If that’s the case, why would it bother him if I hooked up with his brother?
“You know, I like the power I wield in this chat,” Gavin says.
I wad up a napkin and throw it at him. He catches it quickly and laughs. Then he tosses it on the table.
“Let me ask you a question,” he says. “How is a girl like you even available in the first place, anyway?”
“Oh, there are many reasons.”
“Such as …”
I mirror his posture and rest back in my chair too. “Well, the last guy I dated continued to use the dating app I met him on well after we were supposed to be exclusive.”
“Yeah, I’m not into dating apps. It feels like you’re auditioning for a role. Like, ‘Hi, here are my stats. Am I good enough to fuck, date, or marry?’” He snorts. “I don’t need that kind of pressure.”
“Same.”
“What about the guy before that?” he asks.
I sigh. “Let’s see. The guy before that worked all the time. I don’t mean long hours. I mean, seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. If he wasn’t at the office, he was thinking aboutbeing at the office. And the guy before that was a jealous bastard. That didn’t last long.”
A parade of the men I’ve dated marches through my head. Each of them leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and I can’t remember being in a relationship with any of them where I felt comfortable. None of them felt like they were made for me.
Which is probably why I dated them.
“I have this nasty habit,” I say.
“Like what? You’re scaring me.”
I giggle. “Not like that. I just have this habit of choosing to date men I know are bad for me.” I try to find an example to help him understand. “Okay. There was this guy named Peter. In retrospect, he probably could’ve been a decent match. He had a good job, was sweet, and loved what I did for a living. And I refused to date him.”
“Why?”
“It’s a character flaw of mine,” I say. “If something has long-term potential, I run like the wind.”
“You make absolutely no sense, my friend.”
I take another drink. “Oh, I know.”
“What is your reasoning? What makes you the way you are?”
I cross my arms over my chest and exhale.
Why am I the way that I am? What a damn question.
My mouth goes dry.What is it with these Marshall men and their ridiculous questions?
“Is it one of those self-loathing things?” he asks.
“No, not really,” I say slowly. “It’s more of a … it’s more of an unsettledness in my soul, if that makes any sense.”
His forehead wrinkles. “So you want to be secure before you build a relationship? You want the job and house and to do all of that on your own first? Is that what it is?”
I sigh. “Not really. It’s hard to explain.”
“They say if you can’t explain it to a child, then you don’t understand it yourself.”
“That might very well be true.”
