by Jess Bentley
But if I get the phone now, anything that happens that's less than optimal can be washed away with stinky soaps.
Okay. I'll get it now.
“Did you read USA Today?” she asks me right away.
“Oh, good morning, Hannah,” I sigh, yawning and stretching some more, feeling magical. Did my skin get more taut? I wonder if I'm taller.
“I thought you writers had Google alerts set up for mentions of your name. Don't you? If not, I'm putting that in your job description.”
“Of course I have Google alerts set up,” I sigh. “I just haven't been checking my phone obsessively. But lucky me! Because here's you, calling me to tell me all about it. You're like a Hannah alert. Maybe I should change your contact ID to say alert.”
The line crackles. She doesn't say anything. Oh.
“That was funny,” I inform her. “You're supposed to laugh.”
“Did you tell Rob Meagher that Dillon is gay?”
I cringe. “Did I? I'm going to go with no. I did not tell him Dillon is gay. I mean, it wouldn't be any of my business if Dillon was gay… But I didn't say Dillon was gay.”
I roll back the tape in my mind, remembering that it might have come out that way. Did I mean it like that? Actually, I was going with the implication that Dillon was such a jerk that women didn't find him attractive. Somehow, I don't think Hannah will accept that as an alternative explanation.
“And did Dillon make some snarky comments about Rob's weight?”
“Oh, you'd have to ask him about that,” I shrug. “I mean, I doubt it, but I wasn't with him for every second —”
“Bella, tell me what our deal is.”
I open the linen closet door, enjoying the wafting smell of lavender, vanilla, bergamot, chamomile, seashell, cinnamon, and every other single spice in the known universe. Yes, it's definitely where the soaps are.
“Hannah, you already know our deal. I'm not going to repeat it for you,” I sniff. Was she always this bitchy? Is this a new development?
“Because the way I remember it, you were going to rehabilitate Emmet's reputation, by parading around with him and spinning some fairytale about your storybook romance. Is that a good summary?”
“The goodest summary ever.”
“Stop fucking around, Bella!”
I stand up straight, pulling the phone away from my ear for just a second to stare at Hannah's picture. There she is. My 16-year-old friend. Totally different than the jerk on the other end of the line right now. I need to remember the 16-year-old, the girl I adored. My friend. Maybe even my best friend, I don't know.
Right? That happened, right?
Reaching back, I'm sort of wondering if maybe she wasn’t my friend, not really. I mean, I was there when she was sick, but was she there when I was sick? I helped her to write her college essays, but when I needed help prepping for the ACT, she had a new boyfriend and always seemed to run out of time.
She's always been driven, much more than than I am. I suppose I'm just lucky to have a job about fifteen ladder rungs below hers. Her ambition obviously worked in her favor, while I'm stuck having to beg her for the chance to continue slaving away for her.
Hm. I'm going to have to give this a little more thought.
“Bella? What exactly happened last night?”
“What happened last night was that we had dinner in front of Buckingham Fountain. Wolfgang Puck is really nice in person. Rob Meagher likes to look at my tits. And then I went home with Dillon and Emmet and fucked the hell out of both of them.”
I hear her sputter on the other end of the line, but it is getting hard to care. I really, really want to shower. I feel myself being a little bit stickier than I normally would like.
“USA Today was stupid selection,” I continue. I’m on a roll now. “HuffPo was a good one, even though Melody has a stink of desperation on her. The way I figure it, you've got two more chances before the merger. You should get the New York Times since they’re actually interested in Riordan Publishing, and I've already spoken to Perez Hilton. That'll be all it takes.”
“Don't you presume to tell me —”
“No,” I interrupt her. “Don't you presume to tell me. I might be your pawn, Hannah, but I'm not your bitch.”
I hear her voice again, but it's too late. I'm already putting the phone on the counter, swiping left to disconnect the call. I feel crests of irritation coming at me like ocean waves, but now I’m on a mission. I'm about to take a shower and wash those all away, and spend the rest of the day feeling pretty damn good.
Chapter 34
Dillon
After I knock on the door three or four times it finally opens. Bella glares at me, then pokes her head outside, looking up and down the street furtively.
“Are you on the run? Looking for cops?”
“Just get inside!” she scowls, grabbing me by the arm and slamming the heavy wooden door behind me. The deadbolt turns with a heavy click.
Immediately she turns around and darts down the hallway. I’m not sure if she expects me to follow her or not, so I take a second to look around. It's the standard Chicago Greystone building: elegant entryway, stairs to the second floor on my left. Formal parlor on my right, with pocket doors and wide wood molding.
She's furnished it in a nice, simple mid-century modern style. There’s a vintage turquoise sofa and glass topped coffee table. A colorful abstract painting hangs over the fireplace and I cut across the room to look at it. It’s not signed, which makes me wonder if she did it. Maybe she has some artistic talent in their there too, in addition to her wordsmithing and her…
Hm. Well, let's just say she's very talented.
“I love your house!” I call out, polite as ever. People don't appreciate how fucking polite I am.
She reappears in a brightly framed doorway at the back of the house, where I presume there's a kitchen. The room between us is the dining room, with a spotless oval table and a beautiful Bohemian crystal chandelier.
“I mean, I love Chicago architecture. Classic.”
Her eyebrows arch. “Did you come here for an architectural tour?”
“You bet I did,” I parry. “Let’s start in the bedroom.”
She comes into the parlor, carrying two mugs and hands me one. I sniff at it. It's some kind of tea.
“Well, have a seat, I guess,” she mumbles, pulling herself onto a leather armchair and tucking her slender heels underneath her. Her knees are dimpled and firm, just teasing me with that dark void between them.
“Are those your pajamas?” I smirk as I take my place on the wide sofa that could easily accommodate both of us. Lying down.
She shrugs one shoulder. “It's my writing uniform. I didn't realize anybody would be coming over to judge me.”
“I'm not judging you. Just curious. You’re a curious creature,” I answer, sipping carefully at the tea. It's good. Yerba mate, if I'm not mistaken.
“Then why did you come over? Without texting or calling or sending me an email or sky writer or anything?”
“Gee… I would've thought that since our steamy bits have been all up inside each other I didn't have to write you a telegram in order to see your pretty face anymore,” I quip.
“Well, you do.”
I look her over. She's tense. I suppose she means it. But I’m disappointed, and I let it show.
“Well, okay. I will.”
“Good.”
“Fantastic.”
“You know, you don't have to have the last word every time,” she informs me.
I start to say something, but then don't. Instead I raise my eyebrows and stare at her meaningfully until she realizes she just had the last word. So there.
Silence falls between us, uncomfortable and dense. This house, along with the other nine just like it on this block, has been here for over a hundred years. Makes you wonder how many uncomfortable silences has fallen in this very room over that time.
I look around some more, noting the pictures on the wal
l, the wallpaper in the dining room. She has very good taste, combining things that are sixty years old with things that are eighty or ninety years old. It's a tough look to pull off.
“How long have you lived here?”
“Nine years,” she answers.
“Oh,” I reply, letting the silence fall again.
After a few long moments, she looks up again. “I won a prize. For writing. Right after college. A big one. So I bought this place.”
“I’m impressed,” I tell her honestly. These Greystones aren’t cheap. Must have been a hell of a prize.
“Yeah, so that’s why I would like to get back to that sort of writing. You know. The good stuff, as you like to say.”
I smile, hoping she’ll smile back. “It’s what you deserve.”
But she's not moving. She hunches around her mug of tea, scowling at the top of it.
“Looks like you have got a lot on your mind. Want to talk about it?” I ask her carefully.
She looks up again at me, almost started. Then, the usual screen falls in front of her face, concealing her emotions again.
“Talk?” she repeats, as though the concept is ridiculous.
“Yeah, have a conversation. People do that.”
She shifts, finally sitting back a little bit, perhaps relaxing just a little bit.
“Are we in a talking relationship? Is that something we do?”
“Well, we're never going to know unless we give it a try,” I shrug.
“You're serious,” she scowls, squinting at me. She looks me over for a long time, as though checking for signs that I'm not serious.
“Totally. What's on your mind? Something wrong? How's the book going?”
She perches her elbow on the arm of the chair and drops her forehead against her palm, slumping even more. Part of me is relieved to see that I have found a way in, danced around those defenses just enough. She's about to tell me something that's on her mind, and I have to admit that feels pretty good. Just a slight concession toward trusting me.
“The book is going… well, I suppose it's pretty good. There certainly a lot of it, anyway.”
“Already? That was fast.”
She smiles with her lips still closed, though there is a tinge of something else there too, almost like sadness.
“Sometimes things just go really fast. Like, you barely need to plan them. They shoot off in one direction like a runaway train.”
“That's a good way of describing us,” I smile. She smiles back, then catches herself.
“Us?” she repeats, quirking an eyebrow at me. “You mean our arrangement?”
“If that is what you want to call it.”
I watch her reassembling her defenses quickly, drawing them in front of her like drawing the curtain closed. Desperately, want to reach out and pull her back closer to me.
“You know, you don't have to do that,” I blurt out.
“I'm not doing anything,” she scowls, looking down into her mug.
“You are. Every time you and I are on the brink of having a conversation, you withdraw like I've done something to you. But haven't done anything to you.”
“Oh you haven't?” she counters.
“No, I really haven't,” I answer honestly. “Think back, Bella. Has there ever been a single time when I've been anything but straight with you? Anything but nice, even?”
She purses her lips, glancing up at me. I see she's really trying to piece this out. To her surprise, there isn't anything.
It surprises me too, honestly.
“No… I guess not.”
I pat the cushion next to me with my fingertips. “Now why don’t you come and sit over here? Let me be nice to you up close and in person.”
She sighs through her nose, her nostrils flaring adorably. “See? I'm nice to you for twenty seconds, and you're already trying to take advantage.”
“I'm not trying to take advantage of you. I'm trying to get laid. Straight up, honest, direct. I feel like that would be good for both of us.”
Her mouth falls open. “Unbelievable!” she huffs, slapping her palms on the armrests of her chair. “You almost had me fooled with that nice guy act, just there.”
“What are you talking about? Fucking is nice, in case you haven't noticed!” I shrug, wondering why she is not appreciating the obvious. “I know you're not a prude. I was there, remember?”
“Just never mind!”
She stands again and walks over to me, then snatches the mug out of my hands. I hear her little heels pounding on the floorboards as she stalks back into the kitchen and get up to follow her.
The kitchen is really nice too, with porcelain subway tiles and an old-fashioned sink. She twists the faucet cruelly, rinsing up the cups and banging them against the bottom of the sink like they've offended her too.
“Okay, okay, okay…” I sigh. “I'm sorry for mentioning fucking when we’re not actually fucking. I suppose that is somehow extremely rude of me. Better?”
“You should not be here by yourself,” she says without turning around. She flings open a cabinet door and stands on her tiptoes to rearrange some boxed dry good items.
“Why not?”
“Because someone might see you!” she almost yells, spinning around to face me. Her eyes flash dangerously, her brows crinkling in the center as she scowls. “You're almost at the finish line, do you realize that? There's only a few more days before this is all over. All of this!”
She stirs the air in front of her with her fingertips indicating all of this like it's a pot of stew or something.
“What if I don’t want it to be over?”
She rolls her eyes up to the ceiling and crosses her arms, sighing loudly. “That's not the agreement.”
“Agreements can be renegotiated,” I remind her.
I don’t even know why I am saying this. I suppose I just like arguing with her so much that I would say anything to keep the conversation going. But even as the words come out of my mouth and I hear them, it doesn't sound like such a bad idea. And she's right, there are only a few more days left. After that time she’ll be, what, gone? Just like that?
Her lips open and then close. She looks me over shrewdly and for just a second, I feel like her defenses fall again. I can sense the confusion and tumult in her mind. She has that look of someone who doesn't want to move a muscle, it case they divulge something they’re trying to keep secret by mistake.
“We could talk about that later,” I finally say, letting her off the hook.
I glance away to break the tension even more. Out of the corner of my eye I see her relax, just a little bit. She rolls her ankle, flexing her bare toes against the linoleum floor. Some part of my mind wants to know if it would be okay if I dropped to my knees and picked her foot up to lick her toes, but now is probably not the right moment.
“So, how about sailing?” I ask her.
“What about sailing?”
“Hannah said that the New York Times is going to be around. Thought we'd get out on the water for a little while, give them a really good pictorial. Do you know how to sail?”
She shrugs. A smile plays on the corner of her mouth. “I know how to look decent in a bikini and wear one of those cute little filmy sarongs, if that's what you mean.”
“Close enough,” I admit.
We’ve got a crew, so it's not like I really expected her to do anything. And now I am totally picturing her in a bikini with a little skirt, hanging off the front of our sailboat. Her eyes flicker down to my crotch, and I figure I’ve got a fairly impressive boner to stare at. Maybe she would still be interested?
“So that's what I came here to tell you,” I smile.
She tips her head to the side. “Took you long enough.”
“What. I think we had a nice conversation here. I guess we’re a talking relationship after all.”
“Hmmph. I guess we are,” she answers grudgingly.
“Thank you for showing me your home. I’ll see myself out.”
“Yes… It was nice to see you,” she says in a small voice.
With that, I give her a real smile, one with my defenses totally down, to show her how it's done. I like her best when she's open with me. That's when I feel like we’re really getting somewhere.
But I have to wonder as I walk back down the front hall toward the door, where is it we’re getting to?
Chapter 35
Emmet
The New York Times columnist told me that he was on the sailing team in college, but I wasn't quite expecting him to be so gung ho about the whole project. He is coiling rope on the deck, grinning like a fool when I hear footsteps behind me and I turn around to see Bella, resplendent in a salmon colored bikini top and floral sarong tied just over her thigh. My breath literally catches in my throat as I look her over with all that smooth, creamy skin on display. She stops a few feet away from me and shyly toes the dock boards with the tip of her sneaker.
“Is this all right?” she asks as she pushes her sunglasses up into her hair.
“It's outstanding!” I sigh, sliding my arms under hers and pulling her close to me. “You realize you are practically naked right? Right out here in public?”
She wrinkles up her nose, nuzzling the tip of my nose with hers in an adorably intimate gesture.
“I'm really glad you like it,” she sighs as she kisses me, her lips sweet as ever.
“Permission to come aboard?” Dillon calls out. I set Bella back on the dock, watching Dillon charming the New York Times guy. He seems to be relaxing into our arrangement, finally. No more outbursts, no more attempts at sabotage. I see him smiling at Bella once in awhile when he thinks she’s not looking. Maybe he's glad that it's almost over. Just a few more days now.
I'm not sure I feel the same way.
“Permission granted!” the columnist yells back to Dillon. He waves vigorously with his arms over his head. “Hi, I'm Kent!”