Chapter 3 #2
I even told her about this weird little movie from the nineties that I’d streamed a few days before, even though Yaz rarely had time to look at anything but contracts.
The only thing I failed to mention was the doubt that had been circling my head for weeks, as unwanted as an infestation of fruit flies. I hadn’t been good enough for Milo, or for all the men I’d tried to date after him. I hadn’t been good enough at my job.
What if I wasn’t a good enough writer to make my biggest dream come true?
Yaz didn’t bother to keep lecturing me about wasting time on my Duke of Harding idea, but mostly because she predicted that I would forget about it in less than a week.
You know, as I usually did. She didn’t even have to remind me about my jewelry-making phase or the time I thought I could take barre classes without seriously injuring myself.
Or the summer I was convinced that I could get my life together if I started Bullet Journaling—not to mention, make some extra cash if I recorded my process and posted it to YouTube.
So I spent a huge chunk of a paycheck on these gorgeous notebooks and an assortment of mind-bogglingly expensive pens and stickers and washi tape and…
And somehow I spent so much that I had to ask Yaz to help me cover a bunch of my bills.
It was all going to be worth it, though…
only, getting my monthly spreads to look on paper like what I’d envisioned in my head had been so frustrating that I’d ended up quitting two weeks into my Bujo journey.
Unlike 99 percent of my impulsive ideas, though, the Regency one didn’t fade away as soon as it flashed through my brain. And I was going to need a paying gig if I was going to keep doing stuff like eating and being housed.
No pressure, right?
So yeah, was it any wonder that I found myself on Fling the next day, following the link to Dash’s OnlyFans profile?
None of the stuff on there was super-explicit—it was mostly videos of him flirting with the camera while shirtless and a few pictures of him posing in underwear.
Nothing you wouldn’t see outside of a perfume ad on a billboard in Times Square.
There was this one picture, though, of him in a pair of sweatpants, that—
A notification lit up the screen of my phone and I yelped, throwing my hands up into the air. Unfortunately, the phone went up into the air, too—but don’t worry, my nose broke its fall.
Rubbing my throbbing appendage (heh), I swiped OnlyFans off my screen and went back to Fling, where I had a message waiting for me from none other than Dash himself. He’d sent me a drawing of a T-shirt with the words Liza Minnelli would be proud of you emblazoned across the chest.
Iconic, I texted. I might need a matching sweatshirt.
While I waited for him to reply, I tapped back to his profile.
He wasn’t the most frequent poster, and I suspected he would have a hell of a lot more followers than he already did if he dedicated a little more time to replying to the besotted people in his comments, though I could see why he’d want to ignore some of the more, well, intense ones.
What little he’d posted was articulate and funny—a little glimpse of the man behind the face, and an assurance that his personality sparkled as hard as his smile did.
As it had each time I’d seen that smile, my heart began to do a weird fluttery dance. Not because I was into him or anything, though he was terrifyingly attractive.
It was just that every time I looked at his profile picture, possibilities started to bloom inside me like tiny butterfly-covered flowers, until I felt like a veritable fucking garden.
I’d never felt this excited before—not over my screenplay, not over any of the projects I’d overseen as project manager, and definitely not over any of the dates I’d been on since Milo. Or maybe even before him.
It may have started off as an attempt to distract both Yaz and myself, but every atom in my soul was yearning to bring the Duke of Harding to life. And I wanted Dash to help me.
And Dash… Dash was taking his sweet time typing out a message. I watched the three dots under his name appear and reappear for an annoyingly long time before text finally flashed onto my screen. Let me tell you, it was worth the wait.
So, I was thinking about your Duke of Harding idea. Feel free to say no if it’s not what you had in mind, but would you consider letting me collab with you?
I was lying on my back in bed with my feet propped up on my headboard, and I tried to sit up so fast that I rolled right off the mattress. I practically dislocated something as I hit the floor with a thump they probably felt all the way in the first floor.
I might be interested! I typed back, all cool nonchalance, and rubbed my elbow. Want to meet up tomorrow and discuss the details?
Dash agreed with gratifying enthusiasm. We spent the next few minutes working out where and when we were going to meet.
I sent Dash a link to a coffee shop in Greenwich Village—it was a sweaty subway ride from my apartment in Hell’s Kitchen, but I figured that in the interest of general safety, I’d better meet him in a different neighborhood.
The day of the meeting I decided at the last minute to walk there, which might have been longer and sweatier than the subway, but at least it helped me burn off some of the jitters.
“Sorry!” I told Dash breathlessly as I hurried inside. “Sorry, sorry, I know I’m late!”
“It’s no big deal,” he said easily.
“I, uh.” I cast a glance around the coffee shop. “I know it’s sauna levels of hot out here, but do you want to walk and talk? I have coffee-related trauma that I still haven’t healed from.”
I was mostly exaggerating for effect, as one does, but there was a grain of truth to my words.
Although I was holding on to the hope that the universe wouldn’t be cruel enough to put on a repeat performance of the other day.
At least not where the spilled coffee was concerned—I still wasn’t sure how I was going to get the stains out of my dress.
I was already wired enough that consuming a caffeinated beverage would only result in my head blowing clear off my shoulders. So I went for a watermelon lime slushy instead, pleased at how the bright color shining through the plastic tumbler went with my pink romper.
Stepping out of the aggressively air-conditioned cafe, we headed out into Washington Square Park to stroll among all the other fools who weren’t smart enough to stay out of the heat.
“I just want to clarify—again—that I’m not actually affiliated with any, like, production companies.
I’m just a little guy with a laptop who wants to write you some scripts,” I said, knowing I was rambling and yet utterly helpless to stop.
“Potentially, I mean. If you found the stuff I sent you not horrible and wanted me to keep doing it.”
Okay, so I was nervous.
“I do, yeah. To be honest, I’ve been trying to find a good niche for a while—I’ve mostly retired from trying to model, and right now I’m mostly focusing on my content creation.
” He caught my gaze and held it with such disarming sincerity that I almost forgot to draw in my next breath.
“Which leads me to the question. Would this idea be something I could explore with some, uh, spicier content? The thing is, I’ve had a hard time getting any visibility on OnlyFans lately, and I’m kind of worried about audience retention.
Chase has been telling me for weeks that I need a gimmick. ”
Well, that took care of that. I let out a sigh of relief that must not have translated, because Dash’s shoulders rose noticeably.
“My content isn’t the most explicit, but I’d understand if you’d rather not be involved in it at all,” he said, shoving a lock of hair off his forehead and looking kind of like I do when I wish I would’ve kept my big mouth shut.
“It’s just that OnlyFans is how I’m making the bulk of my income right now and—”
“Actually, that would be amazing,” I blurted out, and some of the tension left Dash’s shoulders.
“There’s like no Regency-themed spice out there—not a single naked duke to be found in the whole internet.
And trust me, I looked. You’d corner the market, or whatever.
Corporate-speak is clearly not my forte. ”
“Until you reached out to me, I’d never really considered taking cosplay to the next level.” Dash took a sip of coffee. “Which is actually kind of weird, given how much Regency I read.”
“Oh yeah?”
“My mother named me Dashwood.” Grimacing, he led us to an empty bench.
“It would have been Marianne or Elinor if I’d been a girl, but to her huge disappointment, she only had me.
And let’s not even talk about the fact that my dad’s last name is Bennet—though maybe she would’ve stayed married to him if it had been Darcy. ”
I cocked my head as I sat down. “So does that make you sense or sensibility?”
“A little bit of both, I guess,” he said. And then he did this leading man hair flip that might have been an unconscious gesture, but from the tiny smile on the corner of his lips it was obvious that he knew what an effect it had on other people.
And it was. Having an effect on me, I mean. My knees didn’t shake and I didn’t feel sparks or electricity or whatever it is you’re supposed to feel, but there was definitely… something.
A little catch in my breath. So tiny it was almost imperceptible. But perceive it I did, and it was probably what made me pop out with “Too bad she didn’t name you Hardwood—that would’ve been even more on theme.”