Chapter 16
16
Eleanor
It’s now been twenty-nine hours since I last saw Carson. I wouldn’t say I miss them. We have known each other for such a brief period that it can be measured in hours . Plus this alone time has been beneficial. Of course, I could argue that most of my private life is alone time, and what I need might be social time. That sounds like the kind of argument no one wins. Why bother making it with myself?
Missing my cats, I zoom in on the photo June just texted me. They’re stretched out side by side on the sofa, as content as can be.
Eleanor: That’s a rare occurrence. They only do that about once a year.
June: I took that before we left to see your musical. We just got out a little bit ago! Hannity Banks is so fun! Do you like working on the show? Tatum wanted me to ask you.
Hannity is one of Garber’s biggest flops to date. One critic called it “the most ambitiously bad musical in decades.” Everyone at the office has gotten so used to thinking of it as a failure, I forget that anyone can still deem it enjoyable.
As with every show I’ve worked on, there was a time when I believed Hannity could be the next big thing. That’s half my job. Selling everyone on the dream, including myself. Then the reviews came in, and the critics were all united in their distaste. It was a good old-fashioned flop. Just like that, the dream dissolved.
When a show goes off the rails, it’s almost impossible to get it back on track without the help of a big-name star joining the cast or, frankly, some sort of viral online content that makes people curious enough to buy a ticket. Hannity has neither. It’s as good as dead. Anthony Teller and his fellow producers just have to pull the plug.
If my old boss, Mark, and I were having one of our weekly debriefs, this is the exact kind of text I’d mention to him to prove that sometimes, people in the arts have their nose stuck in the air when it comes to what’s fun, and maybe we weren’t wrong to root for Hannity in the first place.
What makes good art anyway? I’d ask him.
We’ll spend our whole careers trying to figure that out , Mark would tell me.
But I don’t work there anymore. I don’t have to say anything cheeky and self-aware to June in response, like Wish more people agreed with you , or If you told that to a thousand of your closest friends, we might be able to make it to the end of our original run!
Eleanor: I’m glad you enjoyed it. I’m happy with the press we secured for it. We got our lead on morning television last week, which is always nice. Can never control what people think, though. Hope New York is treating you well.
June: It is! We’ve even made friends with your neighbor Dawn. She’s hilarious. She’s taking us to a bar right now.
Sifting through the minimal interactions I’ve had with other people in my building, I search for a Dawn. Is it the woman with the fantastic lipstick choices who lives a floor above me? Or the man who owns several dogs and takes the entire pack out for walks every few hours? It’s embarrassing to have June know more about my building than I do. It also doesn’t surprise me that two people from this town would show up and attempt to make friends with my neighbors, but most of the people in my building are old-money New Yorkers who aren’t typically looking to expand their social circles.
Another text from her comes in, preventing me from having to own up to my ignorance.
June: Are you enjoying Trove Hills?
Eleanor: I am. It’s not what I expected. In a good way.
She heart reacts to the message.
Eleanor: Give my kitties a kiss from me.
Setting down my phone, I continue reworking my email to Atlas Theatrical. The more I tweak it, the closer I get to being brave enough to give it a subject line. My earlier drafts were too casual. Dismissive, even. That’s not the way to approach my former competitor and ask for work. Still, I can’t bring myself to do what I know I should—write something sincere.
There’s a knock on the cottage door, and it takes everything in me to school my response. It might not even be who I think.
But it is. Of course it is.
“You’ve learned how to use doors,” I say when I open up, fighting the smile that’s desperate to break free.
Carson’s wearing an oversized button-up shirt hanging open to show today’s tank, with a backward ball cap containing their mop of short curls. They look so effortlessly good, my attraction is almost jealousy—that’s how deep it goes.
“In my defense, you weren’t answering me when I knocked last time.” They step across the threshold to close the space between us.
“And if I hadn’t answered now?”
“I would have crawled through the window. But this time it would have been to make sure nothing had happened to you.” They take this moment to grab me, pulling me in as if in rescue.
“How heroic,” I say.
“I do what I can.”
Then they kiss me, so deep it makes my feet rise off the floor as they squeeze me close. I give in to the feeling, holding them as if I’ve missed them just as much, letting myself, for just a breath, pretend that this is my life, not some vacation cosplay I’ve been enacting. I wrap a hand around their neck, my fingers tangled in their hair as their own fingers press hard enough into my skin to leave a mark.
“And here I thought I was someone you were going to use to pass the time, but I haven’t seen you in an entire day,” I tease.
“Are you trying to tell me you missed me?”
“How could I miss someone I don’t know?”
“Right, right. We are pretending we don’t know each other at all. Sure. That if I do this”—they put a hand on my upper thigh, squeezing the bare flesh—“it doesn’t make you let out a gasp.”
I do, as stated, gasp. “Anyone would.”
“What would anyone do if I put my hand higher?” they ask. “Would anyone say my name?”
Their hand wanders up to the hem of my underwear. “ Carson ,” I whisper, their fingers slipping under the edge of the fabric.
“Aha,” they say, pulling back. “You do know me.” They kiss me again with a newfound fervor, returning their hand to the inside of my thigh. “I’ve been waiting all day for this.”
“Me too,” I admit.
“I love the feel of you,” they tell me, continuing to coax out my involuntary gasps. We’re only three steps from the doorway, which is still open a sliver.
“The door.” My words are faint, barely winning out over my need.
Carson makes quick work of reaching back, closing us off from the rest of the world. They press me up against the closed door, everything much more serious than it was ten seconds ago. With escalating urgency, they continue working me up, their fingers slipping under the fabric and onto the slick heat of me, where I do little to repress how good it feels. I can’t. Not when they have this uncanny way of finding what I want the most.
They kiss at my ear, keeping our bodies pressed together.
“Good,” they whisper as I begin to shake. “That’s what I want to see.”
Turning the tables, my hand undoes their buckle, reaching inside their pants without much ceremony.
“I can’t always be first,” I tell them, composing myself enough to get out my words.
“I like it,” they say.
“What if I like it too?” I ask, my hand resting on their underwear, waiting for permission. “What if I want to see you come for me? What if that does it for me even more than your touch?”
It’s never been true before, wanting to see someone else fall apart ahead of me. It’s a miracle if I get to fall apart at all. But Carson, so sneaky, so good at hiding their desires behind my own, doesn’t get to run this whole show.
“I—” They falter.
My hand stays still, resting on their pelvis, waiting. It goes on long enough that I start to pull back, never wanting to overstep.
“Yes,” they say.
Carson, for once, becomes pliant under my touch. And the fabric-tearing passion that we’ve shared softens into something so gentle it’s almost weightless. I take them to the couch, undressing them layer by layer while keeping on my own clothes. They are in their tank. Then they are in only the pants.
Then nothing at all, in broad daylight on the couch in the cottage, all mine to undo.
My fingers trace their stomach tattoo again. They tuck their hands behind their head.
“You have me, Eleanor Chapman,” they say. “Do anything you dare.”
“Adding in the last name,” I notice. “Did you google me or something?”
“Of course I did,” they tell me. “I’ll be insulted if you haven’t done the same.”
“I can’t confirm or deny doing such a thing,” I say.
They reach up to kiss me. “No need to. I can see it on your face anyway. You know me.”
Even when I think I’m the one in control, their naked body underneath me as I sit atop their pelvis, they find a way to throw that into question. I press my lips to theirs, silencing my thoughts along with their words.
“No talking,” I remind them.
Then we do what we’re best at—we unravel each other.