Hey, y’all! Matt has been really busy at work, so Good Books, Good Times will go up Wednesday. Get pumped!!
At the end of chapter two, Eva went on a lunch date with Megumi. Who is Megumi, you ask? The fuck if we know! Apparently she works at Cross Industries and has had previous interactions with Eva. Also, after lunch, Eva saw Corinne leaving Cross Industries and getting into Gideon’s car. The kicker? Her lipstick was smudged and she looked kind of disheveled.
Chapter 3
Eva busts into Gideon’s office where he is fresh out of a shower. The kicker? Couch cushions are out of place. Detective Eva can also tell the couch has been moved a couple inches.
My gaze swept the room and caught on the throw pillow that had been carelessly knocked to the floor. Beside it were indents in the area rug that betrayed where the couch feet were usually planted. The piece of furniture had, apparently, been bumped askew by a few inches.
To be fair, this doesn’t exactly all seem innocent, but because I can tell Day is trying really really hard to make it look like Gideon cheated, I fucking know he didn’t and there’s some other explanation that for some reason he’s being evasive. Things do get even weirder, though. Eva pulls his shirt out of the laundry and finds smeared lipstick. Look, I know there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation, but what the eff? To drag the drama out, Gideon refuses to explain himself to Eva, so yeah.
What really pisses me off about this series is that an argument about one thing always gets derailed and becomes a fight about something different, so the main issue doesn’t get resolved. It leaves me feeling really anxious and irritated. In this case, they start arguing about how Eva felt abandoned the night before, but Gideon turns around and says he felt abandoned by Eva.
“Oh my God. That’s absurd! Stop deflecting. You were talking business with your associates. It was awkward standing there. For them as well as me.”
“That’s your place, awkward or not!”
My head jerked back as if he’d slapped me. “Come again?”
“How would you feel if I walked away from you at a Waters Field and Leaman party because you started talking about a campaign? Then, when you found me, I was slow dancing with Magdalene?”
“I—” God. I hadn’t thought of it like that.
First off, I’m relieved he didn’t mean that in a sexist way, just as “you’re my partner” kind of way and sees himself occupying that same space in Eva’s life. However, what the fuck actually happened now? With the smudged lipstick and the moved couch?
Gideon further explains that he wanted to do damage control before Eva met Corinne. This somehow leads to Detective Eva suspecting that Corinne and Magdalene are conspiring together.
Corinne knew Gideon well enough to anticipate his moves; it might’ve been easy for her to plan around his reaction to her unexpected appearance in New York.
Which shed a whole new light on why Magdalene had called me today. She and Corinne had been talking at the Waldorf when Gideon and I spotted them. Two women who wanted a man who was with another woman. Nothing was going to happen for them while I was in the picture , and because of that, I couldn’t rule out the possibility that they might be working together.
My god. You mean to tell me that two women who share a common goal could be working together to eliminate at least one of their rivals? I’ve never read such a fascinating twist before.
Then their argument takes an even weirder and even less productive turn, somehow.
He didn’t move. “I just want to be clear on something before you go: Do you believe I fucked her?”
Hearing him say it aloud made me flinch. “I don’t know what to believe. The evidence sure—”
“I wouldn’t care if the ‘evidence’ included you finding me and her naked in a bed together.” He uncoiled so swiftly, I stumbled back in surprise. He stalked closer . “I want to know if you think I fucked her. If you think I would. Or could. Do you?”
I would fucking care if the evidence was finding two people naked in bed together. What possible innocent explanation could there be for that? “Oh, well, I didn’t fuck her. I was just ogling her naked body!”
Eva demands he explain the lipstick on his shirt, but he’s just like, “No.”
Later in the day, he calls Eva to tell her he’ll get her at five so they can make their first therapy session, then he tells her she hasn’t asked him the one question that matters. But do we get to find out what that is? No. Because this book is so fucking infuriating!
Here, I’ll let the evidence speak for itself:
I waited a beat, to give Gideon a chance to speak first. I wasn’t terribly surprised when he just sat there, silent. “Well . . . in the last twenty-four hours I’ve met the fiancée I didn’t know Gideon had—”
“Ex-fiancée,” Gideon growled.
“— I found out the reason he’s dated brunettes exclusively is because of her—”
“It wasn’t dating.”
“— and I caught her leaving his office after lunch looking like this—” I dug out my phone.
“She was leaving the building,” Gideon bit out, “not my office.”
I pulled up the picture and passed my phone over to Dr. Petersen. “And getting into your car, Gideon!”
“Angus just told you before we got here that he saw her standing there, recognized her, and was being polite.”
“Like he’d say anything different!” I shot back. “He’s been your driver since you were a kid. Of course he’d cover your ass.”
“Oh, it’s a conspiracy now?”
It goes on like this for awhile, with Gideon explaining he had an unexpected guest that wasn’t Corinne and who prevented him from making it to lunch. TOO MANY UNANSWERED QUESTIONS. Yet another issue is thrown into the mix when Gideon lets slip he still has a hotel room used exclusively for sex. Eva calls it his sex pad.
Yet again, we start down an interest path when the therapist starts to ask Eva about the picture she took, when instead it’s derailed by Gideon cutting into start talking about how ridiculous the idea is that he would cheat. So instead, we start talking about how they have sex all the time instead of working through their issues by discussing them. But I already know all that. I have been aware of that since day fucking one. TELL ME SOMETHING NEW!
“Your relationship has been highly sexualized from the beginning?” he asked.
I nodded , even though he wasn’t looking. “We’re very attracted to each other.”
“Obviously.” He glanced up and offered a kind smile. “However, I’d like to discuss the possibility of abstinence while we—”
“There is no possibility ,” Gideon interjected. “That’s a nonstarter. I suggest we focus on what’s not working without eliminating one of the few things that is.”
“I’m not sure it is working, Gideon,” Dr. Petersen said evenly. “Not the way it should be.”
“Doctor.” Gideon set one ankle on the opposite knee and settled back, creating a picture of unyielding decisiveness. “The only way I’m keeping my hands off her is if I’m dead. Find another way to fix us.”
For some reason in my kindle copy of this book, a lot of people highlighted that last bit. It that supposed to be a super romantic line or something? Whatever. The therapy session is over after that, and no issue was even discussed for more than a heartbeat.
And then Eva claims that all her anger is because she’s about to get her period! No, just no. These are actually legitimate issues. Not like when I’m about to get my period and I get really mad when it takes my boyfriend too long to text me back or he teases me and I get overly sensitive. God damn it, Eva.
They make out, and Eva realizes that this time it’s not solving all of her problems. Gasp.
