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“I want to bottle it up,” she tells me, and at first I think maybe she’s talking about all of the rented furniture. “This energy. This night. I want to remember it forever.”
“Why? You’re sitting alone in a corner.”
“True,” she says. “But who knows how many nights like this we have left?”
Eve has always had a flair for the dramatic, but even so, it’s hard to discern her level of seriousness. Trying not to read too much into it, I allow myself a drink, and then another, and another, until I officially lose count.
Maybe it’s the liquor, but even I have to admit the party feels magical. The scent of fresh-cut grass along with the fragrant roses, and the wafer moon overhead, it felt like a new beginning. A beginning where anything was possible, even finished manuscripts. The weekend that marks the start of summer, and with it, so much promise. “There you are,” Liam says. He finds me at the bar staring up at the moon. My face turns to him, and it’s the first time I notice how truly young he looks. How necessary, and how temporary.
He smiles politely. “I have someone I want you to meet,” he tells me as he scoots to the side. I don’t know how my expression reads, but I can only assume it isn’t good. Standing in front of me, wearing a huge grin and a very short dress, is the woman from the hotel.
“This is Leslie,” Liam says, placing his hand on the small of her back. He inches her forward.
She offers her hand, and, after a long beat, I take it. “A pleasure.”
“It’s lovely to see you again Mr. Dawson,” she says doing that schoolgirl giggle thing that causes bile to rise in my throat.
“So you two have met,” Liam remarks, his brow reaching upward toward the stars. “How am I not surprised? Leslie knows everyone.”
Chapter Fourteen
The morning after the party, I wake early, long before the sun is up. Eve is curled into me, her forehead pressed firmly against my rib cage. I’m not sure that either of us had intended to change our sleeping arrangements, but after I’d helped her precariously take on the stairs, tipsy, we made love.
“I don’t know how you can drink so much and still have your senses about you,” she told me afterward.
“Who said I have any sense?” We fell asleep laughing, drunk on the possibility that it would last.
Eve sleeps in, as does Liam, or so I presume. It’s Saturday, and apparently he doesn’t work weekends. When he told me this, I can’t say I was surprised. He’s exactly the type to believe all of that work/life balance nonsense people like to spew these days.
But then he said something interesting. Something worth writing down. He said, “George, if you want to chase an elusive feeling of self-worth that you’ll end up dying without claiming, be my guest. But don’t expect me to. Weekends are meant for living. Isn’t that what writing is about, after all? I mean…explain it to me. How can you possibly tell a good story if you don’t live one?”
He had a point. I know that. I wish it were something I’d embraced when I was his age, and I wish it were something I could swing now.
But stories don’t come on a nine-to-five schedule. The muse doesn’t give a shit if it’s Tuesday—or if it’s Saturday. The muse shows when he shows.
And this morning, he saw fit to make an appearance well before dawn on a Saturday. Luckily, I awakened with only a slight headache, not the raging hangover I expected.
Ideas popped all over the place, like the small fireworks display Liam organized last night. Not one to let a good opportunity go to waste, I grabbed a water and two aspirin and sat at my desk.
With the manuscript spread out in front of me, as my fingers moved effortlessly over the keys, I did my best to put Liam and the girl out of my mind. Every once in a while my thoughts wandered, combing through the details of last night: the girl showing up here, the party, the fireworks, Eve’s naked body sweaty against mine.
This can’t last; I know that. But now and again, I suppose we all want to be seduced. Even if it’s not real, even though favors come with a cost. It’s intoxicating.
I realize I have to nip it in the bud.
But first, coffee.
Down in the kitchen, while the coffee brews, I scramble eggs for breakfast. I’ve just finished buttering toast when the phone rings. My agent’s name displays across the screen. Cradling the phone between my shoulder and my ear, I don’t even get a proper hello in before Alan is screeching at me. “Congratulations!”
“Alan?”
“George, my friend…what the hell?”
“Good morning to you, too.”
There’s static on the line and already I regret taking the call. Alan is a lot to take at any hour, on any day, and maybe Liam has a point. This is the weekend, and it’s still early yet.
As Alan complains, explaining that he tried calling three times last week, I reach for the knife, dip it into the strawberry jam, and spread it on the toast.
