Write Before Christmas, page 9
He pressed his lips together. “I’m not the most…demonstrative person.”
I laughed. “Yeah, I know. We just spent the afternoon together, and you made sure to change the subject any time something personal came up.”
Matt frowned. “And my time is not my own right now. I’m not going to be super available to you.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “I get it. I have my own life—with the job and my family and the holidays and all of it. We’re good.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “I’ve told you most of my shortcomings by now, so let me say something positive. I think I’m pretty great at sex.”
I giggled. “How about you let me be the judge?”
He held my shaking hand the entire drive from my parents’ place up the long, winding road to his rental house. As he parked, he peered up at the house. “Looks like Jane’s gone.” He glanced over at me. “That would’ve been awkward.”
I laughed, relieving some of the tension in my body. I felt like I was vibrating from the inside with so much excitement and nervousness, it was hard to tell where one emotion started and the other ended. I was about to be more vulnerable in front of someone than I had been in twenty-five years. The thought terrified me but also thrilled me. I never would have dared to glue “have sex with someone I barely know who also happens to be famous” on my vision board, because the thought never would have even occurred to me. That was how little I’d allowed myself to dream these past few decades. I’d been able to envision nice closets and puppies for my future, but not fun, hot sex with an attractive man.
He held the key in the ignition, car still on. “You still up for this?”
“Yes,” I said. “Definitely.”
“You can stop it at any time.” He turned off the engine. “We can go get a coffee or something,” he added with a wink.
I laughed. “You too,” I told him.
We exited the car and walked side by side up the path. I shivered, but not from the cold. Trying to stay in the moment, I took a deep breath like Una instructed us during yoga class. A tiny part of my brain was trying to talk me out of this: he’s going to be disappointed, he’s leaving in a few weeks, he’s out of your league.
I opted to confront these inner demons head-on and address them instead of letting them ruin my night.
“It’s really been a while for me,” I told Matt. “I want you to know that because it’s the truth, but also because I’d like to lower expectations.”
“Dani.” He touched my cheek. “You’re beautiful and funny and sweet, and this is going to be great.”
I kissed his fingers, and he unlocked the door to the house.
He tossed his keys onto the table inside the front door, and I followed him up to his bedroom, the room with the flowery bedspread where I’d found his boxer-briefs on day one of my tenure as his housekeeper. “At least your underwear won’t be a surprise.” I watched as he lit a candle on the dresser and lowered the lights.
Matt stepped toward me, his darkened eyes focused on my lips.
I held up a hand to stop him. “Wait,” I said.
He frowned.
“I have an idea.” I pointed to the master bath. “You go in there, and I’ll call you in when I’m ready.”
He raised an eyebrow at me.
“Trust me.” I caressed his cheek and softly touched my lips to his, inhaling his woodsy scent. “I promise. This will be worth it.”
After he closed the door, I giggled inwardly as I prepared myself. Even the thought of doing what I was about to do sent a giddy, naughty tingle down my spine that I’d never felt before. My ex always made fun of me if I wanted to try something new or if I altered anything I did or how I looked in even the most miniscule way. But I somehow knew Matt wouldn’t do that. And even if he did think I was being goofy, it’d be okay. He was on my side. I knew that.
And he’d be gone in a few weeks, anyway. If I couldn’t get fully vulnerable with someone who’d be gone from my life by the end of the month, then I’d never be able to do it with anyone.
I stripped off my yoga pants and my skimpy workout shirt. I hid my underwear under my discarded clothes and assessed my forty-five-year-old body in the full-length mirror. Matt was about to be the first person who wasn’t my doctor to see me fully undressed in way too long. I stood up straight. Yes, I was older than when I’d done this for the first time, but so was Matt. And I was a naked woman, ready and willing to sleep with him. He most likely wouldn’t look beyond the nudity to assess my alleged imperfections. I had to keep reminding myself of that fact.
In the closet, I found a blue tie and wrapped it around my neck. Then I sprawled out on the bed, letting the tie fall between my breasts.
“Okay!” I called. “Come on in.”
Matt opened the door and did a double take when he saw me there, naked, posed seductively, and anticipating him. “Holy…”
“Markys.” I curled a finger and beckoned him over to me.
Wide-eyed, he asked, “Are we really doing this?”
“We’re doing this.”
“All right, Lady Tatyana.” Yanking his shirt off, he rushed over to me and pounced. “Get ready.”
…
Matt
December 11th, nine days before deadline
“Where are you going?” Jane strolled out of the first floor bedroom she used as her office and caught me as I was putting on my coat.
“Out.” I wasn’t a sneaky teenager, and she wasn’t my mom, so why did I feel like I’d just been caught in the act of disobedience? Oh, yeah, maybe because I was sneaking out of the house to have sex with Dani at her parents’ place while they were away for the afternoon. Like we were actual teens.
Jane crossed her arms over her chest and gave me her best no-nonsense, “I’m not buying it” look. “How’s the writing going today?”
“Pretty well.” After Dani left the other night, after several rounds of epic, gymnastic sex that made my heart pound just thinking about it, I got a second wind and wrote for a few hours. And then all day yesterday and for the first half of today, the words poured out of me. The love story between Cassya and Alyster the pirate was really heating up.
“And how many words have you written today?”
“Enough,” I said quickly. I probably hadn’t written enough for Jane’s taste, but I had managed to write bare-bones drafts of the next three scenes, giving me a concrete plan for where the story would go next. I was proud of what I’d accomplished; for the first time in a long time, I was in the groove.
I’d earned a little time off to clear my head.
Jane glanced at the kitchen door, through which Dani had just appeared, also pulling on her coat.
Dani looked like a deer in the headlights. “Hi, Jane.”
Jane glared at me. “What’s going on?”
I, undeterred, pulled my coat on the rest of the way. “We’re going to a cookie exchange.” That was where Dani’s family was today. Jane knew everything about this town, so I couldn’t simply make up a fake Christmas event. She’d see right through it.
Dani, without missing a beat, ran back into the kitchen and grabbed a white bakery box, which she held up to show Jane. “Jam thumbprints.” She’d actually made those exclusively for me, but I was proud of her for recognizing the need to use them in service of our lie.
“You’re going to the cookie exchange?” Jane grinned knowingly at me.
“It’s a Wackernagel tradition,” I said.
“Yeah,” Jane said, “I know that. I’m questioning the notion that you of all people would be going to a crowded event full of people who might recognize you.”
Damn it. She had me there.
Dani’s big blue-gray eyes had gone wide. “If it’s a problem, Jane—”
“It’s not a problem,” I said. “I can’t sit there in my office day after day trying to write. Getting out in the world inspires me. Jane understands that.” I bugged my eyeballs out at her.
“I do. I do understand that.” Jane spun around and retreated to her office.
My shoulders relaxed, and I winked at Dani. Jane believed us, or at least she was kind enough to pretend to believe us so Dani and I could go out and have fun and maybe try that thing again where we pretended Danyl was watching us—
“What are you doing?” I asked.
Jane had grabbed her coat from her office and was now putting it on. “I’m coming with,” she said.
“No, you’re not,” I said.
Dani stood stock still, her white knuckles gripping the decoy bakery box.
“Like you said.” Jane smirked at me. “The cookie exchange is a Wackernagel tradition, and I could stand to blow off some steam, as well.” She buttoned up the black jacket. “If that’s okay with you two.”
Jane had the upper hand here. I had to either give in and admit what Dani and I were actually up to or continue the ruse and call her bluff. Jane was like the little sister I never had, and she was messing with me. She knew I always had a hard time admitting she was right, like when she wanted me to hire a housekeeper, and she would ride this little ruse out until I came clean.
Well, I’d show her. This thing between Dani and me was none of her business.
“Great,” I said, plastering on a cheery disposition and grabbing the hat Dani had found for me the other day. “The more the merrier!”
“Super,” Jane said.
Dani’s eyes ping-ponged between Jane and me as she silently watched our conversation like we were warring siblings who refused to let the other person win.
When we got out to my car, Dani let Jane have the front seat. “When you say you wrote ‘enough’ words yesterday,” Jane said as I reversed out of my parking spot, “exactly how many do you mean?”
“I mean I hit my limit for that writing session. It’s not an exact science for me.” I glanced in the mirror at Dani, who was checking her phone, probably sending out an SOS message to one of her family members to rescue her from this waking nightmare. “Some writers can say definitively, ‘I write at least two thousand words a day, rain or shine.’ That’s not me. Sometimes I write thirty-five hundred. Other days it’s three-fifty.”
“How many did you write yesterday?”
“Two-thousand fifty-three,” I said proudly. Yes, most of those were about Cassya and Alyster, but so what? They still counted. And they were good words, too. I loved how that storyline was taking shape.
Jane nodded, impressed. “And the day before that?”
“Seven-oh-six.” But that was pre-Dani. Today I was coasting toward three thousand words.
Jane looked at me, eyes steely. “I know you don’t want me to keep mentioning this,” she whispered with a glance back at Dani, who was still on her phone, probably dying from the awkwardness, “but December twentieth is fast approaching.”
“I’m well-aware, and I’m going to hit the deadline. I always do.” I was M.C. Bradford. Being on-time was kind of my thing. I’d only ever asked for an extension once. I wouldn’t need to do it again.
“How many words is the average Bastyan Saga book?” Dani asked. I glanced in the rearview mirror to see her looking at me over the bridge of her reading glasses.
I tried to remember. It wasn’t the kind of stat I filed away to pull up as a party trick. “I think most of them are around 150k.”
“Wow,” Dani said.
I glanced at her in the mirror again.
“Sorry,” she said, “that sounds like an impressive number.” She shook her head. “Not sure if it actually is…”
“One hundred and fifty thousand words is about five hundred fifty or so pages,” Jane said automatically, like the most annoying computer program in the world. “How many words do you have so far on this manuscript?”
I pretended to be thinking, but I knew exactly how many I had. Of course I did. The number stuck out like a neon sign at the bottom of my manuscript document. “Eighty-five thousand.”
“You’re sixty-five thousand short,” Jane said.
“Give or take. The book doesn’t have to be as long as the others.”
“Maybe not,” Jane said, “but it will need to be close, and it will have to have a complete story.”
“I’ve got it handled, Jane.” I pulled into the first parking spot I could find in town. “We’ll go hang out at the cookie thing for a little bit and then head home, and I’ll write like the wind. No big deal.”
I checked on Dani again, and she shot me a hopeful smile and a thumbs up. I grinned back. If she could believe in me, then so would I.
…
Dani
Fred waved to me from his gingerbread-filled table on the other side of the room.
I waved back cheerfully, and Una nudged my ribs. “You and Fred,” she said. “When are you two finally going out?”
Me and Fred. Unfortunately, those words sounded as logical as sauerkraut and grape jelly or chocolate and pepperoni in my ear. “We haven’t discussed it.”
“Well, don’t wait too long,” she said. “Someone else might snatch him up.” She bit the head off one of his gingerbread humans like a lion tearing into a gazelle.
Someone else could snatch him up, as far as I was concerned. Heck, someone else should snatch him up. What had I been thinking, agreeing to a date with him? Fred was a nice guy, but I wasn’t attracted to him. I wouldn’t mind grabbing a bite to chat and commiserate—divorced person to divorced person—but I couldn’t imagine doing more than that with Fred. Not like Matt and me in his bedroom the other night…
I fanned my neck.
“You okay?” Una asked.
“Hot flash.” At forty-five, it was as good an excuse as any, and much more socially acceptable than, “I was fantasizing about the hot, adventurous sex I had with my boss in the bedroom I was paid to clean. First he bent me over his ottoman and then he led me into his shower and used the handheld attachment—”
“Peppermint oil,” Una said without hesitation. Of course she had an essential oil remedy for hot flashes at the ready.
“I’ll remember that.” Pretending to stretch, I glanced around the room. I found Matt, with his baseball cap pulled down over his eyes, and Jane hovering in a dark, secluded corner, talking close, almost intimately.
I wondered what they were talking about, if she knew about the two of us. The way she insisted on coming with us today didn’t seem organic. It felt like she was daring Matt to tell her what he was really up to. And I was left to wonder why he wouldn’t. We hadn’t actually discussed keeping our fling a secret, though I personally planned on leaving my family in the dark. They didn’t need to know I was hooking up with my boss. Jane and Matt, though, they seemed to have a more open, honest, no-holds-barred relationship. What would keep him from telling her about us? Embarrassment, privacy, or something else?
“What’s up with them?” Una nodded in the direction of Matt and Jane.
“Nothing,” I said, quickly.
“They’re not sleeping together?”
“No!” I said way too loudly. I readjusted the volume of my voice. “They have a very brother-sister-type relationship.”
Una stared at them for a bit longer than socially acceptable, narrowing her gaze and appraising them like a gemstone. “I think you’re wrong about that,” she said. “Older guy, younger woman. It wouldn’t be surprising.”
“Maybe not,” I said. “But there’s nothing going on between Matt and Jane.”
I snuck another peek at them—him casually leaning against the wall, her hanging on to his every word. No, even I had to admit, it wasn’t hard to imagine them together.
My ex started dating a woman fifteen years younger than us mere weeks after we split up. When we met, Fred had probably seen me as potentially his younger woman, which, well, I guessed I should take solace in the fact that I could still be someone’s younger woman.
For the next few weeks, I had Matt as a distraction, but once he left, I’d be alone again and trying to meet someone new. Guys my age were looking for women in their twenties and thirties, and I probably had to set my sights on men in their fifties and beyond or I’d be alone forever.
For some reason, the picture of me watching a shuffleboard competition popped into my head.
I glanced across the room at Fred and shot him a wave, which he happily returned. I forced a smile back. My fling with Matt had an expiration date, and I couldn’t forget that.
Feigning a stretch, I turned toward him and Jane. His eyes met mine with a look that sent my stomach on a loop-de-loop, upside-down rollercoaster.
Yes, I had to stay focused on life after Matt, otherwise I could very easily lose myself in our present situation.
…
Matt
December 11th, still nine days until deadline
“This is such a great event,” Jane said. “I’m so glad I decided to come along.”
“Me, too,” I said dully, folding my arms and leaning against the wall behind us. “It’s great having you here.” From under the brim of my hat, I watched Dani as she chatted with her sister-in-law. She’d tied her hair back in a bun, revealing pointy ears that made her look like a cute elf. I suppressed a smile.
Jane turned toward me. “Okay, cut the crap. What were you and Dani really up to today?”
“Coming here.” I nodded toward Dani’s table across the room, where her sister-in-law had just angrily bitten the head off a gingerbread person.
“Mr. Bradford…”
My eyes snapped to Jane. “Why do you care so much if we were up to something?”
“So, you admit you were up to something?”
“I admit nothing,” I said.
“I’m only concerned about you hitting your deadline,” she said.
