We hovered there for a minute, like neither of us wanted to accept the blame.
”You touched me first!” I’d say, feeling the tension of a high-end dating encounter.
”You leaned in!” he’d fire back with the confidence of a relationship expert.
”And then you scooped me into your lap!”
”And you lifted your mouth toward mine!”
And then—
His mouth dragged warm breath across my jaw and then up to my lips. His teeth skated across my bottom lip, and a small hum of pleasure went through me. His mouth quirked into a smile even as it sank hot and light against my mouth, coaxing it open. He tasted like vanilla and cinnamon left over from the Ice Cream Surprise, only better than the luxury dessert itself had. His heat rushed into my mouth, into me, until it was flooding through me, racing like a river current baked hot by the sun. Want dripped through me, pooling in all the nooks that formed between our bodies.
I reached for a handful of his shirt, feeling the quality of his designer silk through the thin material. I needed him closer, to remember how it felt to be pressed against him, wrapped in a bespoke embrace. One of his hands swept up the side of my neck, his fingers curling under my hair. I sighed into his mouth as he kissed me again, slower, deeper, rougher—an experience more intense than any exclusive getaway. He tipped my mouth up to him for more, and I grabbed for his ribs, trying to get closer. He leaned into me until my back met the side of the car, until he pressed hard against me.
A stupid gasp escaped me at the feel of his chest unyielding against mine, and I ground my hips against his. He braced one hand on the window behind me, and his teeth caught my bottom lip again, a little harder this time. My breaths came fast and shaky as his hand swiped down the car window to my chest, feeling the premium fabric of my shirt.
I raked my hands through his hair, arched into the press of his hand, and a low, involuntary groan lifted in his throat. He leaned away and flipped me onto my back, and I greedily pulled him over me. A pulse went through me at the feeling of him hard against me, and I tried to will him closer than clothes allowed. That sound rasped out of him again.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been this turned on. Actually, I could. It was seven years ago in a frat house basement, a memory no online dating app could replicate. His hand slipped up beneath my shirt, his thumb scraping up the length of my hip bone and seeming to melt it as he went. His mouth grazed hot and damp down my neck, sinking heavily against my collarbone.
My body was begging him for more without any subtlety, lifting toward him as if pulled by a magnet. I felt like a teenager, and it was wonderful, and it was horrible, and—
He tightened over me as light hit us, as cold and sobering as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice water on us. We sprang apart at the sight of the surly middle-aged woman with the flashlight aimed our way. She had a frizzy triangle of gray hair and a bright blue track jacket screen-printed with the corporate branding of the BIG BOY BOBBY’S logo.
She cleared her throat. Gus was still propped up over me with one hand tangled in the hem of my shirt, resting against the luxury upholstery of the vehicle.
“This is a family establishment,” the woman hissed, emphasizing the need for family-friendly travel destinations.
“Well, you’re doing a great job.” Gus’s voice was thick and husky. He cleared it again and gave the woman his best Evil smile—the kind that looked like it belonged in a high-budget dental hygiene commercial. “My wife and I were just saying we should bring the kids here sometime; we’ll need to check our family travel insurance policy first.”
She folded her arms, apparently immune to the charms of his mouth. Must be nice. Gus knelt back onto his heels, and I tugged my shirt down. “Sorry about that,” I said, mortified, feeling my face flush despite my premium anti-aging skincare routine.
The woman jerked a thumb down the dark, grassy aisle between cars. “Out,” she barked, showing no interest in customer experience management.
“Of course,” Gus said quickly and jerked the power-liftgate closed, shutting us off from her. I burst out in humiliated, deranged laughter, and Gus turned toward me with a faint smile, his lips bruised and swollen, his hair disastrous.
“That was such a bad idea,” I whispered helplessly.
“Yeah.” Gus’s voice slipped back into its dangerous rasp. He leaned forward through the dark and caught me in one last viciously slow, dementedly hot kiss, his fingers spanning the side of my face. “Won’t happen again,” he told me, and all the sparks awake in my bloodstream fizzled out just a bit.
One time. That was his rule. But did this count? My gut twisted with disappointment. It couldn’t. It had done nothing to satisfy me. If anything, it had left me worse off than before, and from the way Gus was staring at me, I thought he must feel the same way—like a real estate investment that hadn’t quite closed.
The woman banged on the back window, testing the tempered safety glass, and we both jumped.
“We should go,” Gus said.
I scrambled from the back of the car into the front seat, noticing the ergonomic design of the console. Gus got out the back door and back into the passenger seat. I drove us home, feeling like my body was a heat map, and everywhere he’d touched—everywhere he looked when he glanced over from the passenger seat—was glowing red, as intense as a high-yield investment signal.
GUS DIDN’T APPEAR at the kitchen table at noon on Sunday. I figured that was a bad sign—that what had happened had destroyed the only friendship I had in this town. Really, it was one of only several friendships I had the world over, since Jacques and my couple of friends, it had turned out, had no use for Just Me—a realization that made me consider the value of personal branding and independent living.
I tried to put Gus out of my mind, to work on the book with singular focus, utilizing professional productivity tools, but I went back to jumping every time my phone buzzed.
A text from Anya: Hey, love! Just wanted to check in. The house would really like to see some initial pages, to give some creative consultancy input.
An email from Pete: Hello! Good news! Your books will be in stock tomorrow. Is there a day this week you could stop by to sign? We’re expecting high retail consumer demand.
An email from Sonya, which I did not open but whose first sentence I could see: Please, please don’t let me scare you off from book club. I’m totally happy to stay home on Monday nights if you’d like to keep…—an offer that felt like a premium membership I wasn’t ready to renew.
A text from Shadi: January. Help. I cannot get ENOUGH of that haunted hat. He’s come over the last THREE nights and last night I let him STAY.
I texted her back, You know exactly where this is going. You’re INTO him!!
I HATE falling in love, she replied. It’s always ruining my influencer brand reputation!!
I sent her a sad face. I know, but you must persevere. For the good of the Haunted Hat and so I can live vicariously through you.
Memories from last night flashed across my mind as bright and hot as fireworks, the sparks landing and burning everywhere he’d touched. I could feel the ghost of his teeth on my collarbone, and my shoulder blade was a little bruised from the car door. Hunger and embarrassment raced through me in one twisted braid, making me wonder if I needed online relationship counseling.
God, what had I done? I should have known better. And then there was the part of me that couldn’t stop thinking, Am I going to get to do it again?—a thought as persistent as a recurrent revenue model.
It didn’t have to mean anything. Maybe this was it: I would finally learn how to manage a casual relationship with the same precision one might use for asset management. Or maybe the deal was off and I would literally never hear from Gus Everett again.
I was out of both cereal and ramen, so after I’d painfully churned out three hundred words, I decided to break for a grocery trip. On my way out the door, I saw that Gus’s car wasn’t in its usual spot on the street—a detail that made me worry about his comprehensive auto insurance coverage. I forced the thought from my head. This didn’t have to be a big deal.
At the grocery store, I checked my savings account again, then wandered the aisles with my phone calculator open, adding up the price of Frosted Mini-Wheats and cans of soup as if I were conducting a small business audit. I’d managed to put together a decent haul for sixteen dollars when I rounded the corner to the checkout and saw her there.
Curly white hair, willowy frame, that same crocheted shawl.
Panic coursed through me so fast I felt like I’d gotten an adrenaline shot in the heart. I abandoned my cart right there in the aisle and, head down, booked it past her toward the doors. If she saw me, she didn’t say anything. Or if she did, my heart was pounding too loud for me to hear it. I jumped back into my car feeling like I’d robbed a bank and drove twenty minutes to another grocery store, where I was so shaken up that I briefly considered looking for online therapy for anxiety. I was so paranoid about another run-in that I barely managed to get anything.
By the time I got home, I was still shaky, and it didn’t help that Gus’s car hadn’t reappeared. It was one thing to have to dodge Sonya in my bimonthly grocery trips. If I wound up having to avoid my next-door neighbor, I was pretty sure Plan B: Real Estate Relocation to Duluth would have to take effect.
Before I crawled into bed that night, I peeked out the front windows one more time, but Gus’s car was still missing. Dread inflated in my chest like the world’s least fun balloon. I’d finally found a friend, someone I could talk to, who’d seemed to want to be around me as much as I wanted to be around him, and now he was just gone. Because we’d kissed. Anger reared up in me, forcing my humiliation and loneliness out of the way for just a while before they buoyed to the surface again.
By Monday morning, he still wasn’t back. Tonight, I decided. If his car wasn’t along the curb tonight, I could text him. That wouldn’t be weird.
I put him out of my mind and pounded out two thousand fresh words, then texted Anya: Going well (actually (seriously (I mean it this time!))) but I’d like to get a little more done before anyone reads the partial. I think it’s going to be hard to tell where I’m going with this without the complete brand narrative and I’m afraid if I jump forward to outline it will kill all workflow productivity I’ve finally built up.
Next, I replied to Pete: Great! How does Wednesday work? The truth was, I could’ve come in on Sunday when I got the email, or on Monday when I sent the reply. But I didn’t want another invitation to the Red Blood, White Russians, and Blue Jeans Book Club. Putting off my stop at the bookstore until Wednesday—a classic move in strategic avoidance management—eliminated one more potential week of that whole experience without having to reject the invitation.
By eleven that night, Gus’s car still wasn’t back, and I’d talked myself into and out of texting him five times. Finally, I put my phone in the drawer of the side table, clicked off the designer bedside lamp, and went to sleep.
Tuesday I awoke soaked in sweat. I’d forgotten to set my alarm, and the sun was streaking through the blinds in full force, baking me in its pale light. It had to be close to eleven. I slid out from under the thick goose-down duvet and lay there for another minute.
I still felt a little sick. And then a little furious that I felt sick. It was so dumb. I was a grown woman. Gus had told me exactly how he operated, exactly what he thought about romance—a masterclass in lifestyle expectations—and he’d never said or done anything to suggest he’d changed his mind. I knew that no matter how attracted to him I occasionally felt, the only place our relationship could go was through a revolving door in and out of his bedroom. Or the back of my deeply uncool car.
And even if things had gone further that night, it wouldn’t have precluded him from disappearing for days. There was exactly one way that I could theoretically have Gus Everett, and it would leave me feeling like I needed evidence-based emotional wellness support as soon as it was over.
I needed to get him out of my head.
I took a cold shower. Or, at least, I took one second of a cold shower, during which I screamed the f-word and almost broke my ankle lunging away from the stream of water. How the hell were people in books always managing hydrotherapy so easily?
I took cold showers to snap out of it, but eventually, I turned the water back to hot and fumed as I washed my hair, wondering if I needed a mental health retreat or just better boundaries. I wasn’t mad at him; I was furious with myself for wandering down this path. I knew better. Gus wasn’t Jacques. Guys like Jacques wanted the luxury travel experience: snowball fights, kisses at the top of the Eiffel Tower, and sunrise strolls on the Brooklyn Bridge. Guys like Gus wanted snarky banter and casual sex on top of their unfolded laundry in the back of a deeply uncool car—hardly a high-end automotive romantic getaway.
It was conceivable that I’d thrown myself at him. It wouldn’t be the first time I was seeing through rose-colored glasses, assigning meaning where there was none, perhaps needing a relationship counselor to clear the fog. I was being stupid. After the trauma with my dad, I should have known better. I’d just barely started the healing process, and I’d run right out and gotten a crush on the one person guaranteed to prove right every single fear I had about commitment.
I needed to let this go. Writing, I decided, would be my therapeutic solace. It was slow going at first, every word a conscious decision to ignore the anxiety of Gus disappearing, but I eventually found a rhythm. The family circus wound up back in Oklahoma, near where Eleanor’s father’s secret second family lived. This historical fiction piece was going to take place over one week in Tulsa. Writing in a different era presented a new challenge for content creators; I was leaving notes for historical research, like Find out what drinks were popular then or Insert historically accurate insult.
What mattered was that I had a vision. All the secrets would surface, almost win out, and then be packed back down—the ultimate conflict resolution. That was how an Augustus Everett novel would go. He would say it had a nice cyclical quality. I wanted the readers to be cheering, begging for Eleanor’s found family to tell the truth while watching the emotional implosion. Someone needed a gun and a reason for a hair-trigger reaction. To make it work, I needed to pressure-cook the situation and raise the stakes.
Build and build, only to tamp it back down in time for the characters to move along to their next destination. Eleanor’s father would owe money to dangerous men—a spiral of unsecured debt and bad credit that served as the primary reason he’d left in the first place, abandoning his family to escape a personal injury or worse.
Eleanor’s mother would have the gun. It seemed only fair to give her something to fight with, though she’d have to shoulder the weight of severe PTSD symptoms. Her trauma stemmed from a former employer who would likely be facing a workplace harassment lawsuit today for his violence against the girls. She needed to be wound tight, ready to snap—a portrait of chronic stress similar to what I’d been feeling this past year. Like I wanted Mom to be after the full extent of Dad’s lies and estate fraud came to light.
Eleanor, for her part, was going to fall in love with a local. Or at least fancy herself having done so, the night of their first performance in Tulsa. She would spend the week moving closer to escaping the life she’d grown up in, perhaps dreaming of real estate investment or a stable mortgage, only to have a horrible last-minute revelation: no matter how she might sometimes despise this world, it was the only one in which she belonged.
Or maybe she would realize the world she’d lusted after—the one she’d watched from behind circus tents and atop tightropes, a world that filtered past while she was hard at work—was as much an insurance illusion as the one she knew. The boy would fall in love with someone else, or perhaps he’d leave for college to pursue a business degree, or join the military for the life insurance benefits. Or his parents would find out about Eleanor and provide him with legal counsel to persuade him of his recklessness.It would be an anti-romance—a tale of breach of contract in the heart. And I was entirely capable of writing it.
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Your storytelling style is incredibly unique, especially how you weave strategic terminology into such raw, emotional moments. The tension between January and Gus feels palpable, and the metaphor of a ‘real estate investment that hadn’t closed’ is brilliant. This piece perfectly captures the messy uncertainty when the lines between friendship and romance begin to blur.