Cupcakes and Christmas - R.J. Scott Page 0,37
hood space.
“Okay then,” Adam said.
“Worst of all, what if I still love Marc? What if the hate I have for him and wanting to be successful where he can see me is still some kind of love?”
Adam cursed loudly, then I heard the click of the indicator and the road noise lessened. He’d clearly pulled over.
“First, Marc was an asshole. He stole from you, slept around on you, made you feel like shit, and horrifically broke your heart. You do not still love him.”
“How can you tell? I married him, there must be—”
“He’s not worth your time. Are you listening to me, Brody?”
“I am, but then there was the thing with the coffee.” I had to be honest because Adam would know. I told him everything about Justin. The fake-flirting, the advice, and the camera footage. I even explained about Jeremy our frosty snowman. He made all the appropriate sounds. Only when I stopped did he talk.
“Okay so, cute and sexy Justin, whom you haven’t shut up about since you signed up for this charity show, is going with you to coffee?”
“He said he was, and I was pathetically happy but then there were the photos, and now I just feel wrong.”
“Back up a minute, you said you were happy, and that’s a positive. You haven’t dated for two years.”
I placed the phone on the bed and put it on speaker, taking off my coat as Adam kept talking.
“You’re worried about what Marc will think when this airs so what better way to get back at him than have this showmance-bromance-fakemance thing that Justin suggested?”
“I’m not doing that.” Although the sudden thought of proving to Marc that I’d come out of our relationship unscathed was a nice one.
“Not even a couple of innuendo—”
“No,” I was decisive. “I’m here to bake.”
Adam was quiet for a moment. “Marc didn’t just break your heart, Brody. He took your self-confidence, and you can’t let him keep it. You’re going to have to trust someone sometime, and if you think that Justin is being honest with you now, then go for a coffee, ignore the show and fake anything, and see what happens. You could have a fling, just enjoy being you, have sex and—”
“I’m not talking to you about sex!” I stood up and turned sideways, pressing my shirt against my belly where it was softly rounded. Marc had gone elsewhere because he said I was slowly becoming old, married, and boring.
Adam chuckled. “Okay, no sex talk, but you need to not have every decision you make be colored by Marc and what he did to you. He was an asshole of epic proportions, and if I ever saw him again I’d push him into a lake.”
We finished with our usual exchange of brotherly insults, and then I sent love to Christie, his wife, and to their twin daughters. When the call ended I felt better for talking to him, even if I felt lonely as soon as I finished the call. I’d been leaning too much on my siblings, asking them to put up with my moods, and worse, my seeming inability to work my way through everything. Justin said he wasn’t going to share the wrong things, and that we weren’t doing the flirting thing for the cameras. Maybe I should listen to Adam and give Justin the benefit of the doubt and assume he was a good guy instead of another Marc, who was all about the lies and deception. I’d become nothing to Marc but a name to drop at parties and a way to meet celebrities, plus it turned out, also an endless money well for him to steal from.
I headed for the shower. Dinner first and then bed.
I was exhausted.
Chapter Eleven
You’ve left your nuts quite big. I must admit I was worried about your unfeasibly large nuts.
Justin
The water was hot on my back, and I lost myself in those kinds of thoughts that I could only have in the shower. Erotic images of what I would love to be doing with Brody warred with the fact I wasn’t the kind of person that people trusted. Maybe Brody was one of those who could see through the fancy covering to the person below. I had no intention of betraying his trust after I said I wouldn’t, but how would he know that?
“He sees the crap I endorse. He knows I’m a liar.”
The shower gel didn’t answer me back, and I was glad about that because I knew what it