“I do,” I said. “Definitely soon.” I glanced back at Lucia. “We’ve got a lot to catch up on.”
People were spilling into the Big Room and Lucia sidled over, grabbing my arm.
“What is it?” she whispered.
“Huge rockslide, on either side of Highway 1. I’m afraid you’re, um, well, you can’t leave. Not for a few days at least.” I couldn’t read the expression on her face. “Also, Josie’s not here. She’s with Gabe. In a…sexual way, I believe,” I stuttered.
Lucia did a tiny victory dance.
I laughed, despite the seriousness of the moment. And then Lucia high-fived me.
◊
LUCIA
“It was a massive rockslide. Two of them, actually,” Calvin said, standing in the middle of the Big Room. He was so damn cute. I wanted everyone to leave. I wanted to keep grinding myself to orgasm on his lap.
Focus, Lucia.
“So far no injuries have been reported—the storm was so bad there weren’t a lot of people on the roads. But, and this is still just preliminary information, it looks like the rockslides occurred at two different locations, unfortunately. At the entrance and exit to Big Sur, on Highway 1. Until clean-up crews can get out there we are all, well…” He ran his hand over the back of his neck. “We’re trapped here for the time being. There’s no way out.”
“Oh my god,” Joanna said, hand flying to her mouth.
I wished Josie was here, except my girl was spending the night with a bearded hunk. But I was potentially sex-addled and couldn’t entirely grasp what was going on.
“I still don’t understand what you’re saying,” I said. But I understood the way you pinned my wrists behind my back.
Cal shifted on his feet, looking nervous again. “I’m not entirely sure either. Gabe was only able to pass on the basic information.”
“Has this happened before?” Ray asked, thumb already scrolling through his phone’s camera. I knew what he was thinking. Shay Miller was a notorious hard-ass. He wasn’t the kind of person to take, “I’m so sorry we ran behind schedule. A massive rockslide almost killed all of us” as an excuse.
“Big Sur has had some strange weather phenomena, yes. Wildfires, mudslides… and because it’s so remote, severe weather can be even more damaging. Luckily, most people have planned for this kind of event, so Gabe’s bar has plenty of canned food stocked up and water. I do too, and the small grocery store up the road should have enough.” He turned to face Ray. “You were going to leave tomorrow, right?”
Which is why I’d given in to my crush on Cal. One more night. No consequences. No feelings. Also, I was technically supposed to be in Paris in a week.
Shit. I wanted to go back to sex-addled.
Ray sighed, shaking his head. “Right. I mean, technically, we were a day behind schedule anyway, but I was hoping Shay would like the shots as is. But if we’re here for another few days—”
“—maybe a week,” Cal interjected, to the groans of everyone. Fuck, Paris but also fuck would Cal want to see me again?
“—Maybe,” Ray said, looking flustered now, “Does your grandfather have any cool stories of getting trapped here with a bunch of hippies and, like, taking LSD and running through the rain?”
“I’m sure of it,” Cal replied with a smirk. “I’ll look through some more of his journals, try to give you a narrative you could work with. I would suggest Big Sur’s most famous restaurant, Fenix. Next to this store, nothing was more bohemian back in the day than that place. It’s on a huge cliff with this gorgeous view of the California coast. Maybe they’d let you do some shots there?”
Ray was writing everything down, making notes in his phone. “Brilliant, Cal. Jesus, what can’t you do, man?”
Cal and I made eye contact from across the room and he blushed so furiously I thought he would faint.
“I wish we had fucking internet,” Taylor muttered, nudging my shoulder. “People would love this. We could be posting updates on the storm, our efforts to get out of here. Start our own hashtag.”
I could see it, I could, suddenly and swiftly aching for the affirmation of fans and strangers. For their comments of love and affection and downright obsession. Like earlier tonight—the constant chiming of my phone as people affirmed my hard-won celebrity.
A wave of anxiety broke open on my skin and I hated it…hated that half an hour ago I was happy and safe, thinking about poetry and Calvin’s hungry mouth, and now I was back to craving the fame. I was kidding myself when I’d told Calvin I was letting go of some of that…that Big Sur was changing me.
You can never let it go. I could never let it go. And now I was stuck up here for another week with nowhere to go and nothing to do except obsess over which younger, prettier supermodel was already replacing me.
“Walk you back?” Taylor said and I nodded, shoving my writing journal under my jacket. Trying not to focus too much on the books lying haphazardly on the floor—a secret sign of our earlier passion.
“Lucia?”
I stopped, turning around, but I knew it was Calvin. He was already blushing, shoving his glasses up his nose.
“Hey,” I said, suddenly breathless.
“Here’s the book I was telling you about earlier. The one…um, the one you said you wanted to borrow?” Cal pressed it into my hand, his gaze intense and heated. For the briefest of moments his finger stroked along mine, and then he pulled back. “I think you’ll like it.”
I nodded. “I’m sure I will,” I said, feeling Taylor tug on my arm. “I’ll see you tomorrow, I guess,” I said, then followed Taylor in a daze back to the cabins.
◊
CALVIN
“We had a moment,” I said, hefting up a giant box of bottled waters from the basement of Gabe’s bar. “That’s all. No big deal.”
It was the next morning and I’d barely slept—between the adrenaline of Lucia’s kiss, and everything with the rockslides — I’d tossed and turned. Finally, I gave up and called Gabe, who had suggested morning beers.
Ahead of me, I heard his laughter. “You shared a moment with one of the most famous supermodels in the world?”
I kept hefting until we reached the bar. I hoisted the box up, breathing heavily.
“I know,” I said. “I too did not believe this was in the realm of possibility. Not in this world. Not in any world.”
“You’re a computer programmer from Silicon Valley,” Gabe said, reaching below the bar to grab me a beer. He tossed it and I dropped it, fumbling clumsily. When I stood up, I knocked my head against the bar.
“Ouch,” I said, rubbing the bump already forming.
“And you’re also…you know, you,” he said, grinning a mile wide.
“Thank you for your show of confidence,” I said, taking a sip. “And your friendship.”
He laughed, digging up a box of candles from the floor. “You think the power’s going to go out?”
“Probably,” I said. “Swarm of locusts next. Followed by some kind of plague. We haven’t had a big storm yet this year. This feels like it might be the one.”
“Ah. How romantic. Getting stuck in the dark, no power, raining outside? Might give you an opportunity to close the deal. With the supermodel.”
“Lucia,” I said quickly. “And she’s not just a supermodel, although that by itself is impressive.”
Gabe’s head titled. “Oh?”
“She’s…she’s really funny. And smart. And a total bookworm, like me. She’s got…layers.”
Gabe leaned against the bar, suddenly serious. “And she’s been on the cover of Maxim magazine, Cal. She’s next-level, out-of-your-league. Out of anyone’s league. You sure she’s not just bored and messing with you?”
I felt a flurry of butterflies in my stomach, because of course I worried she was just messing with me. Until last night, I had been sure of it, sure it was a harmless flirtation caused by the fact she wasn’t getting her usual affirmations from social media and gossip magazines.
/> Except I’d had her writhing on my lap with her hands pinned behind her back, my name on her lips. Totally vulnerable.
It had to be real.
Right?
I laughed, gulping down half the beer. “Fuck if I know,” I said, trying to keep it light. “So…Josie.”
Gabe’s grin was enormous.
“You like her, I guess?” I asked, liking this early morning beer-and-feelings meeting we were having.
He looked around, a comedic moment, since no one was in the bar.
“She’s incredible. Last night was incredible. I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t just the tiniest bit happy they’re stuck here. Does that make me a terrible person?”
“Nope, because I had the exact same thought,” I said grimly, because saying it out loud made it too real. Both of us were silent for a moment, weighing what that meant.
“What about when they leave?” I finally asked, wondering if pursuing Lucia would only make it hurt more.
“It’ll fucking suck,” Gabe said, swallowing half of his beer in one gulp. “And that’s why we’re not going to think about it. We’re just going to live in the moment, content with the fact that two absurdly beautiful women want to be around us…for reasons no rational person can comprehend.”
We knocked our beer bottles together at that and I nodded, agreeing. “Live in the moment. It’s what my grandfather would have said.
“Did it ever get this exciting in your old life?” Gabe asked. “I mean, technically, you’re leaving soon too, right?”
I’d completely forgotten the meeting I’d had yesterday, forever altering the destiny of The Mad Ones and my grandfather’s legacy. It felt so far away now, during a more innocent time when I hadn’t shared the best kiss of my entire life with Lucia Bell.
I sifted through a dozen answers, trying to defend the quiet life I’d led before this. But instead, rain pouring outside and my lips still swollen, I went with the truth.
“No, it never got this exciting. Not even a little,” I replied.
Gabe just looked at me, and I was grateful he didn’t try to convince me to stay one more time.
The rockslide was a brief reprieve, but a few days from now Lucia would be gone, back to her glamorous, famous life. And a month from now I’d be back in a cubicle.
◊
LUCIA
“We had a moment,” I said triumphantly, as Josie walked through my cabin door.
It was morning and she knew I’d have one billion questions for her about Gabe. Last night it had poured rain on me and Taylor, and after soaking in a scalding hot shower I’d fallen deeply asleep.
“What? With who? And what’s that?” she asked, pointing at my writing journal. “Were you writing again?”
“With Calvin. And you have sex hair,” I pointed out, pulling myself up into a seated position.
“Well, that’s because I had sex. Really, really, great fucking sex,” she said, satisfied smirk on her face. I kicked her.
“Horn dog. What was the dick situation?”
“Huge. Perfect. Just right.”
“Any more details than that?” I asked, casually, knowing how secretive she was sometimes. But desperate for the dirt.
“Maybe,” she said slowly, “but I think I need to think this one through. Let it marinate.”
“That good, huh?” I asked, since she hadn’t said that in a while.
She bit her lip, smiling. “Back to the original question,” she said, picking up my journal. “Were you writing?”
“Not even. I mean I tried, but as usual I got nothin’,” I said, shrugging.
“So you ‘had a moment’ with Cal and were motivated to at least try and write?”
Josie knew what writing meant to me, knew that no romantic partner (real or otherwise) had ever known I wanted to spend my days writing poetry. “And you told Cal about it?”
“It came up, while we were talking about books.”
“Talking about books,” Josie cried, tossing a pillow at my face.
I laughed. “What is going on with you?”
Her mouth gaped open. “Nothing. Just that you had a moment with a cute nerd who you also told about your writing and talked about books with.” She crossed her arms primly. “Calvin Ellis is your dream man.”
I rolled my eyes, ignoring the skip of my heart. “Hardly. I barely know him.”
“Doesn’t mean he can’t be your dream man,” she said, all-knowing in the way only best friends can be. “Yo se que es verdad, chica.”
“No puede ser,” I said. “My dream man is going to be a wealthy oil tycoon I marry in my mid-thirties.”
Josie laughed, standing up and heading towards the bathroom. “Oh, chica. You’ve got it bad.” She sauntered into the bathroom, tossing her dark hair.
I bit back a grin, since she really wasn’t wrong, and that’s when I saw the book Cal had given me. I’d forgotten all about it. I picked it up (it was Neruda’s Sonnets) and there was another post-it note inside.
My fingers trembled. I’m sorry we were interrupted,” he wrote, “because what I really wanted to do was fuck you with my tongue. I can picture it: your back arching off the floor, your wrists bound above your head. My hands, holding your thighs down as I licked you. Deeply. Thoroughly. The taste of you on my tongue for hours afterward, driving me insane. I wanted you to come. And you would have, as many times as I demanded.
And maybe Josie was right, because not once in my 26 years on this earth had a man written me something so erotic and thrilling. On instinct, my hand pressed between my legs, seeking the aching release Cal had made me desperate for. I pressed my palm against my clit and whimpered.
P.S. Don’t make yourself come. I’ll know if you do. -C
◊
CALVIN
I loved the kitchen in The Mad Ones. It was a long, narrow galley kitchen and while it was technically my grandfather’s, it quickly became another space for people to meet. When I was younger, I’d stumble upon customers having intense conversations about their favorite books in here, drinking cup after cup of coffee, hands shaking.
My grandfather would tell stories about impromptu readings that would happen over a pot of water, boiling for tea. Or writers, struck suddenly with inspiration, scribbling down notes on an old napkin.
The refrigerator was covered in scraps of poetry, articles about the bookstore, old photos of my grandparents. From time to time, I’d pull out a coffee mug and find a note from my grandfather on it—sometimes something ordinary (“Don’t forget Max’s food at the store”); sometimes a line from something he loved and had to document (“Did I ever walk the morning streets at twenty/my limbs streaming with purer joy?”).
But this morning, there was no scrap of wisdom from my grandfather, only the endless torrential rain. My morning beer with Gabe, while therapeutic, had brought on a bout of melancholy. I held a mug that said, “Keep Independent Bookstores Open” and dug through a box of his journals, settling into the overstuffed chair by the roaring fireplace. Max curled up at my feet, and I tried to soak in a moment’s peace—before the crew came storming in; before Lucia’s presence demanded my attention.
I flipped through a couple, stumbling upon the weeks when my grandparents were just beginning to date.
I do not believe in love at first sight, my grandfather had written, about his reaction to meeting my grandmother on a beach in Monterey. Although I’ve read about it in books, it is not my personal belief. There’s too much about a person to love them instantly—and really, isn’t that the best part? To learn, intimately, about every single beautiful thing about them. The way they laugh. What makes them sad. The way they peel an orange. Do they like whiskey?
I smiled, rubbing Max’s head, sipping my coffee.
When I met Maggie, it wasn’t love at first sight, although I thought she was gorgeous. Striking, really, and effervescent. And maybe this is shadowed by time, since we’re married now and I think of her as my soulmate—but although I do not belie
ve in love at first sight, I do believe something inside of me recognized her…I don’t know, her soul. Or spirit…I’m not sure. Recognized it in a unique way. Like everyone on the beach that day was a dull, pale blue but Maggie was electric turquoise.
She made me so at ease with myself. Things I had buried or things I didn’t like—they didn’t matter around her. As I fell in love with her, she helped me love myself.
Thunder clapped outside. I thought I heard voices in the distance, which meant the moment of peace would soon be shattered. The voices got louder, and in an instant my grandfather’s small bookstore transformed into a film set. Ray was talking loudly into a walkie-talkie and the craft services people were struggling to dry off the bagels, which had gotten soaked in the rain.
And then Lucia. Lucia strode in wearing tight black yoga pants and a giant men’s sweater and everything narrowed down to her. Her smile as she brought Josie coffee. The way she’d sneak glances at the bookshelves when she thought no one else was looking. She shimmied her shoulders, tossing a crass joke at the camera crew and they roared with laughter.
The number of times in my life I’d had the courage and the confidence to leave an erotic note for a woman—a note with instructions—was zero. But secretly, I’d always wanted to. Meeting a cute girl at a bar and failing horribly to impress her—I’d fantasize about doing something like that, something that would help her see beyond the socially-awkward first impression.
Fear would always get the best of me. That and a nagging feeling leftover from high school that I had a very specific role to play with women, and Sexually Dominant Alpha it was not.
With Lucia, the fear and the low self-esteem faded away, like turning the volume all the way down on the TV. For the first time in my life I felt comfortable in my body. Comfortable in my desires. Comfortable to express what I wanted.
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