Chapter 5 Kaelee
Kaelee
OCTOBER
A month later, Kaelee’s stress had once again become unbearable.
She hadn’t used the app, but she had opened it a few times and browsed.
Sometimes the problem with a great one-nighter was the knowledge that the next one simply wouldn’t compare.
Extra gym sessions hadn’t been enough to wash away the panic over her meet and greet in New York.
So the next solution to that anxious ball in her gut was often a good fuck.
Pick someone new, her heart urged.
Message Marie, her impulsivity demanded.
Do something, her libido whispered over and over.
Healthier ways to cope with anxiety did exist. Exercise was her default, but when it wasn’t enough, the alternatives were chemical or sex.
And right now, exercise wasn’t fixing her stress at all.
Kaelee had to go to New York for her meet and greet with her editor and the team on the following Monday.
New York was where Marie lived, and the temptation to send her a message on the app was a burning need the last few days.
Sex with her was amazing. Why not?
The “why not” was the part that was harder to own.
Kaelee felt like even though they’d kept conversation minimal, she still was intrigued by Marie.
So Kaelee had asked if Toni would tag along—like preplanned cliterference.
It was a solid plan; they could hit a bar, meet their agent, and Kaelee could resist meeting up with the deliciousness that was Marie.
Kaelee wasn’t sure she’d ever craved another person the way she craved Marie.
She’d had several sex dreams the likes of which she hadn’t had in her entire life.
Sometimes people just clicked, and unfortunately, Kaelee had clicked with Marie.
I’ll keep busy. Meet someone at a bar here.
The night before, Kaelee had spent an hour on the app, looking at profiles and weighing the possibility of connecting with someone new. She had not picked anyone up or replied to anyone on the app. She couldn’t find anyone who excited her the way Marie had.
Today, though, Kaelee was standing in the doorway of Toni’s office and trying to quell a rising wave of panic. “You can’t bail on me. What if—”
“Nope. Nothing you say will change it.” Toni was at her desk swapping files out of her messenger bag. Toni said, “Sorry. I can’t go up to the city at all. I sent you and Em both a message.”
“It’s only Thursday, Toni.”
“I know.”
“Maybe we could go on Sunday, then? Just for the day.” Kaelee wasn’t the sort to beg, but right now, her voice came out whiney. “Come on, Toni…”
“No. I initially said maybe, not yes. This isn’t bailing on you.” Toni scowled at her, a look that used to be intimidating enough to make Kaelee shut up. Not anymore.
Kaelee glared at her in a way that she couldn’t imagine doing a year prior. “You aren’t even going to come with me for one day? Seriously? You’re … just ditching me?”
“Sorry. Addie was able to get away for a long weekend, and…” Toni looked up from her organized chaos of essays and file folders. “I haven’t seen her in five days. I have priorities that don’t include you or Emily or trains.”
“Ugh. I need friends who aren’t perpetually in a honeymoon stage,” Kaelee grumbled. She pointed at Toni. “I’m going to replace you with someone single. I’ll go to a writers’ conference and find a new friend, one without a happy relationship.”
“I understand you’re disappointed,” Toni said, not sounding the least bit apologetic. “You’re also overreacting, Kae. It was a loose ‘maybe’ of a plan … is that worth ending our acquaintanceship?”
“Friendship,” Kaelee corrected with a scowl. “Damn you. You’re my friend.”
“I know.” Toni flashed her a grin. “You’re tolerable, too. Which is why you’ll forgive me for switching a ‘maybe’ to a ‘no.’”
Kaelee sighed.
“Are you actually anxious about the meeting?” Toni asked gently.
“Greta’s great, and Em has your back. That’s what agents do.
They are your buffer, confidante, partner in facing any chaos.
The publicist I had was pretty fabulous, even though I hate dealing with that sort of stuff.
They’re all good people. And you know I couldn’t come to the actual meeting anyhow. ”
“I know. They’d be all aflutter over their star and forget I was there,” Kaelee teased.
Toni shook a finger at her. “Keep mocking me, and when your book explodes into awards and sales and bestseller lists, I’ll just prop up my feet and laugh at your karma.”
“Oh no, the karma of succeeding…” Kaelee rolled her eyes. “You’re ridiculous, you know? Thanks for the pep talk.”
There really wasn’t anyone like Toni. Finding a mentor who understood both academia and the publishing industry was akin to locating a copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio.
“I know you’re being weird about this, but I’m not sure why,” Toni bluntly pointed out. “What’s the real issue? If I thought it was about the meeting, I might have tried harder. Is that it?”
Kaelee felt her face flush. “I met this woman on the app I use.”
“Your sex app?”
“Can we not call it that where people might overhear? It makes me sound like a perv.” Kaelee moved into the office. “But yes, that app.”
“Hey, if I wasn’t about to be happily married, I’d be happy to know that app exists.” Toni shrugged. “Trying to meet anyone when my book made me end up on television interviews and all that, plus trying to be sure I didn’t accidentally hit on a student. Ugh. The single life is hard.”
“How do you accidentally hit on your student?”
“Not mine. Any student.” Toni scowled. “You can’t do that and expect to be taken seriously as a professor.”
“Well, this woman isn’t a student.” Kaelee thought about Marie’s forceful personality. “I think she’s in business or something. Very adept at negotiating.”
“You don’t know?”
“Sex. App,” Kaelee said with a shrug. “I wasn’t dating her. We met. We fucked. She’s on my mind. She was in DC, but she lives in New York.”
“And this has what to do with me?” Toni gave her a perplexed look.
“I thought if I was hanging out with you, I might have the self-control to … not see her.” Kaelee felt stupid saying it aloud, but there it was.
“Because great sex is a thing you suddenly want to avoid?” Toni folded her arms and gave Kaelee a stern look. “I like you, but sometimes you’re weird as hell.”
Kaelee laughed. “I like you, too, but you’re being downgraded. Once I find someone to replace you, you’re going to be my backup wing woman.”
“To help you avoid sex?” Toni shook her head.
“I don’t get it, but I guess we all have our priorities.
My priority is Addie. She’s coming home, and I …
missed her.” Toni still looked vaguely constipated when she admitted to missing her soon-to-be wife, but Kaelee wasn’t cruel enough to comment.
The queen of cynicism had changed into the queen of domesticity since she got engaged.
In a last-ditch attempt at creating a way to have the self-control she lacked with Marie, Kaelee suggested, “Invite her, too. I like Addie. We can take the train on Sunday, grab dinner, and head to the bar. Then you can go back to DC.”
“Nope.” Toni flashed a wolfish smile. “She’s been on set more often for the extra episodes they added, so I’m not going anywhere this weekend. Watching people fawn over my woman isn’t my idea of a good time. Next week, you and me. Bar. Dinner. Whatever.”
“I put up with people fawning over both of you, you realize?” Kaelee grumbled. “I manage.”
“It’s different when you have to tolerate everyone in the room looking at your future wife covetously.” Toni scowled to herself.
“Overreaction much?”
“Tell me that when you find the right wom—”
“Whoa there!” Kaelee held her hand up as if to stop that damning statement, even as her thoughts drifted to Marie.
She was rare in that she was still intriguing, but that didn’t mean Kaelee was going to start thinking domestic thoughts.
“Not now. Not ever. Why would you say that? We’ve discussed this. ”
“Says the person who needed to find excuses not to see the woman she seems to desperately want to see.” Toni laughed.
“That’s different,” Kaelee objected. “I don’t usually drink at the same pond twice.”
“Uh-huh. That’s the issue.” Toni shook her head. “She lives in New York, right?”
“Well, yes.”
Toni gave her a look that was both amused and pitying. “Kae, I say this with all seriousness, if you want to see her when you’re in town to get your fix, do it. Meet her. Get her naked. Leave. It’s not like you do anything different just because it’s the second night.”
“She’s just sexy and smart, and I let her…” Kaelee flushed but forced herself to continue, “I let down some walls with her.”
This time Toni stared at her kindly. “So see her one last time and then get out if you don’t want more.”
“I’m not a relationship person.”
“Oh, me either. I said that right up to when I was at risk of losing Addie.” Toni’s expression shifted into something raw and fierce, and Kaelee could easily see why so many women stared at her.
Toni was a surly woman socially, but she was charm personified in a classroom or interview.
Kaelee suspected she was even more so on a date.
No wonder Addie is so happy.
In some ways, Toni was as much role model as friend.
She was more masc than Kaelee, and her attire reflected it.
Kaelee knew from the past that she could wear a skirt comfortably at one point, but these days, she was more at ease wearing trousers than dresses, more comfortable leading than following, and admittedly, she was fond of waking up with a woman who looked like she’d need a stylist to control her morning-after hair if she was feeling reckless enough to stay overnight.
Someone who looks like Marie.
“Don’t deny yourself joy, Kae.” Toni caught her gaze. “See the businesswoman. Enjoy your time, and then if you’re afraid you might catch feelings, bail.”