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“B.S.? What’s your middle name?”
“Serena.”
“B.S. Wow.” He shook his head. “I don’t know about that name. If I saw it, I’d think the author was laughing at me for buying their B.S.”
She sighed. “I know. That’s why I never use my middle name.”
“Can’t you just make something up? Alexandra St. Clarence of our Lady of Roses or something like that?”
“I’m not a church. It’s a thriller. It needs to be simple and strong.”
“Brenda’s a good strong name. It comes from the German for ‘sword.’”
“How do you know that?” Astonished at that random bit of knowledge, she poured him more wine.
“I looked it up. Names are interesting to me. I picked that up from Redbull, because the tribes are very careful and intentional with their names. They say something about the person.”
“Except for the name Redbull.”
“Especially the name Redbull. He really does love drinking that shit.” She smiled at the thought of Galen’s friend, who was finally starting to warm up to her. He no longer lectured her about playing with his business partner’s heart every time she saw him.
“So what does the name Galen mean?”
“Take a guess.”
“Something about a gale? A storm?”
“Storm!” He snapped his fingers. “Brenda Storm. Weren’t you Storm Brenda when we were hiking? Just flip it around. You have the sword and you have the storm. That’s strong and bold.”
“Brenda Storm,” she repeated. It fit that other side of her, the “Storm Brenda” side that had plunged into a relationship with Galen. That was also the side that had rebelled as a teenager. It felt like a full-circle kind of moment. “Yeah, maybe, but it sounds made up. Like a drag name.”
“Same kind of thing. It’s the name you use to perform your art.” He grinned suddenly. “I danced in a drag show once, to raise money to save the Bittersweet Watershed. I used the name Honey Bear. Pulled in five thousand buckaroos.”
Delighted, she pounced on top of him. “Show me, I beg you! Do the dance. Show me what you wore. Please please please.”
“Fuck no.” Laughing, he fended her off. “I don’t have the hair to pull it off anymore.”
“I’ll get you a wig.”
They tussled for a while, giggling and teasing, until things shifted, and she realized her nipples were hard…and then they were bare and Galen was licking them and they were diving into another round of soul-shaking sex.
It was only later that she remembered to ask him what the name Galen meant.
“Healer. Galen was a doctor in Ancient Greece. And a philosopher. The name means peaceful or calm healer. But I didn’t give myself that name. So I don’t know how much it fits.”
As her breathing fell back to normal and the sex flush faded from her cheeks, she thought that the name fit him quite well. “I think it’s perfect. You’re pretty philosophical. I think you’re a healer. You take people into nature, and that’s healing.”
“Okay. Sure.” He didn’t seem convinced.
Just then her phone pinged. She’d set it up to ping her every time an email came into the account from which she’d submitted her book.
Heart racing, she opened it.
“Oh my God. They want my book. They actually want it!”
“I fucking knew it!” He clenched his fists in the air with a triumphant roar.
She leaped off the couch and danced around his living room like a maniac. Galen joined her, punching his fists in the air, hooting and hollering, just as excited as if he’d just gotten his own book accepted for publication.
