friends, even though she felt as though she was walking around vulnerable—as though all of her skin had been sloughed off and people could see inside. All of the ugly feelings from her childhood that she’d worked through—the feeling that she wasn’t good enough to be loved and seen—were creeping in on her. Even though she had the tools to cope, and she’d become a therapist partially to assemble those tools, she was overwhelmed.

“C’mon, now. You liked him. We all did.” It was telling that Jessica didn’t have more of a defense.

“Yeah, we liked him like we like brown rice,” Kelly said. “Brown rice is nourishing, but no one is ever going to scream in the streets about how brown rice rocked their world. We liked Luke as long as he was good to our friend, but we always thought you deserved to be with someone who you wanted to scream in the streets about.”

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