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Sure, I wasted forty-five minutes in the NYC Doggie Facebook group, trying to find more leads on the border collie of Benji’s dreams—without luck, unfortunately—but now I’m ready to get down to serious business. My actual job—finishing a damn book.
I scrub a hand down my face, silently hoping I can survive the pressure of this thing—otherwise known as the huge, gargantuan mistake that’s led to me going through edits on a book that I didn’t intend to let see the light of day, all while being stuck on a motor home with the apple of this book’s eye.
If working on a contemporary romance book while simultaneously living through a real-life forced-proximity trope isn’t irony, then I don’t know what is.
Although, if this were a romance book, you should’ve already experienced the big, explosive moment that ends with Chase’s super-sized McPenis inside you.
I roll my eyes at myself, and from his spot on the floor near my feet, I’m certain Benji rolls his eyes too.
Shaking my head to clear the monsters out of it, I start to read the chapter I’m in, doing my best to detach any understanding of the words from my physical body enough to keep my syncope from taking me to the floor.
It’s a scene close to the beginning of the book, when River has her first on-air experience at KKBY. She’s an experienced anchor, but she has no practice with the object of her fantasies looking on while she does it. It’s nearly shocking how well I wrote this part before living it.
“Good afternoon. I’m River Rollins, and this is KKBY with your local news,” I greet viewers, my voice carrying the deepness of speaking from my diaphragm—better known as my “work” voice. “Today, we’ll be visiting local small businesses that are sharing their struggles to find a new normal in a social-media-driven world. Pat and Belinda Bryce, for example, have been baking pies for nearly fifty years for the community of Oxboro, but recently, their sales have dried up. They say they’ve tried to find a presence on Instagram, but the technological world is changing too quickly. I spoke with them directly, and this is their touching story.”
Clive signals to me with a point and a smile, sending the live shot to the camera roll of the interview with Pat and Belinda I conducted just a day ago.
I take a deep breath and fix my hair that’s sticking behind my shoulder, and Clive looks back at me with a thumbs-up and a wink. I’m so rattled, my foot slips off the bottom rung of my stool, and a clanging ring explodes in the middle of the otherwise silent and waiting studio.
My eyebrows grow to ten times their normal height as everyone redirects their gazes directly to me.
Great, River, I think to myself. First day on the air and you’re already causing a scene worthy of—
A gentle tap on the shoulder is all it takes to send my stomach straight to the inner lip of my asshole, locked and loaded and ready to be shat in a fiery spray of nerve-induced diarrhea.
Instantly, Schitt’s Creek comes to mind, but instead of Ew, David, it’s Ew, Brooke.
“Whoops, sorry.” Chase laughs shamelessly at the startled expression on my face, but he doesn’t look contrite at all. Rather, he looks amused.
“You’re taking your life into your own hands, sneaking up on me like that! Jeez.” Exasperation puffs from my lungs. “Did you get some new, soundproof orthotics I’m unaware of?”
An additional chuckle jumps from his perfect mouth, but I choose to ignore his plump-y, most likely incredibly soft lips that I still wonder if I almost had the chance to kiss last night.
“I wasn’t even being that quiet, Brooke. You were just entrapped in the book so fully you didn’t hear me.” He waggles his eyebrows, the bastard. “It’s good, isn’t it?”
I realize in some shallow part of me that his remark is a compliment to both me and my work, and yet, still, it feels like a jab. He may as well be saying, Ha-ha, I told you working on this would be fun!
But two can play at the game of redirection, and I remembered to pack my cleats. Not, like, literal ones, of course. I’m no Sporty Spice.
“Not as good as a day spent on Bourbon Street, I’m sure, but I guess if this is how you like to get your kicks, I’ll fall in line.”
He nods to my coffee mug as he takes another one out of the cabinet. “Good. I’ll let you keep using my mug, then.”
“Your mug?” I scoff. “Aren’t these all the community mugs of the motor home, sir?”
“They were until I claimed that one. I’ve used it every morning and night since we got on this bus. But, just this once, I’ll let you use it,” he offers faux magnanimously.
