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CD: The new show, Home Sweet Home. The Tripps had been filming it in secret while they wrapped up New Spaces. It was a lot like what they’d been doing before, but this time there weren’t any costars to fall back on. This time the pressure was all on them.
Officer Ali: And how were they handling that?
CD: Will the phrase “hot mess” be clear enough for your transcription?
Officer Ali: Yes.
CD: Then that’s my answer.
Officer Ali: So the success or failure of Home Sweet Home would rest entirely on the Tripps.
CD: Yes.
Officer Ali: Did Mr. McCann like the Tripps?
CD: As much as he could, I guess. I don’t think it occurred to me until yesterday, but it’s possible Melly knew when she hired him that James had come from a company that had gone down in scandal. Maybe she knew he was desperate and used it against him. She knew he wouldn’t fight back when she essentially made him Rusty’s assistant. He didn’t have any power.
Officer Ali: So you think Mr. McCann took the job because he felt trapped?
CD: I think he took the first job that came along.
Officer Ali: So he would have been glad to have a new situation present itself?
CD: Are you suggesting that James would have a reason to ruin the Tripps?
Officer Ali: Let’s take a five-minute break before we continue.
If someone had asked me at the beginning of this job—even this tour—whether I could see myself at some point wildly making out with Carey Duncan, I would have given an easy “No.” In hindsight, I’m guessing I might have even been a bit of a dick about it. The glaring truth that Carey and I come from two completely different worlds used to seem like a barrier between us: she’s a small-town woman who’s only ever lived in one place, and I left the Southwest ten or so years ago to live on the East Coast for school, then work. At first blush, we had nothing in common.
But there we were—kissing madly, with a fever I haven’t felt in what seems like ages and feelings that seem to grow exponentially with every conversation we have—and now here I am, watching Carey bolt out of the pool and back into the hotel without a backward glance.
I glare up at the balcony just when the kids from earlier duck back inside. They should feel like monsters for breaking up a moment like that, but I’m sure they’re oblivious, so there’s no convenient outlet for my irritation and disappointment. An electrical storm rages along my skin. I count a slow fifty then climb out, grabbing a towel from a shelf and padding back over toward my clothes.
The concrete is icy beneath my feet. It’s jarring to be pulled so immediately back into the most banal of bodily sensations when the feel of Carey’s tongue and mouth and skin is right there at the front of my thoughts. Did I know the second I stepped outside tonight that I wanted to act on the quiet longing that’s been pulsing in the background of my thoughts? Or was it the way she opened up to me with such unguarded sweetness?
I’ve never been with anyone like her. My previous relationships have always been with women who seemed to be cut from the same cloth as I am. The last person I was with was a medium-term girlfriend—nine months or so. I knew we were over when we stopped excitedly telling each other every detail of our day, stopped wanting to bring each other along to every outing with friends, and the sex started to feel safe and quiet. I rode it out for another month, but when I realized neither of us was all that invested and she was never going to admit it, I finally put us both out of our misery. The idea of spending the rest of my life in the routine we’d fallen into—of monotonous workdays followed by takeout, polite conversation, and quiet, focused missionary sex—sounded terrible.
But I can already tell there’s no chance of that with whoever ends up with Carey. She may take a passive role in her job, but I can’t possibly be the only one who sees the passionate woman trying to fight her way out of the mold she’s been pressed into. Whenever she manages to figure out what she wants in life, she’ll be a force of nature.
I head upstairs for a long, cooling shower. Maybe tomorrow we’ll laugh off the abrupt end to the night and the weight between us will still be there. Maybe we’ll carefully and quietly shape this into something worth pursuing. Or, maybe Carey regretted the kiss immediately, and tomorrow—an already loaded and stressful day—will be awkward and exhausting. Realistically, the odds of the two of us ending up together are minuscule. A disappointed ache corkscrews through me.
