Suit
Page 23
I know! I’m an idiot! I just honestly didn’t think it was necessary. Ken never pays attention to anything I’m working on. I don’t even think he knows that all the photos and paintings hanging in this house are mine. Plus, he’s trying to watch all five seasons of The Wire and manage, like, four fantasy football leagues simultaneously right now. Who knew that fucker would pay enough attention to my covert typing to get suspicious?
I’m freaking out, Sara. It’s like he’s icing me or playing fucking mind games or something. Instead of dousing my computer with gasoline and piss, which would have been justified, he took me on a date. What the fuck is that?!?! Like, got a sitter, picked a restaurant, AND preordered movie tickets! I assumed he was going to serve me with papers at dinner since it was all so formal and out of character, but it was actually a really nice date. He didn’t even make his usual complaint about the fact that he “could have purchased an entire vineyard” for the price of my one glass of Pinot G either.
Oh! OH! Then, after dinner, when I backed Ken into our bedroom so that I could say thanks by riding his lifeless body for a few minutes, he actually stopped me and asked if I wanted to try anything new. NEW! (As in, new to him, obviously. For a sex act to be new to me, it would require a stolen college mascot uniform, twelve yards of rappelling cable, a handful of gerbils, and thirty CCs of vampire blood.) And it was really good, Sara! The TV wasn’t even on or anything!
And get this shit! The next day, Ken tells me that he’s booked another sitter for next month so that we can go see David Koechner at The Punchline. Who is this man??? (Ken, not David Koechner. I know who he is, and he’s fucking hilarious.)
Maybe he’s going to off me at The Punchline? It is in a super-sketchy neighborhood…
FROM: SARA SNOW
TO: BB EASTON
DATE: THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 10:35 P.M.
SUBJECT: RE: SHIT. JUST. GOT. REAL.
Ken’s not icing you. He’s responding to your intervention, B. Now that he has read your journal and knows how bored you are, he’s making the appropriate adjustments. And the best part is that you didn’t even have to talk about it. It’s actually a beautiful design. I think you just discovered the holy fucking grail of marital behavior modification techniques!
Here’s what you do. Now that you know he’s reading your journal, you need to start planting really exaggerated stories in there so that you can milk this shit for all it’s worth. Write specifically about whatever it is you want him to change, and make it as juicy as possible.
And I’M going to do a longitudinal study on the outcome so that I can go on Good Morning America and tell Robin Roberts how women across the country can save their marriages through Subliminal Spousal Bibliotherapy. (We’ll call it SSB for short.) Bitch, you’re going to get me tenure and an Audi R8 with this thing!
Sara Snow, PhD
Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, (name of university deleted)
FROM: BB EASTON
TO: SARA SNOW
DATE: THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 10:48 P.M.
SUBJECT: RE: SHIT. JUST. GOT. REAL.
You.
Evil.
Fucking.
Genius.
I’m in. And I already have a list of target behaviors for progress monitoring:
1. The initiation of hot, steamy, passionate hair-pulling sex
2. The giving of compliments
3. The bestowment of a nickname
4. And the procurement of a motherfucking heart tattoo with my name on it
For data collection purposes, you can just set the baseline at zero in all four categories. Yes, zero—as in, Ken has never done any of those things. The way I see it, we have nowhere to go but up. I’ll keep you abreast of my progress. (Pun intended!)
Also, you have to promise to tell George Stephanopoulos hi for me when you go on GMA. I’ve always liked him. I think it’s because he reminds me of Michael J. Fox. Maybe don’t tell him I said that. Or do?
Chapter 7: The Notorious K.E.N.
August 30, 2013
Dear Journal,
After consulting with the devil on my shoulder, I’ve decided to embark on a morally bankrupt psychological experiment with the hopes of transforming Ken into someone warm and affectionate whose love for me is so immense that he needs a tattoo of my name and/or likeness just so that he can better broadcast his feelings for me to the world. So, pack your bags and bring a flashlight, Journal, because from now on, you’ll be hiding in a dark hole in the back of my hard drive under the title Baby Shower Diaper Cake Instructions.
Don’t take it personally, Little Guy. It’s for your own good. I need a place to take notes on Ken’s progress without him catching wind of what I’m up to, and no man will ever come snooping around a file called Baby Shower Diaper Cake Instructions, located inside a folder called…wait for it…Cute Stuff I Found on Pinterest.
Oh, and don’t get jealous, but in your old spot, I’m going to start planting a glossily exaggerated Lifetime movie version of you under the filename Super Private Journal That Ken Is Never, Never Allowed to Read Ever where I will plant completely fabricated stories about my ex-boyfriends, designed to inspire Ken to up his fucking game. And no, that filename isn’t too obvious. Blatant reverse psychology is the only way to get shit done when you’re dealing with a man—or a toddler.
Don’t you read my journal again, Ken. Don’t you do it. Oh…you’d better not.
It’ll work. Trust me.
Aw, look at you, Journal. You’re starting to feel bad for Ken, aren’t you? That’s adorable, but your sympathy is completely wasted on him. The man does not have feelings. I’m not entirely convinced that he even has nerve endings. I promise, you have absolutely nothing to worry about. Ken is a soulless gangsta, and he’ll be just fine.
This playlist is a collection of songs that I either mentioned in the book, that I felt illustrated a feeling or a scene from the book, or that Ken made me add because he was trying to micromanage my playlist.
I am grateful to each and every one of the brilliant artists listed below. Their creativity fuels mine.
You can stream the playlist for free on Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/user/bbeaston
Songs Added by BB
“26” by Paramore
“Alive with the Glory of Love” by Say Anything
“Bizarre Love Triangle” by Frente!
“Call It What You Want” by Taylor Swift
“Crazy” by Aerosmith
“Delicate” by Taylor Swift
“Drink About You” by Kate Nash
“El Scorcho” by Weezer
“Hands Open” by Snow Patrol
“IFFY” by Black Kids
“Jacked Up” by Weezer
“La La Lie” by Jack’s Mannequin
“Swing Swing” by The All-American Rejects
“The Graveyard Near the House” by The Airborne Toxic Event
“This Charming Man” by Death Cab for Cutie
Songs Added by Ken
“Amber” by 311
“Cigarette Lighter Love Song” by Marvelous 3
“I Want You” by Third Eye Blind
“Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want” by The Smiths
“The Start of Something” by Voxtrot
Ken, I think I’ve inflated your ego enough for one lifetime. Next!
Mom, you are the rock upon which I stand in order to touch the stars. If I am half as supportive of my children as you have always been of me, I’ll be doing pretty damn well. Thank you for everything.
I want to thank Ken’s whole entire family for knowing what I do, looking the other way while I do it, and selflessly agreeing to babysit so that Ken and I can fly all over the world in support of it. You might not be allowed to read my books or acknowledge that you know anything about them, but you still support me unconditionally, and for that, I am eternally grateful. Also, thank you for reluctantly letting me hug you now.
To Larry and Miles—I can’t
wait to tell the world what you’ve done for me. Thank you for opening the door to a future I never dared to dream for myself. You guys are my heroes.
To my Editors, Jovana Shirley and Ellie McLove—I am able to rest easy at night, knowing that my work is in your expert hands. I give you my heart, wrapped in newspaper, and you collaboratively turn it into a novel. Magicians, both of you. Thank you.
To my Beta Readers, April C, Jamie Shaw, Sammie Lynn, Sara Snow, and Traci Finlay—You girls are my ride or dies. I’d supervise an emergency body burial for any one of you badass bitches, no questions asked. Thank you!
Dr. Sara Snow, the scene with you at Bahama Breeze is only as funny as it is because I dug up actual emails from when we used to work together and stole all your jokes. I love your evil ass. Thank you for always inspiring me to be my best worst self.
Colleen Hoover, thank you for being born.
Tracey Frazier, you complete me. Literally. You finish my sentences. I love you and your beautiful face and your brilliant, fucked up books.
Staci Hart, Kandi Steiner, and Brittainy C. Cherry, thank you for expanding your CherrySteinHart trio into a quartet whenever I’m around. Getting to know you all better has been one of the highlights of my year.
To all my other author friends—In a society that teaches us to compete, compete, compete, you ladies choose to share instead. You share with me your time, your advice, your encouragement, your resources, and often, your platforms to help me succeed in an oversaturated market where so very few do. Thank you for letting this pink-haired, foul-mouthed, new kid sit with you. I love you!
To the girls (and boys) of #TeamBB—Thank you for the gorgeous Instagram teasers, the Facebook posts, the gifts, and the relentless pimping you’ve showered me with over the years. It is because of you, telling your friends and your book clubs and your sisters and your husbands to read my books, that I’ve been able to pursue this dream at all. I’m humbled by your support and proud to call you all friends. And a special shout out to my #TeamBB admins, Kellie Richardson, Sunny Borek, and Sonya Paul—If any of y'all ever need a kidney, I’m your girl.
And to you—If you are still reading this, thank you for stepping out of your comfort zone and taking a chance on a weird book series that’s not quite romance and not quite memoir and mostly nonfiction but definitely fictionalized. I hope you enjoyed the ride. I hope it made you laugh. I hope it made you look at your partner and think, Maybe this asshole isn’t so bad after all. I hope it made you look at your teen years and think, Damn. I guess it coulda been worse. And I hope it makes you look at your future and think, If BB could survive all that, maybe I’m gonna be okay, too. Because you are. I promise.
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BB Easton lives in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia, with her long-suffering husband, Ken, and two adorable children. She recently quit her job as a school psychologist to write books about her punk rock past and deviant sexual history full-time. Ken is suuuper excited about that.
The Rain Trilogy is her first work of fiction. The idea, fittingly, came to her in a dream.
If that sounds like the kind of person you want to go around being friends with, then by all means, feel free to drop her a line. You can find her procrastinating at all of the following places:
Email: authorbbeaston@gmail.com
Website: www.authorbbeaston.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/bbeaston
Instagram: www.instagram.com/author.bb.easton
Twitter: www.twitter.com/bb_easton
Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/artbyeaston
Amazon: author.to/bbeaston
Goodreads: https://goo.gl/4hiwiR
BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/bb-easton
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/user/bbeaston
Selling signed books and original art on Etsy: www.etsy.com/shop/artbyeaston
Giving stuff away in her #TeamBB Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/BBEaston
And giving away a free e-book from one of her author friends each month in her newsletter: www.artbyeaston.com/subscribe
BOOKS BY BB EASTON
STANDALONE ROMANTIC COMEDY
Hilarious. Honest. Hot as hell.
44 Chapters About 4 Men
THE 44 CHAPTERS ABOUT 4 MEN PREQUEL SERIES
Darkly funny. Deeply Emotional. Shockingly sexy.
Skin (Knight’s backstory, Book 1)
Speed (Harley’s backstory, Book 2)
Star (Hans’s backstory, Book 3)
Suit (Ken’s backstory, Book 4)
THE RAIN TRILOGY
A gritty, suspenseful, apocalyptic love story.
Praying for Rain
Fighting for Rain (Coming Fall 2019)
Dying for Rain (Coming Winter 2020)