A Fine Mess (Over the Top) Read Online Free

right. What I can’t handle is her single again, looking at the man who fathered me like he built Rome. It’ll be a fifth-of-Scotch kind of night, and I’ll bring my best buffer: Nico the Barbarian. My nieces climbing all over the massive dude like he’s their personal jungle gym should be enough distraction to get me through the evening. After the Scotch.
    “Don’t worry about me. I’ll bring Nico as my date. Just make sure you don’t catch the rare infidelity disease that infects our family. I won’t see your girls growing up like the rest of us. Speaking of which, how are Meryl and my two favorite half-pints?”
    A pause, a lengthy sigh, then, “The girls were asking about you this morning. They refuse to draw anymore until you come over and finish your art project.”
    He doesn’t bother answering about Meryl, and I don’t ask again.
    It’s been fifteen minutes since my friend Lily called. Fifteen minutes since I walked out on a blow job to find out why. Right about now, rubbing my face in what I can’t have— Lily —sounds like a pleasant diversion from dreading my family gathering. “Tell the twins I’ll visit this weekend. And slip Meryl some tongue for me.”
    “Fuck off.”
    He ends the call, and I speed-dial Lily.
    Four rings later, I’m pacing faster and almost hang up when her soft voice says, “Sawyer?”
    Immediately, I stop. I plant my ass on the hood of my car and close my eyes. There’s something about hearing my name from her lips. “Hey, Lil.”
    I refocus as a newspaper page blows across the asphalt, past a straw and some orange peels wedged against the curb. I practically feel her breath on my ear, the weight of her leaning into me. Today, at lunch, I held her waist tighter than I should have, kissed her cheek too long when I said good-bye. I often do this stupid thing where I stand close enough that it affects her. I do it until she shivers, then I step away. Because I’ll take whatever scraps she offers, and I know she’s hot for me, too.
    The way her gray eyes dilate when she looks at me too long?
    She totally wants to fuck me.
    The way her breath hitches when I brush by her “accidentally”?
    I mean, come on .
    My dickish motto: If I can’t have her, she should suffer, too. So I invade her space until she gets flustered and makes excuses about something she mysteriously forgot to do. Still, she stays with her scrawny boyfriend of eleven years . Not even Finn and Meryl have been together that long. No member of my family has stood that test of time.
    “It’s late there,” I say, finally. “Why’d you call?” And obstruct a perfectly good blow job.
    More breathing. More quiet. Then, “I broke up with Kevin.”
    Her voice is almost too soft to hear, but I’m pretty sure she just said she broke up with Kevin. Her boyfriend. Of eleven years. The one and only reason I haven’t shown her what it’s like to have a real man in her bed.
    The world tilts. Nope…that’s me falling back onto the hood of my car. I’d swallow if I could. I’d breathe if my heart would slow the fuck down. It’s practically freezing, but sweat gathers on my palms.
    “Sawyer? You still there?”
    “Yeah, yeah, yeah. You just…caught me off guard.” Understatement of the century. The millennium. I’ve waited to hear those words for nine months. I should hang up and book the first flight back to Toronto, but I’ve become a living piece of performance art: Man Shocked to Death . “What happened?” I ask, unsure why my stomach is knotting up.
    I don’t do knotting up.
    “Nothing specific. It’s been coming a long time.”
    She doesn’t elaborate, and my ability to cheer her up has evaporated. I’m the one my friends come to for a laugh. When Kolton lost his wife, I spent a month pointing out every fashion crime in a thirty-mile radius until the dude laughed out loud. When Nico’s brother got arrested for carjacking, I e-mailed Nico photoshopped pictures of his own head on different