Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 103102 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103102 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
“People still do the three-date rule?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think anyone ever did it. The average is a lot higher.”
I smile.
“What?”
“You’re always using data to explain your decisions.”
She gives me a look. “What else would I do?”
“What feels right.”
“Using data feels right,” she says. “Rules feel right. They keep you safe. They keep you from doing something stupid.”
“But you didn’t have a rule.”
“Nothing on the first date,” she says. “That was my only rule. Not that I ever wanted to break it. I’ve never felt like I could trust a guy I just met. Even if we’ve been talking for a bit.”
“That’s smart.”
She sighs. “I don’t know how people do it,” she says. “Casual sex. Even once I get past the whole this guy might be an axe murderer stage, I don’t feel safe enough to really trust someone with my body. My needs.”
“You haven’t slept with any of the guys?”
“One of them,” she admits.
“How was it?”
“Guess.”
“So good you wanted another date?” I grin.
She shakes her head.
“What was bad about it?”
“Nothing was bad. It just wasn’t good.” She looks to the window and my gaze follows for a moment. There’s a young couple stopped at a streetlight, staring into each other’s eyes. “It’s never been that good for me,” she says, pulling her attention back to me. “Not the way it is in your grandma’s books.”
“It’s hard to compete with fiction.”
“It’s not that…” She shakes her head. “I don’t go in expecting a fantasy. Just the sort of respect for power and strength the men claim to have.”
“And what happens?”
“Guys feel emasculated by my success,” she says. “Or they think it makes me less sexy somehow.”
Clearly she’s been dating the wrong men. “Maybe they’re not man enough to handle you.”
She scoffs. “Now you sound like one of those guys…what are they called? The assholes with the faux psychology term?”
“Alphahole.”
“Exactly.”
I smile. “Describes me to a T.”
Her eyes go to the tattoo on my arm. Then her fingers. A soft brush of my wrist.
My entire body roars to attention.
She catches herself touching me, but she doesn’t stop. She traces the line. “Sometimes, they’re guys in a suit. Sometimes they’re bad boys. With tattoos.”
“That is the perfect way to describe me,” I joke.
“A tattooed bad boy. Watch out, Orange County.”
“Is that all it takes? Tattoos?”
“I think so, yeah.” She traces the line up my arm. “Here, anyway. There isn’t a single tattoo shop in Irvine, Newport, or Huntington Hills. The Irvine company would never allow it. And the Huntington company isn’t about to let the Irvine company outclass them.”
She continues tracing the line up to my bicep.
I squeeze my hand to keep myself from letting out an audible reaction to her touch, then turn my arm over to give her a better view.
“What do you call this style?” Her fingers are on the sparrow woven into the sleeve.
“The artist called it pop-classic.”
“Of course.” She laughs. “The future head of Marvel Studios needs comic-inspired ink.”
Marvel. Right. “I don’t dream that big.”
“You do, too. It’s just different. You want to run your own small press. Publish cult classic comics.”
“I do.” How the hell did she guess that? No one guesses that. Even though it feels obvious to me. It’s not the most original goal for a graphic novelist. Especially not one who works for a large press. There’s a lot I love about my job. I still work with artists and writers. I still bring their stories to life. But I rarely bring a fresh, exciting idea to the world. Mostly, we publish long-running franchises and big-budget cash-ins. There are good graphic novelizations. There are good TV shows and movies turned into comics. But we end up putting out a lot of books of fan service. Nothing new, unique, challenging.
“You’d be good at it, I think,” she says. “Working with artists, developing stories. Why don’t you do it? Your grandma must have the money. She’s always talking about her nest egg and how she wants to live rich, die broke.”
All at once, the air leaves the room.
Grandma’s death.
Grandma’s health.
My whole body tenses.
Deanna must notice—she’s still got her hand on my arm—but she doesn’t say anything about it.
I jump onto the opposite topic. Life. Our wager. “Have you ever felt passionate about someone?”
Her eyes go wide, and she retracts her hand. Her lips curl. “Why?”
“Maybe that’s why you don’t see love as something romantic and magical.”
She looks at me funny, like she’s not sure why I’m changing the topic, but again, she doesn’t press. “Maybe. But I don’t see how you’re going to fix it.”
I do. I see, in vivid Technicolor, a thousand scenarios. Deanna and I in the back seat of her Tesla, her teal minidress pushed to her waist, her arms wrapped around me. Deanna laughing as we hurry back home.
Deanna splayed over her bed in some fancy silk chemise.