Diving In (38 page)

Lucy felt an odd snapping inside her, her last grip on reality disengaging from Dan’s voice. “We lived together for five years. You think we should have waited until we were, what, forty?”

“It’s not how long we waited, it’s how
often
you wanted it. And how much you wanted to do it. I’m a man, Lucy, and I didn’t need half as much sex as you did.” Then he ran his hand over his eyes and said, “I’m sorry. I never intended to talk to you about this.”

Her throat suddenly felt tight. She realized Robin the real estate agent was hanging on every word. “Did you talk to her about this? Brittany?”

His sheepish look grew sheepier; he leaned away from the camera. Faintly, she heard him say, “That’s how we… how we knew we were perfect for each other. She was avoiding her boyfriend, and I… I was taking a break, too.”

“And where was this? Her convent?”

“Lucy,” Dan said, shaking his head, looking so
disappointed
in her.

Humiliation didn’t feel right, so she tapped into the rage, breathed it like oxygen. “I’m just trying to get the full picture here. I deserve to know the details.”

“Information isn’t knowledge, Lucy,” Dan said. “Knowing everything doesn’t make you wise.”

“And having a penis doesn’t make you a man,” Lucy said.

Robin snorted and patted her hard on the back. Lucy closed her eyes.
He didn’t like having sex with me
, she thought
.
It’s not like she had a he-harem of previous boyfriends to call up for rebuttals. She was thirty-four, but she’d started late.

Damn.
It took him five years to propose. She didn’t have another eight to work on someone new. There were houses to buy, retirement accounts to fund, ovaries to harvest.

She frowned at him. “You’ve really messed up my plans.”

“Sometimes I think that’s all I was to you, Lucy. Just part of your plans.” He leaned back and put his hand over his heart. “I’ve learned that I need a partner who acts without analyzing everything to death. Someone more flexible.”

Lucy glanced at Robin, but it was far too late for any privacy. Holding the phone up to her mouth, she said, enunciating each word, “One of my plans was for decent sex. I was flexible about giving up on that.”

She drew back to see his reaction, but the window had gone black.

* * *

The Supermodel’s Best Friend
(©2011) is available now!