Chapter Four
Mal
Mal could hardly believe his luck. When the woman in gold, now known to be Josephine Boateng of @drjojobee fame, opened the
door, he’d been certain that he was cursed. There was having zero game, then there was getting caught mumbling to yourself
in a woman’s bedroom and promising that you weren’t there to steal her underwear. And yet, despite his many foibles, Jo was
guiding him through the foyer, two manicured fingers hooked loosely into his, melting barriers between him and the other guests
with the efficiency of a blowtorch. She had a cosmic pull, dragging people from across the room into her orbit to say hello,
to kiss her on the cheek and tell her, “You look incredible tonight, Josephine. Who are you wearing?” To waggle their eyebrows
and toss him knowing looks and ask, “Now, who is this ?”
“Malcolm Waters, author of She Blooms at Dusk , which may sound familiar because it’s been dominating the lists lately,” she would say, smiling like she was unveiling a
masterpiece. “He’s very humble, so he won’t tell you any of this, which is why I’m doing it first.”
“A pleasure,” he would say after their requisite oohs and aahs, marveling at how simply being perceived as hers turned him visible.
Mal knew he tended to romanticize real life. It was what made him a strong storyteller, but also what had kept him going back
to his ex over and over again, despite years of evidence suggesting they were best apart. One heartfelt apology, one well-timed
sunset kiss, and he would be sucked back in, spinning together the vision of a future in which Portia returned to him a changed
woman and their second (third, fourth) attempt at romance could end with a happily ever after.
And right now he was romanticizing Jo. Jo, who, when she leaned in to whisper a joke in his ear, smelled like ginger spice
and jasmine; Jo, who, draped in shimmery, slick gold satin, seemed to glow from the inside out, luminous as the full moon
he could see peeking through the panes of the floor-to-ceiling windows. Jo, whose focus made him feel like the most important
person in a room full of newscasters and TV producers, actors, models, and entrepreneurs.
He’d thought she was beautiful when she was one of the one thousand and fifty-two people he followed on Instagram. He’d thought
she was charming in her messages—alternately bold and self-effacing, witty and occasionally profound, curious in the way academics
so often were about exactly how people ticked. More than once during their conversations, he’d considered asking her to meet
up. We’re in the same city , he had wanted to say, why don’t we continue this conversation over coffee? But then he’d recall that he was just one follower in her legion of four hundred thousand, and he’d remember Portia telling
him that he was much better on paper , and the whim would pass. Besides, social media was a disguise. It was the face people chose to show the world, not the one
they lived in all day.
Except Jo’s face in real life was so much more . Dr.Jojobee was glamorous, aloof, and always put together, but Jo was charming, cheerful, a little silly, even. He wanted
to go back upstairs and tell her all of his truths. He wanted to kiss her, if she’d like it. If the night continued to go
the way it was going, he thought he might try.
“Ugh. Where is she?” Jo said, frustrated, leading him out of the atrium and into the hall. She sucked in her cheeks, annoyed,
then turned and gave him a helpless look. “I’m sorry. I promised you that I’d deliver you to Renata, and I’ve introduced you
to basically everyone but her.”
“That’s okay,” Mal said. “I appreciate it. Lots of interesting people out there.”
Jo wrinkled her nose.
“You really enjoyed listening to Boris tell me about his gout ?” she said.
Mal laughed.
“I thought it was fascinating that an Academy Award–winning director comes to you for medical advice,” he quipped.
Mal expected a laugh from her, or at the very least a pleased eye roll. But Jo’s gaze had shifted to somewhere over his shoulder
and had turned hard. When it slid back to his, it didn’t soften.
“Your bow tie’s crooked,” she said, suddenly curt, and then, with a click of her heel that sounded like she intended to drive
it through the floor, she stepped in close to adjust it herself.
Before Mal could fully formulate the question gestating in his mind, its answer presented itself.
“Jo,” a man said, breathless. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
Mal turned and found himself the subject of intense scrutiny.
He had never seen Ezra Adelman in real life, but he managed to be more aggravatingly good-looking than he appeared in his photos, the combination of Renata Kovalenko’s inhuman beauty merged with Paul Adelman’s aggressive averageness to create a man Mal had once seen declared America’s Bachelor Prince.
“Can we talk?” Ezra said, presumably to Jo, though his eyes hadn’t left Mal’s.
“I’m a bit busy,” Jo said. She’d undone Mal’s bow tie entirely and was retying it with the deftness of someone who’d tied
a thousand bow ties before, many of them, Mal realized, possibly worn by the man who was glaring daggers at him right now.
“Have to deliver this one to your mom. This is Malcolm Waters. She’s trying to buy film rights to his book, and for some reason
decided the best place to talk to him about it was here.”
Ezra’s expression cleared as cleanly as if he’d wiped it away.
“Nice to meet you,” he said, in a way that suggested that nice was generous . Then, to Jo, “It’ll just take a minute.”
Jo snapped Mal’s bow tie tight, then tapped it once with the tips of her fingers.
“No it won’t,” she said. To Mal, brightly, “Much better. Let’s go.”
Then she set off, stepping around Ezra like he was a fallen log in her path.
And, despite the uncertainty that churned like a whirlpool in his stomach, Mal had no choice but to follow.
“So they’re definitely fucking,” Kieran said, when two days after the party, Mal showed up at his place to return his borrowed
suit.
“Were, maybe,” Mal said, keeping his voice low. Harvey, their two-year-old, was fast asleep in the room next door. He didn’t want to consider the possibility that the so-called Virgin Sex Doc had been lying about her lack of experience, not because he cared much about Jo’s sexual history, but because it would mean that she had lied to him. Which, he supposed, was only marginally worse than using him to make Ezra Adelman jealous.
“Sound a little less excited about the idea, babe. Mal’s clearly disappointed,” Kelechi said from the couch where she lay,
phone balanced on top of her pregnant belly, a candy-striped pink sock over her left residual leg. “Also, I’m, like, a thousand
percent sure they are not.”
“Kind of cocky, for someone with no evidence,” Kieran said.
Kelechi grinned. In college, she’d earned the nickname FBI for her ability to track down the names of her friends’ missed
connections based on astonishingly limited information. She’d once hunted down a guy her friend had danced with in a club
based on the clue “Chris from Canada.” Finding info on an influencer and a guy who was actually famous was a piece of cake.
With a flourish, Kelechi turned over her phone to reveal a photograph of Ezra Adelman, a few years and twenty pounds (lighter)
ago, dressed in a crisp black tuxedo and escorting a smiling Jo on a red carpet. She looked incredible in a turquoise floor-length
gown and a slicked-back high ponytail, and Mal felt his stomach clench at the sight of them together.
“Not sure if this helps, K,” he said.
Kelechi rolled her eyes.
“Did you read the article?” she said. She cleared her throat, then started, “‘Jo’s my closest friend in the entire world.
There’s no one else I’d rather be here with tonight.’”
Kieran nodded sagely, rubbing his chin.
“Intimate, but heavy on the platonic vibes. He’s definitely not claiming her,” he observed. He nudged Mal, just a bit too hard, in the ribs. “I stand corrected. Maybe you do have a shot.”
Mal wasn’t so sure. The way Ezra had looked at him, like he wanted to drive an ice pick into his chest, was not how one generally
looked at a man who was cavorting with his entirely platonic friend.
And then there was Jo. She’d shone blindingly bright for the hour or so they’d had together, but the second Ezra appeared,
it was like a curtain in her eyes had snapped closed. Suddenly she was curt, her smiles unnaturally tight at the corners.
They’d found Renata at the end of the hall shortly afterward, and she’d excused herself after introducing them with a quick
“I’m sure you two have a lot to talk about,” disappearing like a sullen Cinderella at the stroke of midnight.
Mal knew a breakup when he saw one; after all, he’d been involved in several himself. And what he had witnessed between Jo
Boateng and Ezra Adelman was most certainly its aftermath.
He’d heard neither hide nor hair from Jo since. This, Mal knew, was for the best. It had been two and a half years since he’d
last seen Portia, and while he’d licked most of his wounds clean, he was still wary of the sort of all-consuming, whirlwind
infatuation that he’d felt with her, that he’d immediately sensed forming with Jo. The next time Mal fell for someone, he
would do it slowly, ease himself in, get to know them before they surprised him with red flags he’d ignored among the sea
of green.
But then, just as he gathered his resolve, his phone buzzed.
It was a notification from Instagram. Drjojobee has sent you a message.
Mal choked on his spit, and Kieran and Kelechi looked at him in alarm.
“You okay there?” Kieran said hesitantly.
Mal coughed, beating at his chest as he read the message on his screen. Then read it again.
Hey, it said. You seem to have forgotten to ask for my number. Would you like me to give it to you? Maybe over dinner?
“I think...” he said, clearing his throat. “She might have just asked me out.”