He frowned. “Why?”
“Because I hate cutesy demeaning pet names like babe and honey and sugar and sweetheart, and he’s apparently psychologically unable to not use them with women. So I’m going to want to kill him, and they’re all really looking forward to what Cassie is anticipating being the Lexie explosion of the century.”
“Is that why you’re so tense?”
“That’s part of it.” I knew that came out short and snappy, but I couldn’t help it.
“And what’s the other part?
“You’re upset with me.”
“I’m not upset,” he said, sighing as we crossed a sidewalk and followed his phone’s GPS navigation app’s directions to Mom’s condo. “I’m annoyed.”
“With me.”
“Yeah.”
“Because there’s shit I just don’t talk about.”
“Exactly. And there’s nothing I won’t tell you. Haven’t told you, matter of fact.”
I eyed him sideways. “Bullshit. You haven’t told me everything.”
“Sure have. Everything major.”
“Worst breakup.”
His answer was immediate. “Never had a real relationship, so I can’t say I’ve ever had a breakup, per se. Closest I could come would be a girl named Tiff. Backstage bunny. Had a major crush on me.”
He didn’t elaborate, and I waited for him to ask me the same thing, but he didn’t say anything. That left me a bit off-balance, and I found myself offering the information anyway, since it was a safe topic for me. “Mine was a guy named Nick. He was a fuckbuddy, and even that’s too close of a relationship to put on it. We were booty calls for each other for a long time until he came over one night and proposed.”
Myles winced. “How’d you let him down?”
“At first I thought it was a joke, and started laughing. But then I realized he was serious. I may have overreacted a little. Or…a lot.”
We were walking through a condo complex, and I was aware, suddenly, that Myles was acting kind of weird. Nervous, keeping his head down. He’d put on a ball cap, which he never wore; he’d put it on as we got on the ferry and pulled the brim low. Weird.
“So he just proposed—just like that?
“I sort of yelled at him for breaking the unspoken rule number one of fuck-buddies, and that’s to never make it emotional.”
“So you’re saying you were harsh?” he asked with a grin.
I sighed. “I feel bad, now. But yeah, I was a major bitch to him about it. He looked crushed. He left, and I sent him a text a few days later apologizing for being so mean about it, but I just wasn’t looking for a relationship and he took me by surprise.”
I still remembered the guilt I felt about the way I’d treated him.
“And that was it for Nick, I imagine?”
I winced again. “Weeeeeell, not quite. I got wasted a few months later and drunk texted him for a hookup.” I grinned sheepishly. “He was like, I’ve actually got real girlfriend now so you should probably delete my number.”
“Oof.”
“Yeah, oof.”
Myles stopped, looked up at a building in front of us and said, “Here we are.” He eyed me. “You ready?”
I shook my head. “Not even close.” I let out a sharp sigh. “But, we’re here, so let’s get this over with.”
He laughed, took my hand. “Your family is going to be happy to see you. And it will be great to see Crow and Charlie. But I don’t think you have to walk in and spill your guts. We are here for a week, babe.”
That term of endearment was like nails on a chalkboard, and I couldn’t restrain myself anymore. “I’ve been trying to let you do that, call me babe. But I just can’t anymore.” I took my bag from him, rang the buzzer for Mom’s unit, identifiable by her name printed on the label. “Please, please don’t call me babe. Or anything else like that. I know it’s weird, but it’s a thing with me. So, please don’t.”
He was silent a moment. “Okay,” he said, looking away.
And that was it.
I eyed him. “I’m sorry, Myles. I’m just—it’s a thing.”
He nodded, but he wasn’t looking at me. “I got it. It’s a thing. No cutesy pet names. Lex or Lexie.” A pause. “I guess I thought maybe that didn’t apply to me, since we’re…” he trailed off. “Never mind. I thought wrong. Message received.”
My heart sank—I’d hurt him. Pissed him off. “Please try to understand, Myles. I care about you. It just rubs me the wrong way and I hate it. It’s not you.”
He nodded, and I saw right through the fake grin he put on for me—it was the stage-Myles grin, the ten-thousand-watt mega-star grin. The smile that surely had melted the panties off thousands of women, the grin that had been splashed across tabloids and People, Time, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, GQ, Seventeen, Cosmopolitan, US Weekly, even a two-page modeling spread in Vanity Fair. That grin.
The one that hid the real Myles North from the world.
“I got you, Lex. It’s cool.” The wink.
I hated the wink.
You know what I hate almost as much as pet names and talking about emotions? Winking. It’s stupid.
He could get away with it once in a while because he was Myles Fucking North, and for sure a future Sexiest Man Alive. But I hated it.
He did it because he knew it annoyed me, because it made me roll my eyes and huff in irritation.
This time, he did it to piss me off.
“Hello, sorry, who is it?” Mom’s voice, on the intercom.
“Hi, Mom, it’s Lexie and Myles.”
“I was indisposed when you buzzed, sorry for making you wait.”
“Indisposed,” I said, laughing. “Mom, it’s me. You can say you were in the bathroom.”
A long pause. “In the bathroom. Yeah.” She buzzed the door. “Come on up, sweetheart.”
“Dammit, Mom—” I started, but the intercom was already silent and the door was buzzing.
Myles laughed. “Not even Mama gets a pass on sweetheart?”
“No one gets a pass,” I growled, my ire all the way up, now. “Not you, not Mom,
