Page 81 of Love Me Like It's Real
Oh God, is Hayworth cute as fuck!
Though I’m pretty sure if I’d told him that on Sunday he would’ve walked out on me. But he was. Cute, that is. With all his sugary snacks and the enthusiasm to match all I wanted to do was kiss that mouth of his and claim him as my own. But seeing as that wasn’t part of our agreement, I stuck to what we know best. Bringing each other pleasure.
I don’t think I’ve ever been this…naughty in my life. I can still remember the thrill of being sucked in the cinema, the fear of being found tangled together in one of the most intoxicating drinks I’ve ever tasted.
And what’s scarier is, I want more.
Sure, the rational part of my brain is mortified. It’s making up scenarios of being discovered…frolicking in public and being shunned in the place I’ve tried to make my daughters call home. I’m a pariah, a troublemaker, just like Hayworth.
But the other part of my brain, the part starved for attention and desire keeps reinvigorating me and making my toes curl like they never have before.
It’s the part of my brain that dominates me lately. It’s the one that takes control when I go out with Hayworth, which has become a daily occurrence, and that motivates me to get through my days. I feel like a teenager who’s just discovered their sexuality and got their first boyfriend. Only Hayworth isn’t my boyfriend. Just a guy I’m using to get my fill. It’s probably unfair, but he also gets his fill, so how bad can it be?
The only problem with my naughty side taking the reins? Focusing on anything other than Hayworth is a chore. Not the spending time with my girls part. But everything else. Including work.
I’ve never been busier and yet I’ve never been slower. If I’m not wading through design challenges that should be a piece of cake, I’m sending Hayworth all kinds of messages that don’t just get him riled up. If I’m not trying to respond to author requests I’m touching myself and thinking of him. He’s totally addictive and I’m fucking screwed. In all ways possible.
Because I know I’m getting attached. If it was just the sex I wouldn’t be worried. It’s all the other stuff that has me panicking. Not that I can do anything about it.
I crave his voice, his company, his lame-ass jokes. I even crave his silly anti-Valentine activities, which sound so childish on paper but they always end up either with me rolling on the floor laughing my ass off or just rolling on the floor tangled around him. I’m becoming dependent on his presence in my life and that’s intimidating.
I know how anti-love he is. I know he’ll never want anything to do with me in the relationship department. Do I have the guts to call it quits, though? Hell to the no.
The only thing I can do is take it out on my laptop. No, I don’t mean destroying it or throwing pieces of it like spaghetti at the wall. I take it out on my Word document.
My scenes have not just doubled in size, they’ve taken shape and form. They’ve also turned sappy. Cheesy. Like sickly sweet, when they’re not burning the pixels up with the heat.
Somehow, I’ve got a story and a set of characters. A love-grump and a love-hopeful—I wonder who they’re inspired by. But better to create semi-fictional characters and let them have a wild, uninhibited time without worry of real repercussions than playing those fantasies out in real life.
Fantasies like grabbing his gorgeous face and telling him to stay. To be with me. To have forever together. Those can only be fantasies though, right?
I’ve even given my characters names. Hart for the grump and Rocky for the hopeless romantic. It’s supposed to be ironic. I don’t know. I don’t know if any of what I’m doing—what I’m writing—is right, but I’m too fired-up to stop.
So of course I cut my design workday short once again, open my document and get writing. I’ve got so many sex scenes and love scenes and funny scenes that I’m filling in gaps at this point. I’ve written the first character’s introduction already, but instead of writing the next chapter, the other character’s intro, I get right to the gist of it—the end of the second act. The big I-love-you scene. I never thought writing out of sequence would work for me, but here I am, writing everything jumbled like it’s going out of fashion. But I can tidy things up later. I just want to get this out of me. To have it on the page. It’s the only way I can guarantee I won’t let it out in real life. In person.
This is so stupid. I barely know him. How can I feel so strongly about him? Because I do. Sure, it’s notlovelove. It’s not the kind of love I had for Mark for the years we were together. It’s not the organized, sensible kind of love. It’s messy and intense and more than likely to combust and leave behind only embers, shadows of its original flame, but I don’t care. What good did my love for Mark do for me? What good was it going slow with him, mulling over my feelings, my words, my intentions for weeks or months on end? What good was it saving everything I felt for fear of heartbreak? I gave him my everything and he still yanked my heart out like a murderer with a taste for flesh.
I know what I’m feeling for Hayworth is tainted by the way he’s made me rediscover my sexuality, because of how many orgasms he’s given me, because of how slutty I feel for the first time in my life, but it doesn’t mean it’s bad.
And since I can’t tell him that, I make sure my character tells him that. It’s hard not to put myself in Rocky’s place. He is, for all intents and purposes, me. A younger me, maybe. A childless one for sure. But he’s still me. Even right down to his transness and his feelings about his body. So of course I type furiously, as if I’m on fire, I inhabit him and let it all out. Whether I feel it in real life or not, whether it’s true or not, I let it all out. What is romance after all if not for grand gestures and even grander declarations of love.
My phone beeps and I jump.
What’s happening? What time is it?
I check the time on my laptop and breathe a sigh of relief. I’m not late for a change.
I pick up my phone and unlock it. There’s a new message from Hayworth and reading it…it takes my breath away.
Hayworth:
Hey. What are you doing for Valentine’s?
Valentine’s? Is it really Valentine’s already? It was only yesterday that all the Season of Love festival decorations went up and a day before yesterday since we arrived in Maplewood and yet…it also feels like it’s been three years, not three months. Why is time allowed to mess with me like that? It’s not fair. It’s what makes me feel like I’ve known Hayworth for way longer than I have.
Does he really want to spend Valentine’s with me?
Felix:
