Page 49 of Allured By Her

She finished up the salad with fresh herbs and I helped her bring everything to the living room, setting the food on a third tray.

“This is really nice, thank you,” I said, laying an embroidered napkin on my lap. I didn’t even know embroidered napkins were a thing.

“I cook when I’m stressed,” Tenley said, filling a bowl full of pasta salad.

“I eat when I’m stressed,” I said. She snorted.

The food was absolutely incredible, and I couldn’t stop shoveling more of the pasta salad into my mouth. Tenley had put on a playlist, which was good because I couldn’t pause eating long enough to say much.

A heavy sigh from Tenley interrupted me.

“Sorry,” she said when I looked over at her.

“No worries,” I said, quickly swallowing so I didn’t speak with food in my mouth. “It’s been a shitty weekend.”

“That it has,” she said. “Fuck, I can’t believe I have a deadline.” She rubbed her forehead, as if she was getting a headache.

“A writing deadline?” I was endlessly curious about her writing career.

“Yeah. It’s been a little hard to write lately with everything happening with Shane. Not only has he fucked with my heart, but he’s fucking with my career.” She stabbed her fork into an olive and glared at it, as if the olive was the one who wronged her.

“Is there any way to ask for an extension?” I asked.

Tenley shook her head. “No. I have to stick to my release schedule. It’s too complicated to explain, but there’s no getting around it. I’ve written through worse, but all I want to do is lay in bed and cry for a week. And eat as many varieties of cheese as I can find in this forsaken town.”

I let out a bark of laughter at the image of Tenley lying in bed, surrounded by cheese.

“Sorry. We can go get you some cheese, if you want,” I said.

“I’ll be fine,” she said. “I always am.”

“Why do you go write at Common Grounds every day? Not that I don’t love having you there to bother me,” I said, bumping her shoulder with mine.

“If I didn’t leave my house, I would never get anything done. When the choice is doing work or reading, I’m almost always going to choose reading. Obviously.” She waved at her shelves and piles and stacks. “I love writing, don’t get me wrong, but when something is your job, it can be less enticing than reading.”

That made sense. I was lucky that when I made my toys, I could put on an audiobook if I wanted because it wouldn’t distract me. If only I could do that at my barista job.

“How many books have you published?” I asked.

She thought for a moment. “Twenty? I think?”

I almost choked on a bite of chicken. “Twenty?! That’s a fuck ton of books, Tenley, holy shit. How fast do you write?”

She wiggled her fingers. “I type very fast.”

How did she come up with that many ideas, though? Her mind was starting to terrify me.

“People liked my fanfic, so I figured why not write and get paid in more than kudos and likes,” she said. “And I didn’t want to do anything else. I think I’m pretty unemployable at this point.”

“Hey, if you’re making money at it, then there’s no reason to look for something else,” I said.

“Do you like being a barista?” she asked. There were a lot of people who made jokes about my job, or were snotty about it, but Tenley’s tone was pure curiosity.

“I do. I mean, it has its moments of me wanting to rip my hair out and walk into the sea, but I’m sure writing is like that too. Customers can be a bit much, but I do like it for now. It’s not a forever job, since I don’t want to move up and be a manager or anything, but it’s fine until I decide if I want to do something else.”

“I don’t know how you do it,” Tenley said, wiping her face with her napkin and setting it on the empty plate. “Someone would be an asshole to me, and I’d tell them to fuck off and then I’d be fired.”

“I’ve wanted to tell you to fuck off a few times,” I said, glaring at her.

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