Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 112961 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112961 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
“Not every week.”
“Stop pacing and tell me what happened next.”
I stop abruptly, collapsing onto the other end of the couch. “Once I got my shit together, I told myself that if he was still in the room when I got back upstairs, I would apologize and talk it out.”
She straightens. “And?”
“He wasn’t.” Jess deflates. “He’d left while I was gone. And maybe that’s a good thing,” I say, “because the other half of the deal I made with myself was that if he wasn’t there waiting for me, it was a sign that this Connor thing was doomed, and to move on.”
“You don’t believe in signs.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Remember the time that black cat was sitting on the hood of your car when you walked out of Twiggs and barely two seconds after you put it in your car, you got that horrible New York Times review?”
“I really don’t like this turn in the conversation.”
“You then took the doomsday cat home with you, and called me to complain, all shocked and outraged that this stray, feral harbinger of doom shredded your curtains within, what, thirty minutes?”
“I think,” I say, putting a single finger up as if to test the direction of the wind. “Yes, I think it’s time I find a new best friend.”
She laughs. “Should I even ask about Isaac? You said you saw a possible future there.”
“You know I don’t do love triangles!” I look up at the ceiling. “It’s like she doesn’t know me at all.”
She reaches across the expanse of couch, pulling me toward her and into her arms. “Connor did something dumb when he was in his twenties. Fizz, you of anyone should understand that.”
She doesn’t mean it as a dig. She’s paying homage to my battle scars, my medals of honor for adventure, my backlist of sexual exploration. And I went through this exact thought process, too, when I sat there on the floor in the dark. First, there was my indignation, my bright, hot panic that the person I had big heart and pants feelings for was a cheater. But then my blood cooled and the other things he said echoed a little louder: That it was the worst thing he’s ever done. That he’s done a lot of work on himself, gone to therapy. That Nat has forgiven him.
But even if I could view his past with some perspective, my fight-or-flight moment left me feeling unsteady, remorseful, and anxious. How are the heroines in my books so sure of themselves and the person they fall in love with? How does anyone really know what and who they want? It’s all such a risk. Who chooses to fling their heart out into the blackness of uncertainty, blindly hoping someone catches it?
“The thing is,” I say into her shoulder, “I signed a contract saying I wouldn’t date during this show. They’re paying me a lot of money to do this. And this isn’t just a little lie. I could be in breach of contract if I’m caught with him. Like, actual Big Legal Trouble. He could lose his job. I haven’t finished a book in more than a year, I’m avoiding my agent’s phone calls like I’m hiding from the mob, and I’m starting to feel like I can’t even do dating right. But last night in the hotel room, I didn’t care about any of that because I just wanted to be with him.”
She hums, listening.
“I’ve never felt that—that insatiable thing, you know? I want to be near him every second. If I eat something delicious, I want him there to take a bite. If I see something beautiful, I want to turn to him and point it out. If I hear something hilarious, I immediately want to call him and tell him everything.”
“Oh, honey.”
“But if it got out or I couldn’t fake it well enough, it would mess up his life, and mine.” I swallow as the hardest one bubbles to the surface. “I know that and still none of it mattered.”
“We do crazy things when we fall for someone, Fizz.”
“Yeah, but you know the only thing that scared me enough to get me to leave that room?”
“What?”
“That even if by some miracle everything goes right, I could still get hurt.”
She sighs into my hair.
“And if Connor hurt me, I don’t know whether I’d be able to write another love story.”
I wait for the joke. One of us needs to make it; the moment is too heavy.
I guess you weren’t kidding about his magical dong.
It’s right there for the taking.
But Jess says the last thing I expect: “That’s how you know he’s the one, Fizz.”
* * *
I fall asleep and Jess must have carefully extracted herself because it isn’t her moving out from under my head that wakes me, it’s me falling off the couch and landing in a pile on the floor.