Great Big Beautiful Life(112)

Tomorrow, I tell him, and drive back to the bungalow in the woods.

At the kitchen table, I pour myself a glass of wine and listen to the printer in the other room churning out page after page of my notes while I sip. I always work better with something physical in front of me.

When the printer has finished, I carry the stack of pages back to the kitchen and sit, pen in hand, colorful highlighters at my elbow, to get to work. It’s not like I’m starting from scratch. I have a pretty good idea of how I want to handle the proposal itself already.

The big thing is the sample pages. I should’ve been working on them all along, but I wanted to choose the strongest part of the story, and to do that, I felt like I needed as complete of a picture as possible.

But what I’ve got is riddled with holes.

There’s so much material but very little that’s fully fleshed out. I’m second-guessing my process now, but it’s too late to do anything differently.

I pull out the notes on a handful of my favorite anecdotes and set them aside. I highlight Margaret’s word choice in places, draw question marks around the things that interest me.

Then I shove aside my impostor syndrome and start writing.

Aside from a quick break to heat up the pizza, and several trips to the bathroom once my bladder is already full to bursting, I do nothing but write, read, rewrite, and edit until four in the morning.

I didn’t mean to stay up so late, but I’ve got multiple usable writing samples now that I can revisit in the morning. Scratch that: in the afternoon. It’s morning already, and it’s time for me to sleep.

I scrub my face and brush my teeth, then collapse into bed, shooting off a good luck text to Hayden.

He responds immediately, because of course he’s somehow already awake: Sleep well.

And I do.

I dream I’m riding in a dark blue 1958 Spyder, the top down, Hayden in the seat beside me, our hands tangled up. The road curves back and forth along the cliffs, and the sun shines down on us. He lifts our hands to kiss the back of mine, his pale brown eyes warm on me.

Alice all the time, he murmurs, and then I wake up.



* * *



? ? ?

Hayden shows up at my door on Friday night with champagne in hand.

“Shouldn’t I be the one giving that to you?” I say. “You’re the one who did his pitch today.”

He kisses my cheek as I take the bottle from him. “You can bring the champagne tomorrow,” he promises, following me inside.

I pour us each a glass, and we clink them together and drink. The light sweetness fizzes down my throat, my stomach warming immediately.

“How did it go?” I ask him.

He lifts one shoulder. “It went.”

“That’s all I get?” I ask.

He puts his glass on the counter and takes my waist in his hands, drawing me to stand right in front of him. “How’s it been going here?” he asks.

“Okay,” I say, then amend my answer. “Good, I think. I feel like I’ve done everything I can at this point, so it’s either enough or it’s not.”

“It’ll be enough,” he says, smiling faintly.

I roll my eyes, but the truth is, his vote of confidence glides down between my ribs, warmer, fizzier, and more delicious than champagne. I lock my arms behind his neck. “You know what I think sounds nice?”

“I can guess,” he teases, voice low.

I smile. “A walk.”

He gives one hoarse laugh. “A walk,” he says, “sounds perfect.”

We wander along the trail for a while, then stop to have a drink on the patio at Rum Room. One drink turns into two, and then we need dinner to soak up the alcohol. We order every appetizer on the menu and share them between us.

By the time we’re trekking home, the moon is high and silvery. This time, when we get to the place where the path runs behind my rental house and he kisses me—like he did that first time—neither of us pulls away. We crash into each other, hands greedy for bare skin and hair, tongues and teeth and lips eager.

I try to tell myself that no matter what happens tomorrow, this thing between us won’t change, but I can feel the panic thrumming through our bodies, the fear that we’re racing against a ticking clock.

I pull back, catching my breath, our foreheads pressed against each other in the dark. “What if,” I whisper, “we did it together?”

“Did what?” he hums, his thumb running up and down along the small of my back, beneath my shirt.

“The book,” I say. “What if we did it together?”

He tenses in my arms.

“It was just an idea,” I say, trying to talk myself out of taking his reaction personally. It’s not wrong for him to have a preference for how he works. It doesn’t mean anything about how he sees me…does it?

“No,” he says, the word a heavy stone in the pit of my stomach.

“Okay,” I say.

“No, I mean, I already asked her,” he says. “A week ago, I asked if that was something she’d be open to. She’s not.”

“Why not?” I ask, my brow furrowing.

“I don’t know,” he says. “But it’s okay. You deserve this job, all on your own.”

“Stop being so nice,” I say. “You’re allowed to want it too.”