“I’m not sleeping with you, Teal. That’s not part—that would never be part of it.”
Disappointment rushes through me and I have no idea why. “But wouldn’t you? Need it?”
He cuts me a look that I’m hoping will be full of heat, but it’s the opposite. Cold like stone. “I’m never going to sleep with you, Teal.”
Well, if the idea of him sleeping with other people was a knife in the gut, the fact that he can’t help but be so obviously repulsed at the idea of sleeping withmeis several dozen knives right in the heart.
It’s not that I’m desperate to fall into bed with him. It’s more like I can hear my ex Johnny’s voice in my head.No one but me would ever want you.
I’m not dumb. I know that sentence was a manipulation tactic, designed to make me stay with him, to not consider any other romantic options. He wanted me to believe there would never be any other romantic options.
Still, though, it stung then, and it stings now. Even though it’s not what Carter said, I can’t help but feel the insult echoing in my body. I try to dislodge it with an angry huff. “Point taken. Jesus. I was talking about you wanting someone else. Because going without sex is hard for some people.” It certainly was hard for Johnny. He didn’t like to go a single day without it. He insisted it was how men were.Men need to come, he’d lecture at me.But for women, orgasm isn’t the point of sex. The point is to make her manhappy.Funny how he didn’t include these beliefs in the YouTube videos he uploaded.
“I’m not cheating while we’re married. We might not be together, but I’m not cheating.” He pulls up in front of Nadia’s home and cuts the engine. When he looks at me…well,nowhe’s heated. His eyes have darkened and his jaw ticks. “Is that what you want? To be able to fuck whoever you want?”
“I wouldn’t cheat, either.” I cross my arms and glare at him. “I’ve never cheated and I won’t start with a marriage, no matter how fake.”
He breathes out a sigh that sounds suspiciously like relief. “So you’ll do it.”
“We still haven’t established what’s in it for me, Carter.” He didn’t even stick around at the wedding to be my date. We didn’t share one dance. Not a single reminiscence about our childhood. I blink back tears and sigh an inward groan when the sky darkens with a group of clouds.
“I told you. Money.”
“I don’t want your money.”
We stare at each other until finally Carter gives. “It’s a lot of money, Teal. Enough to…” He bites his lips. When he releases them, they are unfairly plump. “Enough to get that PI you always wanted. To find your mom.”
My breath is frozen in my chest for a moment.
Well. He has me there.
We were thirteen and fifteen when he and I first looked up how much personal investigators cost at Cranberry Library, where we did school research on their internet-connected computers. Both of our jaws had dropped open the second we saw the quotes. I couldn’t afford that expense even when I still had my trainer job.
The reminder of me and Carter looking it up brings up a lot more crap I don’t want to deal with.
Like the fact that we’re not supposed to tell anyone about our gifts, but I blabbed to the two people I had trusted most in the world, Lani and Carter.
Like the fact that of those two people, I trusted only one enough with my theory that my mom had broken my power somehow. And that I wished more than anything I could find her to get it back. And now I’m sitting in a car with him, trying to figure out if I can handle pretending to love him for however long it takes.
“I’ll think about it,” I finally tell him. I get out of the car too fast to let him respond, and when I’m inside and he drives away, I grab my running shoes and change. Even though I ran too much this morning, I’m doing it again.
6
Should I (fake) marry my former best friend for money?
posted in r/Advice byTealLightningfive hours ago
My childhood best friend (m26) just asked me (f28) to marry him. His grandmother won’t give him money his grandfather left him unless he’s married. He’s offered some of this money to me if I marry him.
I haven’t been a good friend to him these last few years, not as good as he’s been to me. I want to make it up to him and do him this favor.
On the other hand, though, this is a huge commitment. I would live with him. People would think we got married for real. The works, basically.
I don’t have a boyfriend or anything, but…what if things go wrong?
wunderk1nd33—Did his grandfather not have a will? Because if he did, his grandmother can’t legally keep his money from him. Just sayin’
notabeetlewiththumbs—how much money we talkin? ’cause anything less than 20k, nahhhhh
