I sigh. “I sure did.”
Finally, Eden sits up and composes herself. “So,” she says with forced calm after a few deep breaths, “the sex was good?”
The image of him moving over me, teasingly inching his way in, crashes into my thoughts. His face tilted to the ceiling, upper lip glistening with sweat. The recollection sends me spinning, filling my chest with a tight, uncomfortable ache.
“It was.” I don’t want to say too much because it feels so deeply personal, even still, but I’m sure she hears the way my voice comes out thin and shaky.
Holy shit, he’d said. What is this sex?
And I knew exactly what he meant.
“Actually, I’m ruined,” I mumble in confirmation.
She smacks her hand down on the mattress. “I knew it.”
I laugh. “Eden, don’t be weird.”
“You do realize you slept with my actual perfect man?”
I nod. “I admit I feel sort of guilty.”
“You should! I’ve loved him for a decade! If I came to you and said, ‘Last night I slept with that hot New York Times editor you love,’ are you trying to tell me you wouldn’t piglet all over my story and ask for every detail?”
I grin up at her. “I think we both know I am not the intrusive one in this relationship.”
“Says the journalist!”
“Speaking of which…” I plant my hands on her back and roll her off my bed.
She looks up at me from the floor. “I hate that you’re not more high-pitched and hysterical about all of this. I truly want to lose my mind that my best friend had sex with the man who is arguably on his way toward being the biggest BBC star of the decade and I can’t even tell Becky or Juan about this, can I?”
“No.” Her bartending team is a cluster of adorable, gossipy knuckleheads, and my experience with Alec would end up as a vaguely dishy post on Instagram within an hour. But I do know what she means. I don’t feel giddy or deliciously slutty. I mostly just feel tired and a little sad. “I think I’d be more bubbly about it if he’d been honest about who he was.”
“But maybe he liked that he could be anonymous with you.”
I nod, chewing my fingernail and thinking about what he said again.
I’m really happy to be here with you. Exactly how it was… Whatever happens after this, I want you to promise to remember that. “I just feel a little used.”
“I would let Dr. Minjoon Song use me however he damn well pleased.”
I laugh. “I know you would. And I’m sorry to tell you, but it’s everything you’d hope.”
She falls back onto the floor, speaking to me from the grave, with her arms crossed over her chest. “He gave you underwear and a plane ticket, and you’re not even going to call him?”
“That’s the best part,” I say, and lean over the edge of the bed to give her a wry grin. “We didn’t exchange numbers.”
* * *
For about an hour, my brain is too full for me to be very productive in writing anything up. The pharma meeting feels like a gray hum of boredom in the background. And Jupiter feels like a confusing jumble in my thoughts: too many faces and details and overlapping timelines. Alec penetrates everything—the sharp angle of his jaw, the heat of his body, and the quiet, deep rumble of his voice—but Spence is somehow there, too, his betrayal filtering in and out of my thoughts. It sends a confusing mix of anger and lust and horror creeping into my mood, making objectivity hard to find.
I know I should sleep some more before I dig into writing, but I now have just over thirty hours before I need to get both assignments to Billy for editorial. And one isn’t just a “story” but the first big chance I’ve been given since I started working at the Times. I can’t fuck this up.
I write the boring five hundred words on international pharma law, send the piece, and then work until nearly midnight on Jupiter. I sleep until four, when I drag myself out of bed to finish what I know is a very shitty draft.
With only half a day left to finish, I immediately begin edits.
But because journalism follows Murphy’s Law, just as I get into a rhythm—with my notes compiled and organized, fingers flying over the keyboard reworking entire paragraphs, my mind slotting the myriad pieces together into a clear narrative—a text pops up from Billy with a request to meet a verified Jupiter source at a hotel on Wilshire at 9 a.m., which will eat at least an hour and a half of my deadline time. But he’s marked it as URGENT, and I know what that means.