Page 77 of The Lipstick Flip

“What happened?”

And God help me if I know why, but I told him. All of it, from that lawyer’s phone call up to the awful argument that morning.

Auggie didn’t say much. He listened. He nodded. Somehow, we ended up in the kitchen, the tin of cookies open between us, and I hadn’t eaten anything all day so I talked while jamming sugar cookies in my mouth.

“Do you know the worst fucking part?” I said. “The part that makes me lose my fucking mind? All he cared about was getting a fucking attaboy from his dad. That’s it. He can look me in the eye and say he’s worried about his trust fund, but that’s horseshit. It’s all about his dad finally saying, ‘Hey, Noah, great job.’ That’s what the whole fucking thing was about, the house, the tour, that big fucking post on Instagram—all of it. He couldn’t wait for Daddy to tell him he’d done a good job. And do you think Jonathan gives two fucks? Fuck no. Noah could win the fucking Nobel Peace Prize, and his dad would tell him the Nobel in Economics is better.”

“That sounds like it would be really hard,” Auggie said.

“Fuck yeah, it’s hard. His dad is a piece of shit. The whole family. They’ve got this kind of mindfuck whammy on him, even though Noah should just cut all contact.”

“Well, and the money.”

“Yeah, and the fucking money.”

Auggie reached for one of the cookies, and I smacked his hand.

“Cart!”

“They’re mine, champ. Tell Theo to make you some more.”

“Hey, I made some too!” But then a surprisingly pretty blush rose in Auggie’s cheeks, and he grinned. “Well, Theo let me frost them.”

“Good fucking Lord. Did he just kind of pull the apron to the side when he fucked you, too?”

The blush in Auggie’s face flared.

“Oh my fucking God,” I muttered.

“No!’

“I don’t want to know.”

“That’s not— We didn’t—”

“And I’m sitting here eating your fucking bang cookies like a fucking moron.”

“Okay, well, the cookies were already in the oven, so…”

I stared at him for a while. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“You make me super nervous, but there’s also this weird way you remind me of my older brother—”

“Stop talking.”

He shut his mouth. But he did smile at me. Like, a lot.

It was nice to know I wasn’t losing my touch.

“I kind of know what that’s like,” Auggie said. “A little. Having a dad who—who doesn’t want you. Or wants you, but not because of who you are. And how it can make you want, I don’t know, attention, I guess.”

“You flashed your nips in three different videos last week,” I said. “Attention doesn’t even get into it.”

“Oh my God, Cart!”

“You’re lucky Theo still thinks with his dick.”

A strangled laugh escaped Auggie. And he did fold his arms across his chest—I guess because of the whole nips thing. But the little tyke also apparently wasn’t ready to give up because he said, “I’m just saying, I know it frustrated you that he did that. But you also know why he did it. And even if you wish that part of him were different—”