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I flopped back onto the bed and groaned. “I know. I’ve never, ever thought about him sexually, and now I’m freaking out because I don’t know what it means.”
“Even when you were teens, you never did?”
“Ugh, fine, once.” My cheeks were probably candy-apple red. I felt like I was a teen again, desperately trying to rid herself of any pesky, unwanted emotional developments. “But we were swimming at a lake, and he’d filled out a lot that summer, and I remember looking at his trunks when he got out and thinking, holy shit, that’s the outline of him and it is not small and it’s also not hard.” My eyes slammed shut. “And that whole afternoon was an exercise in intrusive thoughts centered around my best friend’s penis.”
Bea chuckled. “And did they continue past that?”
“No. Just a one-day special.”
“Okay, so maybe that’s what this is,” she said gently.
“I don’t know, Bea, this feels … Freudian.”
“Maybe,” she conceded. “Parapraxis, those linguistic slips that can betray a deeper, hidden layer in our subconscious, could easily be the culprit, but maybe not in the way you’re thinking. Did you find yourself feeling attraction to Ian before this?”
“No,” I said slowly. “I mean, objectively, I know he’s hot, because, well, he’s just stupidly handsome and it’s not the kind of handsome that anyone would argue with.”
“So he’s a Brad Pitt.”
“Ugh, yes. Legends of the Fall Brad Pitt, too.”
“Oh my,” she said weakly.
My pathetic little groan emerged again, and it made Bea laugh. Downstairs, the sound of the front door closing had me shifting on the bed to peek out of the window overlooking the front yard. Ian never looked upstairs, but I eyed the fresh change of clothes as he hopped into the truck and backed out of his spot. He’d said he was going to the shop, so why did he have to shower?
“So if my Freudian slip isn’t repressed sexual interest in my best friend, what is it?” I asked.
She paused. “I don’t want to plant seeds that aren’t there, but I do wonder if it’s representative of a different level of your friendship with Ian. He’s emotionally safe, right? You can trust him. You said you’d been thinking a lot about teamwork and partnership, right? He’s almost taking on a partner role in your life right now.”
I sank back against the headboard. “Definitely.” My fingertips picked at the edge of the comforter. “He’s always been one of the few people I can truly be vulnerable with. I’ve never,” I paused, trying to think of the right words, “filtered myself when I’m around him, I guess. I’ve never needed to.”
She made a humming noise of acknowledgment. “That’s a gift, Harlow. Those friendships are rare in life.”
They were. I’d been without it long enough that having it again felt like winning the lottery more than once, only on a much grander scale because I had the benefit of hindsight. The benefit of perspective, and that could only come with the passage of time.
“So you’re saying that maybe I imagined his face because he’s the safest person in my life right now.” I swallowed. “It doesn’t mean I want him, want him.”
“It could very well be the truth.” She took a quick breath, delivering her next words with careful precision. “Though there’s nothing wrong with it if you do.”
“I don’t,” I rushed to interject. “We aren’t … it’s not like that with us. It never has been.”
“Okay.” Her tone was all patience and understanding and support, but even with that, and the exceedingly logical explanation, I felt a touch unnerved by the entire thing. “Keep going with your prompts, though. Even if that’s all you work on this week.”
“And if I keep inserting him into the faceless man role?” I asked dryly.
She laughed. “Then roll with that too. Who knows, maybe you’ll get a story idea out of it?”
Just like it had with the prompt, the thoughts started unrolling slowly at first. Why would my couple have to pretend anything? Who were they, and why could they not get caught together? Was it a job? Other relationships in their life?
What were they afraid of?
The asking of those questions felt big and terrifying, piecing together a puzzle with an endgame that was very different from solving a crime. Normally, my questions were about good and evil, the nature of sin, evil and pain, and the way trauma shapes people’s choices—good or bad.
Suppose the endpoint was fixed somewhere else, on the emotionally satisfying resolution of a relationship instead of catching the big bad. How would I follow the story threads to get there?
“You think I could write a romance?” I asked quietly.
“I think you could write whatever you put your mind to. Would that be so bad to hop into that world?”
