Page 52 of Smut

“I bet you wouldn’t say that about Fluffy,” I point out, getting in the passenger seat. I’m taken aback by how clean it is. No pile of random shit to move into the backseat. Just last week he had a camping stove in here. I wonder if all this consideration is for me, but unlike him, I would never say anything.

“Fluffy is a monster from the bowels of hell,” he says as he buckles himself in. “But believe me, he’s made his way into the novel. Just picture him a hundred times the size.”

Blake rarely mentioned his work-in-progress when we worked together. I didn’t even know the genre. So to hear him talk about an alien race, I have to figure he’s writing sci-fi.

Beneath his strong, lean build, big hands, cocky smile and gorgeous head of hair, it turns out that Blake Crawford is a closet nerd. A month ago I would have gone running to Rio with this information, but now I sit on it gleefully, knowing for all our differences, he’s an awful lot like me.

“So I’m guessing you’re writing science fiction,” I tell him. Mr. Mean roars to a start and we speed off down the street, turning the heads of pedestrians as we go. I raise my chin, pretending I’m actually cool.

He leans in to look me over. “Sci-fi horror,” he says matter-of-factly, his face inches from mine.

I instinctively suck in my breath, even though I ate lunch ages ago, and if anything I should smell like wine. I wait for him to go on.

“It’s called Blood Aurora,” he says eventually, turning his eyes back to the road. “And I feel like I’ve been writing it since I was a wee one.”

“How much have you written?”

“Maybe seventy percent. Not a lot.”

I can’t help but laugh at that. “Are you kidding me? Not a lot? I’ve been struggling at the halfway point with my book for ages now, and no matter what I do, I can’t move past it. I’m stuck. It’s driving me fucking crazy.”

“Then maybe it’s good that you agreed to come with me.”

“Why, so I can drink my face off and forget that I have a book I need to finish?”

“Peach, I’d love to see you drink your face off. You’re cute when you’ve had a few.”

I shoot him daggers over that fucking peach nickname. At this point I’d rather be Tits McGee.

He only smiles. “Sorry. Bad habit.”

Blake was right about Spinnakers not being too busy. We manage to snag a seat on the upstairs patio, both of us getting the Scottish ale from the brew pub, and I sit back, watching him curiously, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Before it does though, I take a moment to drink in the scene and just…

Pretend.

It’s what I’m good at.

I’m looking at Blake sitting across from me, paying attention to every little thing about him: the hairs on his sinewy arms catching the light, the way his thin shirt clings to his broad shoulders and ropey biceps, the thick slope of his neck leading up to his sharp jawline, the way his lips twist to the left, as if he’s about to tell you a secret he shouldn’t, his eyes that glitter with a million untold jokes. I feel like I’m sitting across from someone who is one hundred percent alive and ready to take on the world. For all his faults—and he has many—there’s something almost enigmatic about him, something that makes you want to learn more. Something that makes you want to learn from him.

I finally, finally, understand why all those girls were throwing themselves at him. Because they believe he can make them better, just by being around him.

And so for this second I can pretend that I am here on a date with Blake, that we aren’t both here because of some other opportunity, and that what we share is genuine and true.

It’s all a lie. And it’s so sad that I’m even pretending. But at least I’m not thinking about Alan. At least I’m for once not thinking it was all a mistake. At least I’m hopeful for the future because I know now that there is more for me—guys or otherwise. Especially everything otherwise.

After we get our beers, he raises his pint to me and looks me dead in the eye in such a way that reaches deep inside, disrupting something dormant.

“Here’s to The Heart Thief,” he says, even though we toasted over it the day we finished. “And to new endeavors. To the future.”

I purse my lips for a beat before clinking my glass against his, the thick white foam spilling over the edge. “Cheers.”

“Seven years of bad sex,” Blake says before taking a sip.

“What?” I say, trying to wipe the side of my glass with a napkin. “I looked you in the eye.”

“No, it’s seven years of bad sex if you spill,” he explains. “But don’t worry, I can always bring you out of it.”

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