Page 25 of Between the Lines

“Bear with me.” John tapped on the keyboard again, and she was surprised to see him bring up what appeared to be his own profile. “Okay. So let’s say that your hot sister and I were both members of Crossing Lines.”

Jo couldn’t hold back the smirk.

“Then let’s say we both happened to go to the same Starbucks at the same time—crossing lines, so to speak. We would each receive an alert that someone else from the app was in the vicinity. You could then check out their profile and indicate whether or not you’re interested.”

“Oh...” Jo cocked her head to the side. “Oh, so that saves the nerves of approaching someone you find attractive for a date, too.”

“Exactly!” John beamed at her like she’d performed a trick and earned a treat. “So then let’s say your hot sister and I checked out each other’s profiles and indicated that we were interested. Then I could approach her, or she could approach me, and we could set up a date.”

“What if one of you didn’t hear the alert?” Jo didn’t hear her phone most of the time, though in her case she kept her notifications on silent deliberately, so they didn’t annoy her. “Doesn’t that kind of screw things up in this magical meet cute?”

“No matter when you catch the alert, you’re still able to see the profile,” he assured her, pointing at the screen. “So even if you check an hour, two hours later. The next day. You still might think, oh, that’s the cute girl from the coffee shop. Or, oh, that guy was with his kids, but now I see that he’s a single dad, so I’m going to hit him up to install my kid’s car seats.”

Jo snorted at the innuendo that John infused his last words with. Pushing back in her chair, she took a moment to let it all absorb.

“This is actually kind of brilliant.” She drummed her fingers on the arm of the chair. “Who thought this up?”

“Theo did.” John suddenly, deliberately, busied himself with closing out his profile and readjusting the screen.

Yeah, Jo was pretty sure that Theo had filled him in on their history. She wondered if he also knew about the upcoming date, and what he thought about it.

She still wasn’t sure what she thought about it. She didn’t—couldn’t—dwell on it right now, or she’d think herself into a spiral of doom, so she changed the subject again. She was becoming an expert at it.

“So where do I come in?” She couldn’t really think what place a creative writer would have on the staff of a cutting-edge dating app. She especially couldn’t imagine what her kinky sex blog could contribute to anything.

“We’re still what’s considered a start-up company,” John explained, pushing out of his chair and starting to pace again. “We’re the new kid on the block—the weird new kid on the block. Our business model tells us that we can be incredibly successful, but we need to find new and creative ways to bring in users. Millennials and Gen Z are statistically the most likely to give something a bit different a try, and they are also the generations that are more open to new things when it comes to sex and relationships. They’re intrigued by kink, and that’s where you come in.”

“You don’t expect me to put up a profile, do you?” Panic was a flock of tiny birds in her belly. She couldn’t imagine something less appealing. “I just write about it. I don’t want to get kinky with strangers.”

John looked at her as though she’d grown a second head. “Of course not.”

She exhaled, trying to expel those tiny birds from her system. “Sorry. Go on.”

“We want you to write content for us, targeted toward millennials and Gen Z.” Pulling his phone from his pocket, he glanced at the screen before returning it. “We plan to start a blog that will be advertised on the home page of the site. We’ll be advertising it on Facebook, Amazon and all social media. Essentially it’s to be a column about sex and dating as a member of that generation. We’re a new, edgy site, and we want edgy content. Your blog stood out because you aren’t afraid to go there.”

“Are you sure it didn’t stand out because I used to date Theo and he has some kind of guilt complex?” Jo winced as the words left her mouth, but even if it was brazen to ask, she wanted—needed—to know.

She wanted this job. She had that hit of adrenaline, cold sweat, sick-with-want kind of feeling in her gut, and that wasn’t even factoring in any feelings left over between her and the boss.

Her writing was hers and hers alone. No matter how much she wanted the job, any joy from it would be tainted if Theo had only offered this out of guilt.

John stopped his pacing in front of the window, his face set in serious lines. In the pale light filtering through the thick glass, Jo noted again how classically handsome he was—and again, she felt nothing. When she looked at Theo, though, with his wild dark eyes, the skin that reminded her of caramel, the way he moved his hands when he spoke about something he was passionate about...

Her entire body clenched just thinking about him.

Damn you to hell, Theo Lawrence.

“Jo, when Theo showed me your blog, he didn’t tell me anything at all about your history. I had no idea that you two had ever even been in contact, let alone...close.” John tapped a finger on the glass. “I agreed that your writing was perfect. And I have to say, I’m a bit jealous—you have the most fascinating dating life. Reading about it almost makes me feel like I’m there.”

If only you knew.Jo forced herself to smile, nodding along with John. If he liked her content, then she didn’t think there was any reason to let him know that she had experienced precisely nothing that she’d written about on her blog...well, except for this morning’s. Lack of real sex, of desire, meant that she’d filled that void in her life another way, with a fascination of all things kinky. She threw in anecdotes about her sisters, too, since they always insisted on sharing every single dirty detail of their relationships, their hookups.

But her own experiences? Her blog hadn’t included a single one, because there hadn’t been any—not until Theo had come back.

“So that’s what you want me to write, then?” Shit...did Theo think she’d done all those things she wrote about? Not that she would be ashamed of it, she just...hadn’t. It was weird that he might think she did. “What I write about on my blog?”

“Essentially, yes, with an emphasis on the dating experience posts. But—” He was cut off when a knock sounded on the door. Theo entered the room without waiting for an answer. “As I was going to say, Theo will be in momentarily with a list of ideas for topics.”

“And here he is.” Theo’s words were light, but his gaze was a punch of pure heat when he ignored John and focused in on Jo. “Is John treating you right?”

---