AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Tessa kicked his desk, making him jump. “Focus, Eric. Jeez.”
“All right.” He leaned back with a smile. “Wallace has agreed on one condition.”
Jamie frowned. “What’s that?”
“He wants Faron in as chef.”
“I was going to hire her anyway,” Jamie said.
Eric laughed. “Yeah, I know. But I didn’t tell Wallace that.”
“Seriously,” Tessa interrupted. “He agreed to everything?”
“I’m going to apprentice to him for a year. After that, we’ll pay for him to attend a three-month brewing course in Germany that he’s always wanted to take. He’s never been able to be away that long, obviously.”
Jamie shook his head. “He’s really okay with it? Sharing the tank room with you?”
“I told him he’ll have the title of brewmaster as long as he wants it, but that I need to be in there, too. We can split some duties and expand others. But I can’t stay behind that desk anymore. This is what I want to do. I don’t need the title. I just need the work.”
“Awesome,” Tessa breathed.
“Frankly, I think Wallace is excited to have an indentured servant for the next year. I’ll start interviewing someone for a dedicated sales and marketing position next week. Someone who can take over trade show and distribution responsibilities.”
Tessa held up a finger. “We’ll start interviewing. I’ve got to get along with this person more than you do.”
“You got it,” he said with a grin. He couldn’t believ
e this was really happening. He was going to get out of this box of an office and into the tank room. “You’ll call Faron?” he asked Jamie.
“I’ll make an offer right now.”
Eric wanted to get started with Wallace today. Hell, yesterday. But he had to get everything in place. He needed to put out the call for a new employee, but first things first….
As soon as Tessa left and closed the door behind her, Eric clicked on his bookmarked link to The Rail and held his breath. He didn’t know what he thought it would say. Would it be about privacy? Betrayal? Breakups? Or would it just be one of her normal columns, leaving him to wonder if she was talking about a past relationship or a current one? If she’d moved on already and—
The page finally loaded, and Eric’s breath hissed between his teeth. Sex & Lies, the title read. Would the whole thing be a shot at him?
He braced himself and started reading, but halfway through he was already reaching for his phone.
Last week, I got an email from a woman who wanted to know whether she should tell her husband the truth about her past. She’d had nearly twenty sex partners, and she knew he wouldn’t like that, so wouldn’t it be better to lie?
My initial thought was, “No, of course not! You have nothing to be ashamed of!” But it’s not so simple, is it? Life is complicated. And frankly, I’m not really qualified to answer the question because my entire sex life has been a lie.
Most of us lie a little. We fudge the numbers. We pretend to like something for our partner, or not to like something that our spouse isn’t into.
It’s usually about shame. And embarrassment. Sometimes it’s just about privacy. For me, it was all those things and more. So here’s my confession: I am not Sexuality Personified. I do not know everything about sex. I don’t know anything about threesomes. Or domination. Or bisexuality. Or fetishes. That’s why I write this column with three other women, because none of us is sexuality personified on her own.
Still, I’ve tried to be all things to all people. Because of that, I’ve never been me. The real me is shy, private and not very sexually adventurous. I’ve spent so many years trying to hide that from people that I’ve hidden myself. And who can love someone they can’t really see?
So my advice to the reader is to tell the truth. But my truth is that I understand why she might not be able to. It’s scary. You might tell him and he might walk away. I might tell him and he might walk away. But if he does—
A soft knock drew Eric’s head up. When the door opened, he stood so quickly that his chair fell over. “Beth? What are you doing here?”
She smiled uncertainly, hanging back in the hallway as if she wasn’t sure he’d want to see her.
“I was just…” He looked from the computer back to her.
She nodded, still wearing that nervous smile. “Can we talk?”
