I had standards and a life, and I wasn’t about to let some man destroy it like it was merely the paper banner he was meant to crash through as he entered the field.
So only once my career was on track did I start dating again, and this time I did it right. With caution, checklists, and carefully weighed decisions.
I did not kiss colleagues. I did not kiss people I knew next to nothing about. I did not kiss men I had no intention of dating, or men I was incompatible with. I didn’t let random bouts of lust call the shots.
Until Charlie Lastra.
It never happened.
* * *
I expected Libby to be giddy about my slipup. Instead, she’s as disapproving as I am.
“Your Professional Nemesis from New York does not count for number five, Sissy,” she says. “Couldn’t you have made out with, like, a rodeo clown with a heart of gold?”
“I was wearing entirely the wrong shoes for that,” I say.
“You could kiss a million Charlies back in the city. You’re supposed to be trying new things here. We both are.” She brandishes the eggy spatula in my direction. Growing up, our apartment was a yogurt-or-granola-bar-breakfast home, but now Libby’s a full English breakfast kind of gal, and there are already pancakes and veggie sausages stacked next to the egg pan.
I fell out of bed at nine after another restless night, took a run followed by a quick shower, then came down for breakfast. Libby’s been up for hours already. She loves morning now even more than she loved sleeping as a teenager. Even on weekends, she never sleeps past seven. Partly, I’m sure, because she can hear Bea’s high-pitched squeal or Tala’s little pounding feet from three miles and a dose of morphine away.
She always says the two of them are us, but body swapped.
Bea, the oldest, is sweet as cherry pie like Libby, but with my lankiness and ash-brown hair. Tala has her mother’s strawberry-gold hair and is destined to be no taller than five four, but like her Aunt Nono, she’s a brute: opinionated and determined to never follow any command without a thorough explanation.
“You’re the one who Parent-Trapped me with him,” I point out, pulling the spatula from Libby’s hand and ushering her toward a chair. “It never would’ve happened if you hadn’t ditched me.”
“Look, Nora, sometimes even mommies need alone time,” she says slowly. “Anyway, I thought you hated that guy.”
“I don’t hate him,” I say. “We’re just, like, opposing magnets, or something.”
“Opposing magnets are the ones that draw together.”
“Okay, then we’re magnets with the same polarity.”
“Two magnets with the same polarity would never make out against a door.”
“Unlike other magnets, which would definitely do that.” I carry over our loaded plates, flopping into the chair across from her. It’s already hellishly hot. We’ve got the windows open and the fans on, but it’s as misty as a low-rent sauna.
“It was a moment of weakness.” The memory of Charlie’s hands on my waist, his chest flattening me into the door, sears through me.
Libby arches an eyebrow. With her blunt pink bob, she’s closer to mastering my own Evil Eye, but her cheeks are still, ultimately, too soft to get the job done. “Lest you forget, Sissy, that type of man has not worked out for you in the past.”
Personally, I wouldn’t lump Charlie in with my exes. For one thing, none of them ever tried to ravage me outside. Also, they never lurched out of a kiss like I’d shoved a hot fire poker down their pants.
“I’m proud of you for going off book—I just wouldn’t have chosen a hard-core groping by Count von Lastra as The Move.”
I drop my face into my forearm, newly mortified. “This is all Nadine Winters’s fault.”
Libby’s brow pinches. “Who?”
“Oh, that’s right.” I lift my head. “In your desperation to see me barefoot and pregnant, you ran out before I could tell you.” I unlock my phone and open the email from Dusty, sliding it into Libby’s field of vision. She hunches as she reads, and I shovel food into my mouth as fast as I can so I can get my workday started.
Libby’s not a startlingly fast reader. She absorbs books like they’re bubble baths, whereas my job has forced me to treat them more like hot-and-fast showers.
Her mouth shrinks, tightening into a knot as she reads, until finally, she bursts into laughter. “Oh my god!” she cries. “It’s Nora Stephens fan fiction!”