Page 28 of Director's Cut

“I mean, bisexual means you shouldn’t be ashamed of being with a girl again. There are people who aren’t like your ex.”

She pushes her hair back behind her ear again. “Are you?”

I tell myself it could be a general question, but my heart’s hammering like it’s not. “Nope. Honestly, if someone likes me as much as I like them, my partners can be whatever.”

Maeve’s smiling again. “Thank you. I seriously need queer friends out here.”

I smile back. “You have one.”

Then my phone alarm goes off, startling both of us.

The alarm is entitled “CALL TRISH” and there’s no context, nothing. It’s 8:47 p.m. on a Friday.

But it’s enough to knock me out of this spell and analyze what’s been happening a little more rationally.

Maeve has just spent two hours breaking down her barriers. I get a pang in my chest, thinking—knowing—I’ll likely get a text tomorrow morning apologizing for being crass and oversharing.

“Take it from someone who’s had her heart ripped out, chewed up, and spat back into my body by a woman and still dates them: next year, when you’re on your annual date, go for someone you really want to be with,” I say.

“And you have my number if you’re ever dying for a woman’s touch,” I add with a wink.

CHAPTER TEN

I wake up the next morning in bed with Charlie.

It’s not even the kind of scene all the hets who shipped us during our fake relationship would’ve swooned over. Like his elbow is in my back and I can feel his morning wood on my leg and even after only two and a half drinks, I can already feel a headache coming on.

“Ugh, Charlie, please tell me I’m remembering last night wrong,” I say as I disentangle myself from his overheated body.

Charlie rolls over and grins, looking all cute with his bedhead, ready to start the day. “Well, you walked in, told me that Maeve is wonderful, and then you went to bed. The next thing I know you’ve climbed into bed with me like a psycho and you start calling me”—he grabs my face with both hands—“your best friend and you give me a couple little face kisses—”

Oh god.

“And snuggle into me and fall asleep.”

“Jesus Christ,” I say, thrashing out of his grip to avoid eye contact.

“So I assume you were a hundred percent sober, you needy bitch.”

I sit up as slowly as an eighty-year-old. “I won’t be sober ever again.”

“Hey, one time and it’s like a fun sleepover,” he says. “More than once and I’ll become paranoid you’re trying to seduce me.”

I smile. “In your dreams, Charles.”

“Only the magic mushroom–induced ones I had when we were twenty-five. And I unpacked those for, like, three years with a therapist.” He sits up, stretching like Eustace. “Do you still go to Rosalie, by the way?”

“Yeah, every other week.”

I have an appointment on Monday, in fact. I told her about the little masturbation incident last week and I cannot imagine what we’re going to do with what happened yesterday. I’ve been seeing Rosalie since I was eighteen. I left for London telling her I thought I liked girls and returned seven years later with a broken engagement, telling her that I was gonna try fucking a bunch of girls as an exclusive top since I hated bottoming for Emily.

“Well, now you have something to talk about that isn’t Hollywood,” Charlie says as he steps into the bathroom.

“We’ll never finish talking about Hollywood.”

My phone, which is somehow also in Charlie’s room, starts ringing.

It’s Maeve.

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