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“Alan and his wife Alana are down in Orange County.”
“Alan and Alana?”
“He does IT for a large financial group who helped us. Alan secretly pulled $250k and invested it for me, so I didn’t end up completely broke. It was my seed money for New York. I’m seeing them when I visit LA.” She flashes me a sad smile. I kneel in front of her and hold her face.
She says, “After our decadent, what the hell do we now vacation.” I kiss her. Our foreheads are connected. “I need to book an LA hotel. What’s close to you?”
“My bed is close to me. We’ll work, eat, and fuck, all from my bed.”
She dips her head and looks up at me with a grin that slays me. This is a deep dive dinner. I start a new subject. “You know my mom’s a librarian and quite thrilled I’ve fallen for an author.”
“I’m a writer, not an author. I write entertainment, not art.”
“I’ve read one. I’d call it art, author.” She looks down at her napkin.
“Let’s revisit the notion of falling for me.”
I grin widely. “Can you blame me? You own a beach shack.” I hold her face. “And you’re falling for me too.”
“Yesss.” She wraps her sss for me. My dick gets hard whenever she does it.
“One of my favorite words.”
26
Tess
We’re sitting around in our Diamond Suite robes. We fly out tomorrow in opposite directions. We have yet to discuss next steps, but we’ve covered the sex thing. I like him more now. He puts four small drops of cream in his coffee. I crave his details. He’s obsessed with backup cords and travels with a separate bag for them. It’s adorable.
“Where’s your head, beautiful?” He places my feet in his lap. I waggle my eyebrows. “Later. My voter registration thing’s at six. We don’t have corporate money, but I can offer box wine and an IOU to eat you out until you blackout.”
“Can I get an advance?”
“Patience. Tell me a writing story.”
I settle into the couch. “I crave solitude to write, but inexplicably I was able to write with you here. I will disappear for a minute if I have major edits.”
His crooked smile undoes me. “Busy coffee shops or libraries with headphones don’t always work. Alone always works for me. I get lost to the world and let it flow.”
I say, “Same. I have to disappear from expectation.” I pull my legs underneath me. Work is my love, passion, and salvation. I wonder what he had to be saved from.
He feeds me a strawberry from his fruit cup. I’m eating up the intimacy. I say, “Who’s your best friend?”
“Now? It’s Ari, Jeff, or Mikey. I’m pretty close to my sister too. You?”
“There’s Joan. My brothers. But once upon a time, I had a boyfriend of three years and best friend of ten. We trained together, and she’s the reason I moved to Philly.”
“Had?”
I say, “Now they have each other and a kid or two.” I see his face, and I’m quick to amend, “Look, him sticking his dick in my friend is his fault, but I played a part.”
“Did you know?”
“Not until he told me. I was lost in the hustle of the first books. I rented a house at the shore, Stone Harbor, for six months. I like the ocean.”
He winks at me. “Good to know.”
I sit up to face him a little more. He’s not judging, simply listening. “I’d go there a couple of times a week, and if deadlines loomed, I’d spend more time.”
