Page 57 of Between the Lines

And none of them got a second date.

I’m a moth, and I’ve been drawn to all kinds of flames in the last few years. Most of those have burned me, eventually.

I have no doubt he will too.

I think you’re talking about yourself, Hartman. Maybe it’s a good thing I was the one hired to write your memoir. Anyone else, and you would have driven them out the door during week one.

Also, did you just imply that you are a puzzle?

Aren’t I?

You really are insufferable sometimes.

Can’t be boring, or you’ll lose interest.

I stare at the seven little words lighting up my screen.Or you’ll lose interest.The realization that we were only a slanted digit off from spending another night together in Utah, from whatever that may have resulted in…

It hangs over the entire conversation.

Who says I’m interested in the first place?

I hit send and then turn over in bed, closing my eyes and welcoming the blackness behind the lids. It doesn’t stop my mind from spinning. I don’t know if anything can.

I shouldn’t have sent that.

Shouldn’t have responded to his first message tonight, but here I am—I have, and I don’t think it will be the last time we’ll engage like this.

For the book,I remind myself. Writing compelling stories about a person is always easier when I actually know the subject. Just like the would-be pilots need flight hours to get their wings, I need interaction hours with whoever’s story I’m meant to tell.

That’s all this is.

It’s interaction. Another data point. Lord knows I have enough to fill a chapter just on his personality.

Tenacious. Persistent. Charming. Well-spoken. Determined. Unwilling to take no for an answer. Really fucking annoying.

There’s a low buzz from my phone. I should turn it off, hit airplane mode, throw it across the room.

I look at it instead.

You might be studying me, Chaos, but I’m studying you in return.

Would you have picked up? If my call had gone through?

My hand is shaking when I type the response.

You’re not supposed to ask me that.

I can’t help myself, Chaos. I never can around you.

I turn my phone off and push it to the edge of the mattress. It hits the carpeted floor with a dull thud, and I blink up at the dark ceiling.

He’s still my subject for this memoir and my ticket to a new contract with my publisher. He is still the CEO and the heir of a company that I dislike with a burning passion.

My parents wouldhatethat I’m doing this job. My best friend back home, my cousins, my grandmother. They would all question my sanity.

But hehadtried to call me after Utah.

And I hate that that matters to me.

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