Status Updates From The Deal: A Man of the Hous...

He shrugs, but it’s not dismissive; it’s the gesture of a man who can lift the world and knows it, but never brags.

You’re my life. If the world burns down around us, I’ll make a new world for you.

The winter light drains out of the day fast at this latitude, like a wound that never stops bleeding. By four-thirty, the house is already hunkered into its own shadows, windows blacked out to the world

I chop basil, tearing the leaves by hand instead of using the knife, because the taste is gentler that way. I

I should feel ridiculous, a child being carried to bed after a nightmare, but I don’t. I feel powerful. I feel chosen.

There’s an Uber idling at the curb, but I steer her past it, to where the Mercedes waits, black and shining, a wolf among mutts.

how young the kids look. They’re not even people yet, just raw matter being shaped into futures, still soft at the edges, all cartilage and potential trauma.

That’s what girls do at parties, right? They always have something to sip.

I’m not naïve, but I’ve never seen a full street pharmacy laid out so brazenly.

“I’m going for the banana look. This mini-dress can be peeled right off hardy har har!”

bass so heavy you can feel it in your retinas.

“Aren’t you working part time at a plant store? What’s that about?”

Mary Kate smiles sweetly. “It’s peaceful. I like being around things that grow, and that don’t talk back.”

“I like fixing things. It’s mechanical. Cause and effect. There’s a problem, and I solve it. No drama.”

“But you like drama. You just want to be the one who controls it.”

I laugh. “Guilty.”

I buttered both sides of the bread before putting it in the panini maker. That makes a lot of difference.

“I’ve eaten a lot of pu$$y. I’m forty-five and I’ve been with a lot of women in my life, so I have a lot of experience. Not only that, but I’m a doctor. I know what a hymen feels like, even with my tongue.”

🤔

the only thing I’m interested in is the memory of a man who would eat this guy for breakfast and then floss with his ego.