Except today. She could already tell Fizzy was going to be unrelenting.
“Okay.” Her friend returned with her drink and a blueberry muffin and took a moment to get situated. “Where was I?”
Jess kept her eyes on the email in front of her, pretending to read. “I think you were about to say that it’s my life and that I should do what I think is best.”
“We both know that’s not something I would say.”
“Why am I your friend?”
“Because I immortalized you as the villain in Crimson Lace, and you became a fan favorite so I can’t kill you off.”
“Sometimes I wonder if you’re answering my questions or just continuing an ongoing conversation in your head.”
Fizzy began peeling the paper off her muffin. “What I was going to say is that you can’t throw in the towel because of one bad date.”
“It’s not just the one bad date,” Jess said. “It’s the exhausting and alien process of trying to be appealing to men. I freelance dataset algorithms and consider my sexiest outfit to be my old Buffy shirt and a pair of cutoffs. My favorite pajamas are a threadbare tank top and some maternity yoga pants.”
Fizzy whimpered out a plaintive “No.”
“Yes,” Jess said, emphatically. “On top of that, I had a kid when most people our age were still lying about enjoying Jägermeister. It’s hard to polish myself for a dating profile.”
Fizzy laughed.
“Plus, I hate taking time away from Juno for some guy I’m probably never going to see again.”
Fizzy let that sink in for a beat. “So, you’re… done? Jessica, you went on two dates with two hot, if dull, men.”
“Until Juno is older, yeah.”
She regarded Jess with suspicion. “How much older?”
“I don’t know.” Jess picked up her coffee, but her attention was snagged when the man they referred to as “Americano” stepped into Twiggs, striding to the front precisely on cue—8:24 in the morning—all long legs and dark hair and surly, glowering vibes, not making eye contact with a single person. “Maybe when she’s in college?”
When Jess’s eyes left Americano, horror was rippling through Fizzy’s expression. “College?” She lowered her voice when practically every head in the coffee shop swiveled. “You’re telling me that if I sat down to write the novel of your future love life, I’d be writing a heroine who is happily showing her body to a dude for the first time in eighteen years? Honey, no. Not even your perfectly preserved vagina can pull that off.”
“Felicity.”
“Like an Egyptian tomb in there. Practically mummified,” Fizzy mumbled into a sip.
Up front, Americano paid for his drink and then stepped to the side, absorbed in typing something on his phone. “What is his deal?” Jess asked quietly.
“You have such a thing for Americano,” Fizzy said. “Do you realize you watch him every day?”
“Maybe I find his demeanor fascinating.”
Fizzy let her eyes drop to his ass, currently hidden by a navy coat. “We’re calling it his ‘demeanor’ now?” She bent, writing something in the Idea Notebook she kept near her laptop.
“Every day, he comes in here and emits the vibe that if anyone tried to talk to him, he would do a murder,” Jess quipped.
“Maybe he’s a hit man.”
Jess, too, inspected him top to bottom. “More like a socially constipated medieval art professor.” She tried to remember when he’d started coming in here. Maybe two years ago? Monday to Friday, same time every morning, same drink, same sullen silence. This was a quirky neighborhood, and Twiggs was its heart. People came in to linger, to sip, to chat; Americano stood out not for being weird or eccentric but for being almost entirely silent in a space full of boisterous, lovable weirdos. “Nice clothes, but inside them he’s all grouchy,” Jess mumbled.
“Well, maybe he needs to get laid, kind of like someone else I know.”
“Fizz. I’ve had sex since birthing Juno,” Jess said in exasperation. “I’m just saying I don’t have a lot left over for commitment, and I’m not willing to endure boring or outright terrible dates just for orgasms. They make battery-operated appliances for that.”
“I’m not talking just about sex,” Fizzy said. “I’m talking about not always putting yourself last.” She paused to wave to Daniel, who was wiping down a table nearby. “Daniel, did you catch all of that?”
He straightened and gave her the smile that had made Fizzy write the hero of Destiny’s Devil with Daniel in mind, and do all manner of dirty things to him in the book that she hadn’t dared do in real life.
And would never do: Daniel and Fizzy went out once last year but quickly ended things when they ran into each other at a family reunion. Their family reunion. “When can’t we hear you?” he asked.
“Good, then please tell Jess that I’m right.”
“You want me to have an opinion about whether Jess should be on Tinder just to get laid?” he asked.
“Okay, yup.” Jess groaned. “This is what rock bottom feels like.”
“Or whichever dating site she likes!” Fizzy cried, ignoring her. “This woman is sexy and young. She shouldn’t waste her remaining hot years in mom jeans and old sweatshirts.”
Jess looked down at her outfit, ready to protest, but the words shriveled in her throat.
“Maybe not,” Daniel said, “but if she’s happy, does it matter whether or not she’s frumpy?”
She beamed at Fizzy in triumph. “See? Daniel is sort of on Team Jess.”
“You know,” Daniel said to her now, balling the wash rag in his hands, smug with insider knowledge, “Americano is a romantic, too.”
“Let me guess,” Jess said, grinning. “He’s the host of an LA-based sex dungeon?”
Only Fizzy laughed. Daniel gave a coy shrug. “He’s about to launch some cutting-edge matchmaking company.”
Both women went silent. A what now?
“Matchmaking?” Jess asked. “The same Americano who comes in here every day and never smiles at anyone?” She pointed behind her to the door he’d exited only a minute ago. “That guy? With his intense hotness marred by the moody, antisocial filter?”
“That’s the one,” Daniel said, nodding. “You could be right that he needs to get laid, but I’m guessing he does just fine for himself.”
* * *
At least this particular Fizzy tangent happened on a Monday—Pops picked up Juno from school on Monday afternoons and took her to the library. Jess was able to get a proposal together for Genentech, set up a meeting with Whole Foods for next week, and bash through a few spreadsheets before she had to walk home and start dinner.
Her car, ten years old with barely thirty thousand miles logged on it, was so rarely used that Jess couldn’t remember the last time she’d had to fill the tank. Everything in her world, Jess thought contentedly on her walk home, was within arm’s reach. University Heights was the perfect of blend of apartments and mismatched houses nestled between tiny restaurants and independent businesses. Frankly, the sole benefit of last night’s date was that Travis had agreed to meet at El Zarape just two doors down; the only thing worse than having the world’s most boring dinner conversation would have been driving to the Gaslamp to do it.
With about two hours until sunset, the sky had gone a heavily bruised gray-blue, threatening rain that’d send any Southern Californian driver into a confused turmoil. A sparse crowd was getting Monday-levels of rowdy on the deck of the new Kiwi-run brewery down the street, and the ubiquitous line at Bahn Thai was quickly turning into a tangle of hungry bodies; three butts were attached to humans currently ignoring the sign for customers not to sit on the private stoop next door to the restaurant. Nana and Pops’s tenant, Mr. Brooks, had installed a doorbell camera for the front units, and almost every morning he gave Jess a detailed accounting of how many millennials vaped on his front step while waiting for a table.
Home came into view. Juno had named their apartment complex
“Harley Hall” when she was four, and although it didn’t have nearly the pretentious vibe required to be a capital-H Hall, the name stuck. Harley Hall was bright green and stood out like an emerald against the earth-tone stucco of the adjacent buildings. The street-facing side was decorated with a horizontal strip of pink and purple tiles forming a harlequin pattern; electric-pink window boxes spilled exuberant flowers year-round. Jess’s grandparents Ronald and Joanne Davis had bought the property the year Pops retired from the navy, which was around the same time that Jess’s long-term boyfriend decided he wasn’t father material and wanted to retain the option to put his penis in other ladies. Jess had packed up two-month-old Juno and moved into the ground-floor two-bedroom unit that faced Nana and Pops’s bungalow at the back end of the property. Given that they’d raised Jess down the road in Mission Hills until she’d gone to college at UCLA, the transition was basically zero. And now, her small and perfect village helped her raise her child.
The side gate opened with a tiny squeak, then locked closed behind her. Down a narrow path, Jess stepped into the courtyard that separated her apartment from Nana Jo and Pops’s bungalow. The space looked like a lush garden somewhere in Bali or Indonesia. A handful of stone fountains gurgled quietly, and the primary sensation was bright: honest to God, the most dramatic magenta, coral, and brassy purple bougainvillea dominated the walls and fences.
Immediately, a small, neatly French-braided child tackled Jess. “Mom, I got a book about snakes from the library, did you know that snakes don’t have eyelids?”
“I—”
“Also, they eat their food whole, and their ears are only inside their heads. Guess where you can’t find snakes?” Juno stared up at her, blue eyes unblinking. “Guess.”
“Canada!”
“No! Antarctica!”
Jess led them inside, calling “No way!” over her shoulder.
“Way. And remember that cobra in The Black Stallion? Well, cobras are the only kind of snakes that build nests and they can live to be twenty.”
That one actually shocked Jessica. “Wait, seriously?” She dropped her bag on the couch just inside the door and moved to the pantry to dig around for dinner options. “That’s insane.”
“Yes. Seriously.”
Juno went quiet behind her, and understanding dropped like a weight in Jess’s chest. She turned to find her kid wearing the enormous-eyed expression of preemptive begging. “Juno, baby, no.”
“Please, Mom?”
“No.”
“Pops said maybe a corn snake. The book says they’re ‘very docile.’ Or a ball python?”
“A python?” Jess set a pot of water on the stove to boil. “Are you out of your mind, child?” She pointed to the cat, Pigeon, asleep in the dying stretch of daylight streaming through the window. “A python would eat that creature.”
“A ball python, and I wouldn’t let it.”
“If Pops is encouraging you to get a snake,” Jess said, “Pops can keep it over at his house.”
“Nana Jo already said no.”
“I bet she did.”
Juno growled, collapsing onto the couch. Jess walked over and sat down, drawing her in for a cuddle. She was seven but small; she still had baby hands with dimples on the knuckles and smelled like baby shampoo and the woody fiber of books. When Juno wrapped her little arms around Jess’s neck, she breathed the little girl in. Juno had her own room now, but she’d slept with her mom until she was five, and sometimes Jess would still wake up in the middle of the night and experience a sharp stab of longing for the warm weight of her baby in her arms. Jess’s own mother used to say she needed to break Juno of the habit, but parenting advice was the last thing Jamie Davis should be giving to anyone. Besides, it wasn’t like anyone else ever occupied that side of the mattress.
And Juno was a master cuddler, a gold-medal Olympian in the snuggle. She pressed her face to Jess’s neck and breathed in, wiggling closer. “Mama. You went on a date last night,” she whispered.
“Mm-hmm.”
Juno was excited for the date, not only because she adored her great-grandparents and got Nana Jo’s cooking when Jess was out, but because they’d recently watched Adventures in Babysitting, and Fizzy had told her it was a pretty accurate depiction of what dating was like. In Juno’s mind, Jess might end up marrying Thor.
“Did you go downtown? Did he bring you flowers?” She pulled back. “Did you kiss him?”
Jess laughed. “No, I did not. We had dinner, and I walked home.”
Juno studied her, eyes narrowed. She seemed pretty sure that more was supposed to happen on a date. Popping up like she’d remembered something, she jogged to her roller backpack near the door. “I got you a book, too.”
“You did?”
Juno walked back over and crawled into her lap, handing it over.
Middle Aged and Kickin’ It!: A Woman’s Definitive Guide to Dating Over 40, 50 and Beyond.
Jess let out a surprised laugh. “Did your Aunty Fizz put you up to this?”
Juno’s giggle rolled out of her, delighted. “She texted Pops.”
Over the top of her head, Jess caught a glimpse of the dry-erase board next to the fridge, and a tingling spread from her fingertips up to her arms. The words NEW YEARS GOALS were written in Juno’s bubbly handwriting.
NANA & POPS
Get a personal trayner
Take a wock evry day
JUNO
Lern to like brocooli
Make my bed evry mornning
Try Something New Sunday!
MOM
Try Something New Sunday!
Nana ses be more selfish!
Do more things that skare me
Okay, Universe, Jessica thought. I get it. If Mrs. Brady could be a trailblazer, maybe it was time for Jess to try, too.
More from the Author
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Twice in a Blue Moon
The Unhoneymooners
My Favorite Half-Night Stand
Josh and Hazel's Guide to Not Dating
Love and Other Words
about the author
PHOTOGRAPH BY ALYSSA MICHELLE
CHRISTINA LAUREN is the combined pen name of longtime writing partners and best friends Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings, the New York Times, USA Today, and #1 internationally bestselling authors of the Beautiful and Wild Seasons series, Dating You / Hating You, Autoboyography, Love and Other Words, Roomies, Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating, My Favorite Half-Night Stand, The Unhoneymooners, Twice in a Blue Moon, and The Honey-Don’t List. You can find them online at ChristinaLaurenBooks.com, @ChristinaLauren on Instagram, or @ChristinaLauren on Twitter.
FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR:
SimonandSchuster.com/Authors/Christina-Lauren
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ALSO BY CHRISTINA LAUREN
Dating You / Hating You
Roomies
Love and Other Words
Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating
My Favorite Half-Night Stand
The Unhoneymooners
Twice in a Blue Moon
The Honey-Don’t List
THE BEAUTIFUL SERIES
Beautiful Bastard
Beautiful Stranger
Beautiful Bitch
Beautiful Bombshell
Beautiful Player
Beautiful Beginning
Beautiful Beloved
Beautiful Secret
Beautiful Boss
Beautiful
THE WILD SEASONS SERIES
Sweet Filthy Boy
Dirty Rowdy Thing
Dark Wild Night
Wicked Sexy Liar
YOUNG ADULT
The House
Sublime
Autoboyography
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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