by Tash Skilton
He rubs at his eyes. “The words, they are difficult.”
“Well, for Mary, I was her personal assistant, which entailed anything from picking up food at Koo Koo Roo to taking her emotional support ferret out for fresh air—”
“None of those words make a real sentence or job description—”
“But that ended a while ago, and this past week I quit my most recent job, a weird freelance thing, because I decided to start my own business.” Now would be a good time to tell him I worked for his company’s rival, but how do I even start? Funny story about my last gig … and all those late-night messages you sent to “Bree” …
He’s appraising me. “Wow, congratulations on starting your own business. That’s a big step.”
“Thanks. I think it was time.”
“I need to stay longer,” Miles says, “if that’s cool, because, uhhhh, the thing is … I can’t move. I’m feeling—the opposite of floaty. What’s it called when—”
“Couch-locked. Me too. This is actually my favorite part about weed,” I tell him. “That feeling when you can’t move or get up or go anywhere, and you don’t mind!”
“That sounds terrifying.”
“No, it’s not,” I protest. “The point is you’re happy about it, because you’re exactly where you want to be. Settled. Content. Like falling in love.”
Oh my God. Did I say that last part out loud, or just think it? “You think falling in love is like being high?” Miles asks.
I guess I did voice it. Ugggggh. “Doesn’t everyone? At first, I mean? The newness of it all?”
“Okay, Valley Girl.” He giggles. “This stuff is strong.”
“I warned you! You said, and I quote, ‘I can handle it.’”
His expression contorts. “Is that how I sound to you? All pomp and poss?”
“Do you mean ‘pompous’?”
He looks confused. “Isn’t that what I said?” He remains on the floor, a goofy smile plastered across his face.
“Can you crawl to the couch so we can be couch-locked together?” I ask.
He slowly makes his way over to me and oozes up the side of the couch.
Luckily, I keep my next thought to myself. It takes effort, to think it instead of say it. That there really is nowhere I’d rather be than couch-locked here with Miles.
CHAPTER 29
MILES
I startle awake from the kind of sleep that feels decadent, deep, and delicious, like a Sunday lie-in that goes on until noon. I’m surprised to find myself still on the couch, even more surprised by the arm that’s draped over my bare chest. I peek down my nose to watch Zoey’s face, relaxed in a way I’ve hardly ever seen, her breath gently tickling some of my chest hair.
I close my eyes again, settling deeper into the expensive upholstery. I remember what happened last night, but I’m feeling too peaceful to analyze the whys and hows of it. Maybe Zoey is onto something with her West Coast weed. If this is the way she felt all the time, no wonder loud, cranky, sober New York isn’t cutting it for her.
Five minutes later, I feel her stirring and when I open my eyes this time, she’s looking back at me.
“Morning,” she says with a shy grin. “How are you?”
“I’m pretty great, although it sounds like we’re in the middle of a countdown in The Hurt Locker. Should we look for a wire cutter, do you think?”
She giggles and glances at the far wall, which has dials and hands screwed into it so that it is not so much a wall as a giant, loudly ticking clock.
“I didn’t even hear that until now. How is that possible?”
“To be fair, we were kind of preoccupied.” Before I can stop myself, I’m running my fingers through her tousled hair.
She leans into my touch and closes her eyes, and then makes a move to roll off me.
I tug her gently back. “Last night was … surprising. In the best way.”
Zoey bites her lip, looking nervous, though I don’t know why she would be.
“Speaking of surprises …” she trails off. “Actually, let me get dressed, and then we’ll, um, talk.” We need to “talk” already? Does she regret what happened between us?
She’s rolling off me again, still naked, and I can’t help but stare at the way her curves are silhouetted in the morning light.
She catches me and sticks out her tongue, lightening the mood again. “Times like these I wish I lived in the movies. Where an artfully draped sheet is never more than an arm’s length away.”
“Times like these, I’m glad you don’t,” I say, grinning wickedly at her as she hops into her panties. She rolls her eyes but I see a smile too.
She has just finished putting on her shirt when she stops dead in her tracks. “What the hell …”
I look over to where she’s staring. In front of the door are three different room service carts, each one filled with an assortment of half-eaten food.
I finally get up and fumble around for my own clothes before I walk over to look at them. “Did we get the munchies last night?” I don’t remember anything about ordering food.
Zoey is laughing. “I guess so. But just … what is all this?”
I peer more closely at the trays. “Um … I think it’s mostly an assortment of avocado toast.” And it is. At least a dozen kinds, topped with everything from quail eggs, to cayenne pepper, to what looks like it might actually be a melted blue raspberry Blow Pop (I mean, I have no idea, but I have never seen anything else edible that was that shade of blue). There’s also a half-drunk bottle of champagne along with three carafes of juices, a large bowl of what appears to be mushroom-shaped gummy bears, and a plate of what I’m almost positive is Hot Pockets, but is probably marketed as artisan roast prosciutto tartines.
Zoey grabs one of the gummy mushrooms, sniffs it, and then places it in her mouth before immediately spitting it back out into a napkin. “Oh my God. I think those are truffle-flavored.” She nearly gags.
I laugh before realizing an inconvenient truth. “Oh, crap. We are probably going to have to pay a small fortune for all of this.”
Zoey shakes her head. “Knowing Mary, she probably gave them her credit card and told them I could charge anything I want to it.”
“Wow, that’s really generous.”
“She’s a generous person,” she says softly and in that instant I get a small inkling of just what Mary Clarkson means to her, and it has nothing to do with what she means to me or millions of other celebrity fiends.
Zoey sits on the edge of the bed, hands folded in her lap. “I need to tell you something,” she says, her fingers twisting together. Shit, maybe she really is having second thoughts about our evening.
“Okay.” I join her on the edge of the bed, but not too close. I want to give her space for whatever she’s gearing up to say. My stomach clenches and I tell myself it’s just hunger.
“Remember that weird freelance job I mentioned? The one I’m planning to quit?”
“Yeah, sure—”
“It’s Sweet Nothings,” she blurts out in a rush. “I work as a matchmaking ghostwriter just like you and what’s more—I … I … Look, I wouldn’t even tell you this except I think we might have the potential for something good. Maybe even something great. You and me, that is. The real you and me.”
My head’s spinning. “I don’t follow.”
“I’m DuchessB. And you’re GreatSc0t, and we’ve been—well, flirting our nuts off online and it’s been amazing. At least, for me it has.” She covers her face for a moment and then shakes out her hair. “Oh, God. I’m so sorry. I should’ve told you last night, before we—but I didn’t, and now …”
“You’re TheDuchessB? You’re Bree?”
She nods, tears sparkling in her eyes. “I’m sorry. Do you hate me now? Actually hate me, not Table Champion hate me?”
Before I can answer—it’s a lot to process—she jumps up, clearly ready to bolt. “I can leave. You can still have a nice lie-in and get a massage and spend it imaginin
g me getting hit by a city bus because, let’s face it, that’s probably going to happen to me at some point.”
“When did you find out?” I ask, trying to keep my voice neutral.
“Yesterday,” she says quickly. “Right before I knocked on your door.”
“You’re the one who sent me ‘Drive My Car’?”
“Yes. And chatted with you, and laughed at all the things you wrote, and loved the walking tour. For what it’s worth. Probably not much.”
She looks down, and gathers her items off the floor.
I stop her with a hand on her wrist. Slowly, her eyelashes, her beautiful eyelashes, lift and her gaze meets mine.
“You’re the Pigvin shipper?” I ask, my voice almost reverent with the ridiculous words.
She lets out a small, nervous laugh. “Yes. And, just so we’re clear, I will defend the sanctity of ‘The Rainbow Connection’ until the day I die.”
Bree and Zoey are the same. One perfect package. One witty, insightful, hilarious, sexy, gorgeous package. The girl I’ve been thinking about almost nonstop since we started interacting online. The girl I was literally angry at Jude for “stealing” is here in a hotel with me, and she flat-out said she thinks we could have something good together.
My face hurts from smiling. “This is the best news I’ve heard all year. This is unbelievable.”
She smiles too, tentatively. “You’re not—filled with rage?”
I tug her toward the bed as I simultaneously stand up so we meet at the halfway point and I kiss her like our lives depend on it.
When we come up for air, she’s beaming at me, all traces of her earlier tears gone.
“Do you know how many ghostwriting jobs I’ve had?” I ask.
“Aisha said you’re the top ghostwriter …”
“But I’ve never thought about the client after hours before. Really thought about her. Wondered what she was up to, what she was thinking, how she was doing—wait, you know Aisha?”
Before she can answer, there comes a loud, extremely lifelike “Moooooo” from somewhere in the room. We jump apart, as if we’ve been caught getting handsy at a junior high dance—that inexplicably takes place in the middle of a farm.
“Is that your ringtone?” I ask her.
She looks at me in mock disgust. “First you think I’m from Florida, and now you think my phone moos? Have you no shame?”
Mooooooooo.
We stagger around the room trying to discern the source.
Finally, I locate a plastic udder (because of course) hanging off the bottom of the bed frame. I pick it up and, disturbed, put it to my ear with a tentative “Hello?”
A rude voice drawls, “You’re late for your dual massage appointment.”
“We’re going to need to reschedule the massage for another day. When’s checkout? At noon? Thanks.”
Zoey grabs the udder from me and tosses it behind her, then crawls into my lap. “We have three more hours to run amok on Mary’s dime.”
She kisses me and I roll us so she’s on her back and I can lavish her neck and collarbone with attention.
“We know we’re good at going fast,” I murmur between love bites. “So let’s try it slow this time.”
“How do you think they’re going to check us out? Beam us up?” she asks.
“I was thinking they’d make us play chess with the lobby chairs. Only the winner gets out,” I retort, swinging our clasped hands.
“My chess skills are a little rusty, but my will is strong,” she replies. “I feel confident.”
But there is no one manning the lobby when we get there, except a sign in almost illegible calligraphy saying that our phones will automatically be deactivated when we leave so there’s no need to check out.
“That’s anticlimactic,” Zoey says.
“Seriously. I’m docking a star from my Yelp review.”
We leave the hotel through the cellar door and emerge on the sidewalk to a beautiful day: slightly overcast, and a little breezy, which is a welcome change from the unseasonal heat of the past week. I look around and realize for the first time that I haven’t set foot in Brooklyn since I got our stuff out of my old apartment with Jordan. Until now.
“Hey,” I say, struck with an idea. “Do you have anything planned for the next couple of hours? There’s someplace I’d like to show you if you’re free.”
“Sure. I’m free.”
“Would you be okay taking the subway? We can also take a Lyft.”
She smiles. “I think I’m feeling relaxed enough. Let’s do it.” I take her hand, but we don’t talk much for the next half hour as I guide her through Gowanus, to the R train, and finally out at Court Street. It’s almost like we don’t need to, that despite having a million zingers at the ready for each other, we’re just as content in companionable silence. Which I hope is the miracle it seems and not just an after-effect of Mary’s potent weed.
When we’re close to the end of Montague Street, I tell her to close her eyes and lead her the last couple of steps. “Oh, wow,” she says when I tell her to open them. “Wow.” It’s worth the repeat. “What is this place?”
“It’s called the Promenade,” I explain. It’s a wide pedestrian-only pathway built right next to the water, with the whole of Manhattan’s famed skyline spread out before us. The Brooklyn Bridge looks close enough to touch. The Empire State Building, puncturing the slight mist of the overcast day, appears somehow even more magical, like a spire that could take you up into the clouds.
“It’s incredible,” Zoey says. “Is that the Statue of Liberty?”
“Sure is,” I say.
She shakes her head in awe. “You know, in all the time I’ve been here, I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen her.”
I’m not terribly surprised, given that I don’t think Zoey has ventured very far from the ten-block radius surrounding our apartments. But I don’t mention that. Instead I ask, “Shall we?”
She nods and we start the stroll. Charming old brick buildings with vibrant burgundy gardens frame us on one side, while the blues and grays of Manhattan’s established skyscrapers—and the oranges and yellows of those yet to come—frame the other. It’s a strange clash of history and progress but somehow, here, it just works.
“You should see it at night,” I say. “Or even better, sunset. All lit up. Everything reflecting in the water. It’s like stepping into a postcard except, when you’re here for real, you realize no photo can truly capture it at all.”
Zoey nods. “I get that. Believe it or not, LA has places like this too. The Hollywood sign, for example. As cheesy as it sounds, I don’t think I ever failed to stop and stare at it, even if just for a few seconds, whenever it came into view. I’d remind myself that this thing I had seen a million times in pictures, and TV, and movies, here it was in front of me, in the flesh. Or steel, as it were.” She takes a deep breath. “Can I tell you something?”
Curious, I nod. “Go for it.”
“I’m glad we got high together,” she says. “But I’m even more glad it wore off, so I could experience this for real, like you said. Things like this—the surprise of it, the beauty of it—don’t need enhancements and I think sometimes I need to be reminded of that. Of what’s out there.”
“Leaving your emotions up to fate, was that how you put it?”
“Yeah. Exactly.” She pauses. “And I’m also glad we sobered up so that I could tell you the truth. So it’s really for real. Being here with you.”
I smile at her. In front of us, a couple starts to kiss, which reminds me of something I read recently. “You know, the Promenade was listed in an article: ‘The Top Ten Places to Kiss in Brooklyn.’”
Zoey cuts her head to me. “Is that an invitation?”
“Absofuckinglutely,” I reply as I place my hands around her waist, dip her back, and bring my lips to hers. We could be in our own postcard right now, especially when it starts to drizzle. Sure, in real life, it’s kind of annoying to be pelted with col
d rain, but in the picture postcard version, it would only enshroud us in a light mist and add a sheen to the concrete to make it that much more romantic.
I guess I’m not the only one to think so. The other kissing couple in front of us breaks apart. The guy laughs and says, “I guess I better make this quick.” And then he’s down on one knee.
Rain or not, everyone surrounding them pauses for a moment to stop and stare and smile, maybe something like Zoey’s Hollywood sign. There’s applause when the girl squeals and says yes. Someone even hands them an umbrella as it’s clear they came unprepared. Someone else offers to take their photo.
Zoey looks up at me. “Don’t worry. I’m not expecting you to copy everything they do,” she says wryly.
I smile. What I don’t tell her is that I considered proposing to Jordan here too before I ultimately chose the Mexican restaurant. For a split second, I get a flash of the sliding door version of my life, the one where Jordan and I are still together, reminiscing about our own romantic moment here. The version of my life in which I’m about to be a dad.
A rumble of thunder saves me from my own treacherous brain, and then the rain starts pouring down in earnest. “Should we go home?” Zoey asks.
I nod and we start running toward the subway.
Is it a little strange that we’re going to the same “home,” despite having only gotten together the night before? A little. It’s also convenient.
Best. Walk of Shame. Ever.
We’re going down our shared hallway and I can see she’s heading toward her own door, but I tug her back to mine and kiss her rain-soaked lips. “I’d be remiss if I let you go home in these soaked clothes,” I say in between kisses. “You could catch a cold.”
She laughs. “That’s very chivalrous of you. I mean, this hallway is on the drafty side.”
“I’m a very thoughtful person,” I murmur, as I try to put my key in my door without breaking our embrace. It takes a minute, but I manage to do it. She gives me a little sarcastic round of applause before I grab her hands to pull her inside. I can think of other things I want to be doing with her smart hands and smart mouth right now.