Page 2 of Blurred Lines

“Sure can.”

“Plus an OJ too?”

“And a cupcake?”

“I’d better skip that.”

My half-hearted diet wasn’t going well, and neither was my writing career. This past summer, I’d finally begun selling enough books to reduce my waitressing hours, only for the words to desert me. The plots refused to leave my head, and the characters were alien life forms stuck inside their host. Before, when I’d worked full-time, I used to sneak in a few words here, a paragraph there; hell, I even wrote on my phone during bathroom breaks. Stories had poured out of me. These days, I could sit at my desk for hours, and even when I wasn’t getting distracted by social media, the pages remained stubbornly blank.

But at least I wouldn’t get evicted if I failed to make enough royalties to cover the rent, not anymore. No, through an amazing stroke of luck, I lived in a nicer home than I’d ever dreamed of, and it cost less than the crappy apartment I used to share. Actually, “luck” was the wrong word. My new home came through friendship. Violet Miller, my bestie for the past three years, had accidentally hit the big time in Hollywood, and when she bought Mulberry Cottage, a seventies time warp in Rancho Palos Verdes that desperately needed some TLC, she’d offered me the guesthouse in the backyard if I’d just keep an eye on the place while she was away working. Writer’s block had left me with plenty of time for decorating, and Mulberry Lodge, as we’d named my cute little abode, was habitable now. Cosy, even, although there was still plenty left to do, especially in the yard-slash-jungle. But weeding could wait.

Three months ago, when I realised I hadn’t left home in over a week or picked up a pen either, I’d decided I had to change. And not just my clothes either, although Glamorize magazine said that wearing yoga pants more than fifty percent of the time could lead to depression. Okay, and sometimes I’d left my pyjamas on all day. Fine, I admit it; I’d turned into a hot mess. Anyhow, new-and-improved Lauren had adopted Café au LA as her new workspace, partly to avoid distractions but also hoping for inspiration. Each morning, I showered, dressed in non-sportswear and actual shoes, put on enough make-up to hide the dark circles under my eyes, and walked a mile to my quiet corner table.

I figured the exercise earned me cream in my coffee, and slowly, slowly, the words trickled onto the page again. Not a full novel, not yet, just scenes using the people around me as inspiration. Like Chad, the non-lumberjack. I hoped that someday, one of those scenes would spark a story I’d fall in love with, but today wasn’t that day. My sister in Cristal, why would you walk up to a man with a freaking axe?

Café au LA had become a home away from home now. I’d gotten to know the small group of regulars who used the place as an office—Markus, a finance assistant whose employer had decided to cut costs and close their regional headquarters; Brayden, a copywriter who couldn’t focus at home because his neighbour’s dog kept barking; Samantha, a social media assistant who felt claustrophobic in the tiny room she rented. There was usually someone to watch my stuff when I needed to use the bathroom, and I’d always return the favour if anyone asked.

And there were other benefits to working in the café too. My phone pinged.

Theo

Are you free tonight?

For him? Oh, yes, I was definitely free. We’d met nearly two months ago in the line for coffee, him in a button-down shirt and suit pants and me in a maxi dress because my jeans only did up under protest. But none of that had mattered when our eyes met over the last Halloween-themed blueberry muffin—yes, Halloween had already been in full swing at the beginning of September. He’d ordered it, and I must have let out a groan, not so much because I loved blueberries but because I’d sworn to myself that my diet would start That Morning, and now I’d have to order my usual triple chocolate and delay my health kick for another day. Maybe in hindsight, it had been a groan of relief.

“Did you want that muffin?” he’d asked.

“Uh, I think so?”

“You don’t sound sure.”

“Yes. Yes, I did want the muffin.”

Blueberries would count as one of my five a day, right? They were a superfood. Imagine magazine said so.

“Then you have it.” He turned to the barista. “Can you change my order to a triple chocolate?”

Well, he sure didn’t need to cut down on calories. Theo wasn’t super muscular, but I’d describe him as athletic. The kind of guy with unexpected stamina. And when he decided to eat in and there were no free tables, I’d offered him a seat at mine. We’d started talking. Nothing profound, just small talk and a little about ourselves, but he focused on me, only me, and the way his gaze had lingered—on my face, not my boobs—gave me the warm fuzzies. Theo was a Princeton grad, a software developer who’d moved back home after college because he missed the West Coast vibe.

And the next morning, I heard the magic words as I sipped my coffee.

“Is this seat taken?”

That day, there had been plenty of empty tables.

“It’s yours.”

Theo was sweet. He was funny. And most importantly, he didn’t work in the movie industry. In the past six months, I’d dated an actor, a budding producer, and a writer. The actor had shot his load before the entrée, sliding in a request to meet Violet in the hope that she could give his career a leg up. The producer had at least waited until after dessert. And the writer had been more subtle—it wasn’t until week five that he’d casually brought a printed and bound copy of his latest screenplay along to a baseball game and suggested that perhaps Vi might like to take a look.

They’d used me.

All of them.

Earlier in the year, Vi had gotten caught up in a whole bunch of off-set drama when a crazy stalker fixated on her, and in the aftermath, my picture had ended up on the internet alongside hers, usually with the caption “Violet Miller and friend.” But some of the reporters had gone further with Violet Miller and close friend Lauren Rossi. Which had led to the inevitable comments… Violet Miller’s best friend writes dirty books.

In truth, the publicity was a huge boost for my career, but I hadn’t gone looking for any of it. And Vi had been as thrilled as I was when the sales of my novels had skyrocketed. I mean, she’d even posted about them on social media. But that was different; I hadn’t asked her to. We’d been besties since we were both nobodies, and if this fairy story ended tomorrow, we’d still be hanging out together, eating ramen and snort-laughing at our favourite Netflix comedies. My friendship with Violet wasn’t a commodity to be exploited.

But Theo wasn’t in showbiz, and therefore that made him safe to date.

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