Twelve
I decide that he’s not actually going to do it. After all, he looked like he was forcing himself to say he would. And he can’t even look at me, once I’m in the shorts and T-shirt. He gets one glimpse of my thick bare thighs, and exactly how tight that material is over the soft curve of my breasts, and the way everything jiggles deliciously as I jog down the stairs to catch up with him, and his eyes go up.
Way up.
They end somewhere just south of my head.
‘I hope you understand I did not buy you this outfit so I could accidentally see that happening,’ he whispers to me, as we make our way through the living room to the kitchen. And there’s more, too: ‘I just wanted you to have something super cute and comfortable.’
Even though he doesn’t need to give me anything at all.
With him, I already get it. I don’t need to guess or stress.
His intentions are always clear. And even when they have unintended consequences, those unintended consequences turn out great . Oh, they turn out thrilling. In fact, if anything, the issue is that they thrill me too much. They make me want to do highly inadvisable stuff, like bending over when he least expects it, or reaching for something in a certain way, right in his line of sight.
And when I even think about the reaction to that, I start to slip again.
It’s the situation, it’s the situation, it’s the situation , I tell myself, but god, that is starting to work less and less well, already. I have to rely on Doug being the massive cold sore he is to really put a dampener on those feelings. ‘You seen this kitchen, bow-tie? Phew, no idea how you managed to stumble into securing us something this stylish. I was thinking we would show up and find ourselves staying at a chintzy grandma nightmare,’ he bellows.
Because apparently he can’t even allow Beck anything.
He chose this beautiful place, and these fabulous lodges that somehow look both rustic and sleek – the kitchen being a prime example, with that huge AGA and the Belfast sink and the mugs that look hand thrown – yet still somehow the credit must be undercut. Like he’s just constantly daydreaming of the day that weirdo boss of theirs fires Beck, and presents him with the prize he thinks he’s owed. And Beck simply doesn’t see it, because he simply cannot imagine anyone being that mercenary. He just laughs and shakes his head, like, oh, you .
‘I know, I really lucked out on this one,’ he says.
Then he goes to the fridge – the one that is fully stocked because of him and his intense organizing skills and incredible attention to detail, and grabs a truly delicious-looking salad to hand to me. ‘Here you go, honey, your favourite,’ he says.
And you know what?
It only fucking is my favourite.
It’s flaked salmon with baby spinach and a lemon vinaigrette – the same super-specific one I make for myself almost every day. Only this one also has these tiny potatoes in it, and they look so delicious I can’t resist immediately opening the thing up and picking one out. I pop it in my mouth and oh, fuck me, it is delicious .
I almost go again with my fingers.
Beck has to pull out a chair for me and hand me a fork.
And I don’t even feel self-conscious about it. How can I when he sits down, too, and leans his beaming, adorable face on one satisfied hand, and watches me devour it like it’s the best thing in the world. He barely even gets to his own salad, he’s that into it. I have to prompt him by picking up his fork, and putting it in his hand, and miming eat .
All of which is good, because I know it looks super convincing.
But it’s also a little unnerving, because hoo, wow, does it feel it, too.
I don’t think I’ve ever done anything so naturally couple-ish with anyone, as I just did with him. It’s the kind of thing I watch Mabel doing with Alfie, and then very playfully mime-vomiting. But weirdly, I don’t even want to playfully do it here. Is it just that easy , I find myself thinking, instead.
It’s actually a relief this time when Doug interrupts, in between mouthfuls of his own dinner.
‘So when you two are finished with this little show, Dina was wanting to talk about that drippy hack author of yours who can’t make the talk she was supposed to give to all these little aspiring authors on Wednesday, Nita whatever. And confirm when and where the welcome meet-and-greet shit is happening. I know that nerd pack you put together says five, in that library thing they’ve got here. But you know her, fussy as fuck,’ he says, all offhand and uncaring about the way he just flattens everybody into annoyances to him.
Because I know Dina is not fussy as fuck.
It said so, in the binder Beck put together for me. Marketing manager, and the most professional and considerate person I work with , he had put, right under a picture of a woman with a smile as warm as his, and dark eyes as sharp as a tack, and a headscarf so cool and stylishly woven through her Afro I would be making plans to ask her where she got it from if I wasn’t as white as a piece of paper.
So Doug is full of shit about her.
Hell, he’s full of shit about Nita, too. Though I don’t need a binder to tell me that one. I’ve read her books. I know she doesn’t write drippy, hack-type stuff. She writes deep, rich love stories – ones I like enough that I want to defend her. I want to defend both of these women.
But weirdly, Beck gets there first.
In fact, he starts to stand up . ‘Hey, now, you just wait a gosh-darn minute,’ he says, and in a voice I’ve never heard before. It’s deep, with this kind of odd forcefulness to it. And enough that I find myself looking at him, amazed and strangely nervous.
But then Doug holds up a hand.
‘Okay, cool your jets there, bow-tie, I know she’s your meal ticket,’ he says. At which point two things happen: Beck seems to take a breath, and sits back down. And I immediately realize what that means. Beck is, or was, her editor. He edits the books of a Booker-nominated, number-one New York Times bestseller.
One who is super beloved.
People draw fan art of her work.
But he never said. Not even in his binder, under basics of my job . It was just his title – executive editor – and his salary, which was disturbingly small for someone that important and smart and good at what he does. And his picture, in which he was beaming and had two thumbs up, of course.
Because that is what he is like, in almost every single way.
A stealth bomb of brilliance. A light with a bushel so big I didn’t even register him as handsome, until the car. Though now, it’s pretty much all I can see. The veil of his wholesome, cheery kindness has been lifted. Or maybe the scales of thinking I don’t like wholesome, cheery kindness has dropped.
I don’t know.
I don’t know.
But what I do know is this:
When Tammy says, ‘Hey, you guys, come look, there’s a deer,’ we all go, and we stand in front of the big glass window/door that makes up an entire wall of the living room, and once there Beck meets my gaze. And he nods all exaggerated and slow, like is now the time , and I can see what he’s going to do.
Yet at the same time, it’s like I’ve never been less prepared for anything in my life. I almost yell at him dear god, don’t , and only manage not to by telling myself that this is nothing, it’s nothing, he is barely doing a thing to me. He’s hardly going to even touch me – and I’m right about that.
I swear his hand is so light on me, it’s almost like it’s not there at all. It’s a ghost, brushing against my body. And not even the part of the body he said he would brush, either. It’s just my back, where it begins to curve down to the danger zones. No problem, no worries, what even is that , I think.
Then I feel him start to slowly, oh so slowly slide that hand down, and oh, fuck. Oh no, stop , my mind moans. While my body bleeds what can only be described as sheer, unadulterated bliss. It’s like being eased into arousal, one agonizing millisecond at a time. Like feeling an orgasm build from seventeen thousand miles away. Every inch of me is alive to even the slightest shift in contact, the barest hint of more pressure, the smallest sense that he is about to go somewhere ruder.
And then he hits that ruder part – the dip at the small of my back, just before it rises into the curve of my plump arse – and I just can’t hold it together. I let out a sound, an actual sound. A little gasp, that of course reads like astonishment over the fucking deer. It seems like nothing, nobody even seems aware he’s doing this or I’m reacting to it.
Except for him.
He’s aware.
I go all stiff the moment he hears me.
And that hand whips away, like it was never there.
And somehow, when it does, I don’t think thank god .
I think only of the other terrible thing I know is true:
Now he is never going to do that again.