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There it was.
A real, bound, children’s hardcover book.
With the cover I had designed.
The title.
Auddie’s name.
And mine.
Well, sort of mine.
The fake me.
Sloane Livingston.
My fingers moved over the cover with something I could only call wonder before I flipped open the first page, seeing the title with all that copyright mumbo jumbo on the back side before the story – and my pictures – started.
“Wow.”
“Right?” Auddie asked, reaching for another copy to fawn over as well. “It’s so beautiful. It’s like we’re the real deal, y’know? Author and illustrator!”
“Well, technically… we are,” I told her with a smile.
“I guess we are,” she agreed, nodding.
“I’m getting a signed copy, right?” Gunner asked, moving in behind me.
Auddie and I shared a look, something hard to explain, but we both somehow understood.
This was the start of something.
We both felt it.
We said nothing then.
But years later, we would both tell each other about the feeling we felt right at that moment – that moment before we signed a book for the first time together.
Gunner – 2 weeks
So this was her place.
I couldn’t claim to be surprised.
When the cab pulled up to the curb, all I could really do was nod and think Yeah, this seems to fit.
Big, expensive, in a nice area. The people who milled in and out were dressed much like Sloane always would, so lost in their phones that they didn’t notice a damn thing around them. Not even the doorman who held the doors open for them.
Even the hallways and elevators screamed money. Everything updated, modern, but comfortable.
“One second!” Sloane’s voice called as I waited outside her door, hearing some slamming going on inside, likely from the kitchen since she promised me lasagne. With chopped meat and sausage. “Ow,” she hissed before there was another slam and a shuffle as she moved across her apartment. “Sorry. I was burning myself,” she told me, holding up a finger that was red, but not blistered. “You better appreciate that lasagne. My hands are precious,” she informed me, taking a step back, inviting me in.
Somehow, the space was mostly neutral-colored, but also screamed feminine. The walls were an off-white. The furniture was white. The couch was a tufted beige color. The accent carpet even had various shades of whites, creams, and a small hint of gold in it.
Upscale. Feminine. Expensive.
It suited her.
I wondered if she would feel the same way about my house.
I had never given the place much thought before. It was a place I slept, kept my shit, took care of. But like… shit that needed fixing, tasks that needed doing. Like mowing the lawn, raking the leaves, fixing the front path.
I never painted a wall inside except the bathroom since I had to rip some of the old tile off of it because it was molded when I moved in.
I had some furniture, but not any personal touches, any knickknacks, anything that said I really lived there.
“Nice place, duchess,” I said, pulling her in for a quick kiss before following my nose to her kitchen. “That looks great.”
“Don’t touch it,” she warned, slapping my hand as I tried to peel the tin foil away. “That is for dinner. In your place.”
“We could hang here tonight instead.”
“No. We are coming back here after the weekend,” she reminded me.
I knew this.
We had an entire month planned out.
Planning out time wasn’t exactly my style, but it was – as it would turn out – necessary.
And it was her style.
I learned something else about Sloane.
Apparently, she slept with her day planner.
Literally.
She had told me that over the phone after I had dirty-talked her the night before and we started talking about our schedules, and she said she had to find her planner under the mess of her blankets.
So then she sat there and debated weekdays and weekends with me until we had it all figured out a month in advance.
There wasn’t – it would seem – room for playing it fast and loose.
“You knew very well that the lasagne wasn’t going to get eaten here,” she added, grabbing two long sleeves of tin foil, something I imagined was garlic bread.
“You could have cooked it at my place.”
“Then we’d be eating even later,” she reminded me.
“Got a point there,” I agreed. “So where are all the bags?” I asked, looking around.
“I have one bag. And one small toiletry bag.”
“Plus your purse, that makes three. I think that qualifies as all the bags. You’re not bringing any art shit?” I asked, locating the bags that clearly were meant for clothes and shampoo, no room for easels or sketchpads.
“I was looking into it. Navesink Bank just put in a huge craft store. In the A&P plaza,” she informed me, impressing me with her obvious research because there was no way she could have known about the A&P since it went out two years before, sat vacant, then finally got turned into the craft store she was talking about.
