Story of My Life

“You don’t have to unpack my books. That seems more like a boyfriend job than a no-strings-sex partner job.”

“Fuck. I need to move, baby. This table won’t hold, and I need to get you someplace where I can take you hard and fast. You good with that?”

“Oh my god. Your mother just texted the group and said, ‘Your brother’s always in a better mood when he’s sexually satisfied.’ Now all your siblings are sending vomit emojis.”

“Oh my God. Are you seriously sitting here thinking that the sex was so good I’m automatically going to demand a committed relationship with you?”

“I thought I’d work my way up to a grand gesture. But it’s tough with you dating every single man in town.”

“The whole town knows we belong together. I know it now too. And I’m not letting you go.”

“Because you would have panicked and spent a week overanalyzing the whole thing before deciding that us having a few drinks in public and only having meaningless, no-strings sex with each other was too much of a commitment. Then I would have had to put in another week of being extra sexy around the jobsite until you threw caution to the wind and got back in bed with me.”

“That fucking mouth.”

“You’re damn right we are. And we could have been fucked-up together.”

“I can tell you’re tired. Your penis descriptions start to go downhill.”

“Hazel, I’m trying to not want to rip off your clothes and break in your couch with sex that you’re not ready for. Okay?”

“What’s happening here is you’re trying to provoke a misunderstanding that will force us to go our separate ways. Readers don’t like that in books and women sure as hell don’t like it in real life. It’s a lazy conflict that’s too easily avoided by two adults communicating which is what I am doing right now.”

“Yet here you are, almost twenty years after your high school boyfriend dumps you, and you’re still trying to get revenge. You’ve got a husband and kids and probably a nice house with lake views. But you’re still thinking about the one who got away. That’s just sad.”

“I want you. Enough that it pisses me off. I don’t like spending so much time thinking about you. And I really don’t like not being able to touch you. But I’m not looking for a relationship. And falling into bed with you would be stupid with a side of crazy.”

“We fucked each other in the back seat of a pickup truck in a parking lot, and you want to talk about the sewage plant?”

“If you’re looking for poetry and romance, you’re with the wrong guy.”

“You’re the worst. I’m mad at you, in case you forgot. I wouldn’t get naked with you again if you were the last big-dicked man on the planet.”

“You don’t get to unpack all this emotional baggage and trauma that you’ve been carting around since probably childhood that has nothing to do with me and then use it against me.”

“I write romance all day long. What I need is a man who isn’t going to throw a temper tantrum every time I do something he doesn’t appreciate.”

“You narcissistic ass clown.”

“It was a onetime thing. I took her out on a fake date for research purposes. It was her idea. I was just being nice.”

“You know, like you’re in a new relationship and everything is hot and sexy and you just want to be naked all the time, so you end up having sex everywhere but the bed?”