“Oh, Grace,” Linneah exclaimed, “you shouldn’t be so mean to Chris. You’re always such a sad sack. You should have seen her in college!” The bride smiled, reaching out to run her hand along my arm. “We were at a frat party rushing the same sorority. The guys were trying to talk to her, and she just made these awful faces at them and told them to get lost.”
“Sounds like our Grace,” I said with a smile.
Linneah leaned forward, her body language fawning, which was how women were supposed to treat me. “Were you in Greek life?”
“Sort of. Harvard has social clubs, and I belonged to one of those. But they’re pretty similar—the parties, the drinking, the poor decision-making,” I quipped.
Linneah tipped her head back and brayed out a laugh. “Oh, Chris! You’re hilarious!”
I smirked and took a sip of my drink.
“He’s not that funny,” Grace said irritably.
“Yes, he is,” Linneah shot back. “You just have no sense of humor. Come on, Chris. They’re starting the therapy session.”
The three relationship therapists beamed at us as we sat in the semicircle of chairs. The other couples held hands and gazed in each other’s eyes adoringly.
Grace crossed her arms in the chair next to me. The motion pressed her tits together enticingly. I wanted to bury my face between them.
“How has the first week of married life been?” Priyanka asked.
“Amazing!”
“Fantastic!” the other couples gushed.
“A waste of time,” Grace muttered under her breath.
I didn’t know why, but that sort of hurt.
Why? You don’t even like her. You don’t want to be married to her. She wants out; that’s a good thing!
But I wanted her to like me.
“I know that many of you have been living alone for a while. How has it been to suddenly have to share space with another person?” Dr. Kwame asked.
“It’s amazing and life changing!” the other couples said.
“It sucks,” I said through my teeth.
They all stared at me in shock.
“Oh, come on!” I demanded. “You can’t possibly like moving in with a stranger. It’s like being in college where your roommate is a guy who never washes his socks and raises frogs in the sink.”
“There’s an element of personal growth when you have to share a space with someone you are learning to love,” Rainbow said sagely.
“Honestly, I agree with him,” Linneah said.
“Thank you!” I told her. She beamed at me. I always admired a contrarian. “Finally, someone who recognizes my brilliance.”
Grace crossed her legs beside me and snorted.
“Teddy has a tiny studio apartment,” Linneah continued. “It’s too much togetherness. You need some mystery in a relationship.”
“Absolutely,” I said, nodding.
“You said you liked my apartment,” Teddy said to Linneah, obviously hurt. “You said it was cozy.”
“No one likes a studio apartment,” I retorted. “You need room to spread out.”
“Especially if you’re as big as you are, Chris,” Linneah added.
I grinned and winked at her. “Oh, you have no idea!”
15
Grace
“I can’t believe you sat there and flirted with Linneah!” I exploded at Chris in the car.
“You’re jealous.”
I wanted to punch the smug look off his face.
“Absolutely not!” I sputtered. “If you want to shack up with Linneah and have her take half of your stuff, be my guest. You’ll just be confirming what I already know, that good looks and intelligence have an inverse correlation.”
“Jealous?” he sing-songed, slipping on his sunglasses, even though it was dark outside.
“That doesn’t make you look cool,” I said petulantly.
All he did was grin at me, that slow, lazy, sexy smile that had attracted me to his Tinder profile in the first place.
“No, you’re right,” he said in his deep voice. “They make me look sexy.”
I crossed my arms and sat back in the seat, annoyed.
“You know why else I wear sunglasses at night?” Chris added.
“No.”
“Do you want to know?”
“Nope.”
“It’s because I can check out your tits without you knowing.”
I blew out a breath, feeling oddly warm.
He does not like you. He clearly likes girls like Linneah. This is not going to turn into freshman year of college.
“I thought you wanted an annulment.”
He shrugged. “I do, but I’m trying to be zen and find the sexy silver lining to this whole disaster.”
My phone beeped, and I pulled it out of my purse.
Ivy: How’s married life?
Elsie: You get a divorce yet?
Sophie: That dude better not be walking off with part of our company.
Amy: I mean, he can walk off with me all he wants!
Brea: Chris is Grace’s husband! You can’t make jokes about having sex with him!