Chapter 2 #3
He pulled his phone out of a hidden pocket inside his waistcoat and enthusiastically tapped away at the screen until his Fling profile came up.
Dash, he/him/his. Former model, current cosplayer with an art degree that he doesn’t use and a Tbr that’ll take two centuries to get through. Powered by oat milk lattes and the search for his own HEA.
“Follow me?” he asked, with all the earnestness of the golden retriever nosing at the ground a few feet away from us.
“Sure thing.” I went into the app and quickly shot off a friend request, which he accepted instantly.
His feed was an interesting mix of pictures and videos of himself in various costumes—the one he was currently wearing included—updates on what he was reading, including mini reviews headed by Fling’s signature heart rating system, and boosts of other people’s bookish content.
A vague idea was taking shape in my mind. Sure, the Regency porn thing had been more of an exercise in procrastination than an actual plan. But as I eyed—but did not click on—the OnlyFans link in his profile, the idea became more of a possibility.
Never mind that I’d never written spice before.
I’d never really written a screenplay, either, except for that one class in college.
But every romance novel and movie I’d ever devoured had begun tumbling through my mind the moment I whirled around to find him in front of me, and as I sat there and imagined him staring earnestly at the camera as a heartfelt declaration tumbled out of those full red lips…
I could see it.
I didn’t say anything, though, not right then. I know, I know—how very unlike me to practice so much restraint. The thing is, even I knew that Regency porn was not exactly the kind of thing you spring on someone within an hour of first meeting.
“So, you have an art degree?” I asked instead, and took a sip of my lemonade.
Dash nodded. “That I use mostly for making costumes. Cosplaying is an art, a science, and my main reason for living.” His lips spread into a grin that would have made my knees quiver if I had been standing. “Well, that and my grandmothers.”
Was he trying to give me palpitations?
“Are they romance readers, too?”
“My grandmothers?” Dash shook his head. “I don’t think either of them has cracked a book since the Eisenhower administration. They’re casino bunnies, actually. They have this group of senior ladies called the Slot Sluts who take a bus up to Atlantic City a couple times a month.”
I cracked up. “They do not. The Slot Sluts?”
Dash looked pleased. “I keep telling them it’d make an excellent name for a romance book club, but alas, I’m the only literate one in the family.”
“Same here. It’s tragic, really—my aunt is an award-winning chef with her own restaurant, and my cousin graduated law school with honors and was instantly scooped up by a corporate firm. Neither of them reads romance novels, though, so you know. It’s a heavy burden on my shoulders.”
It was Dash’s turn to laugh. “Is your family in the city?”
“Miami and the Dominican Republic,” I told him, omitting my mother’s location for the simple reason that I had no idea where she was at any given time.
For a couple of weeks last spring, I’d thought that she was finally out of her Eat Pray Love era and was ready to settle down for a season of Under the Tuscan Sun, but Diane Lane she is not.
By the time her postcard made its way to me, she had already left Italy and gotten a job teaching English in Seoul.
That was a zip code or two ago, though. “I’ve actually only been in New York a little over two years.
Just long enough for some light heartbreak. ”
I had no idea what possessed me to add that. Dash nodded, though, and extended his long legs as if settling back for a story, his long fingers loosely curled around his coffee.
“We all have at least one of those,” he said. “It’s a rite of passage for anyone who moves here. Finding a decent apartment and finding love—that’s how you know you’ve made it in New York.”
“I’m not doing too badly on the apartment front. My first year, I had four roommates and a roach infestation. Now I’m in a fifth-floor walk-up and I can touch my stove while lying in bed, but at least I don’t have to share a bathroom.”
I did, however, spend a nauseatingly huge chunk of my salary on rent. You know, back when I had a salary. I spent a moment trying not to hyperventilate. I mean, it’s not like anyone my age has any savings anyway. And I know I’m not the only one putting groceries on her credit card.
“Not having to share a bathroom is the number one sign that you’ve made it in New York,” Dash said solemnly. “Liza Minnelli would be proud of you.”
“I might have to make that into a T-shirt.”
He dipped his head an inch or two, then lifted it in a way that made his hair flip. “Let me put my art degree to good use and make it for you.”
There was a curl to his smile and a sparkle in his brown eyes that made my brain want to short-circuit, the way my heart had done earlier.
Not this guy flirting with me.
The second half of his sentence was still hanging in the air, though I didn’t plan on answering.
Finding love… the closest thing I’d found was a coffee stain on my favorite dress, and I would have rather gone back to Times Square than expose my latest romantic disaster to someone who looked like the younger brother of a Greek god.
I cleared my throat. “As someone who wasn’t brave enough to major in something creative, I’m deeply curious. What was your focus?”
“Visual Merchandising. I wanted to design retail windows and displays.”
“No way, that sounds amazing.”
There was an air of bashfulness to the smile he gave me.
“I thought so. I never did end up working as a designer, though. I’d been modeling since middle school, and it seemed like a good way to graduate from college without too much debt, so I kept at it.
And then I started going on auditions and that kind of took over my life for a while.
That didn’t really work out, but I found cosplaying and that’s way more enjoyable than putting myself through the audition process. ”
I nodded. “Yeah, it seems really grueling.”
“It’s definitely not for everyone.” He took another sip of his iced coffee. “These days, I mostly pay the bills thanks to OnlyFans. I’ve never fully let go of the idea of going back to design, but it’s been six years now. Maybe it’s too late.”
“I don’t believe that,” I said firmly. “If it’s something you really love, then it’s always worth pursuing.”
“I guess I just feel like I’d have that kind of thing figured out by now. I mean, I’m turning thirty in less than two years.”
“Dash, you’re talking to the reigning queen of Doesn’t Have Anything Figured Out Yet Land.
I’m twenty-six, unemployed as of three weeks ago, and desperately trying to convince myself that I can write a screenplay and sell it before my savings run out.
Which, spoiler alert, will happen in a couple months if my landlord keeps insisting that I pay him rent, the unreasonable bastard. ”
That was kind of a lot to lay on someone I’d just met, but Dash just nodded. “Do you have a plan in case the screenplay thing takes longer than two months?”
“Kind of.” I let my gaze skip from Dash’s face to the schnauzer puppies chewing on their leashes as I tried to decide how much to tell him.
The debate lasted all of two seconds—the only thing I have more of than starlight and flair is impulsivity.
“At the risk of making you run away, screaming… I kind of had this idea. It’s a little out there and very impractical, but it might be doable? ”
“If it has anything to do with Liza Minnelli…”
I shook my head, smiling. And here’s the thing—I may not be the smartest person in the room, or the most driven, or the most likely to succeed at, well, anything.
But one thing I do have is a master’s degree in smooth talking.
So even though I didn’t have anything prepared—and even though it had been all of a couple of hours since the Duke of Harding had popped into my head—I launched into a pitch that I was pretty sure would have gotten me a meeting with a studio if I’d been in Hollywood, modifying my original idea as I went.
“Cosplaying as a Regency duke to make videos for social media,” he repeated. “It’s so simple and yet so brilliant. I can’t believe no one’s ever thought of it.”
“I’d just be writing the scripts, of course. I’d need to find someone to collaborate with to make everything happen. But I’m not wrong, right? If done properly, it could actually be pretty profitable.”
“If done properly, you could have a whole phenomenon on your hands. I mean, think of the possibilities. What I eat in a day as a cynical duke who refuses to fall in love with the penniless beauty he married out of convenience.”
“Get ready with me to tell the wallflower I love her,” I shot back, instantly caught up in the glow of creating with someone else.
“Day in the life of a reformed rake who’s starting to develop feelings for the spunky governess taking care of his ward.”
“Storytime: I married an heiress in order to save my failing estate and I just realized I’m incredibly attracted to her.”
I could have kept going for hours, but Dash’s phone buzzed with a text. He glanced down at it, then said, “Chase is asking if we got away okay. And if we’re hungry.”
“Tell him I’m always hungry. And that I’m treating you guys for helping me escape with all my limbs intact.”
The three of us ended up at a dive bar on Tenth where the menu was mostly limited to wings and fries, but the three-dollar beer more than made up for it.
If Dash was as earnest as a golden retriever, Chase made the word cocky come to life as he flirted with all the bartenders and scored us free shots.
At one point, a Lady Cerulean song came on the speakers and the three of us grinned at each other like we were sharing an inside joke.
The giddy fizz of it shot through me, intensifying when Dash helped me down from the barstool and tugged me to where Chase was already dancing, his body undulating to the pulsing rhythm.
Dash’s gaze lingered on mine even after he had let go of my hand, and he looked so serious that I had to hip check him.
For whatever reason, that cracked us both up—and then we burst out laughing again when we realized that Chase was so absorbed in making eyes at the bartender that he had no idea what had just happened.
It was one of those moments. You know, the shimmering ones that are destined to become a memory so full of light, you’ll never remember how dim it really was inside that dive bar.