Page 7 of All Jacked Up

Noa

Age Twenty-Six

Ransom: I’m starting to get a complex.

I looked down at my phone and read his text, then bit back a laugh. There were still three more hours left on my flight to London. I’d thought about texting him, but I hadn’t. Lately, there had been an annoying guilt about texting with Ransom. The moment I’d said, “Yes,” and Arden slid the diamond onto my finger, I’d begun to feel as if I was lying to him. But this wasn’t cheating. It was … it was pen-pal stuff. It had been almost ten years since we’d seen each other in person. The texting we did was just friendly. Never had Ransom flirted with me. He never said inappropriate things to me. But if I was going to marry Arden, then shouldn’t my future husband know that I regularly texted another man? Even if it was completely platonic.

Me: And why is that?

Ransom’s texts were a major part of my life. Stopping them … it was literally painful to think about.

Ransom: You haven’t texted me in almost a week. What’s happening in life, Shakespeare? Something must be keeping you busy.

My current book tour. That was keeping me busy. But my career as a romance novelist wasn’t something I’d shared with him. He’d want to know the name of the book, see my pen name, read the first book I had published … about a librarian and a very dark, elusive stranger who snuck into her apartment at night and watched her. My hero became obsessed, and his physical description was Ransom Carver in every way, right down to thecleft in his chin. No way in hell was Ransom Carver ever going to know he was the hero in the first three books I’d published. All of which had shot to the top of the bestsellers list and then been published internationally. I’d been translated into twenty-four different languages so far. It was all surreal. Turned out that Arden had been right about that.

With my fourth release, I had spent two weeks on a US tour and was now being sent to the UK. London was my first stop. Arden was going to meet me in Berlin at the end of the week.

Me: Work. I’ve been putting in a lot of hours.

That wasn’t a lie.

Ransom: You can’t stay locked up, editing your life away, Shakespeare. You gotta get out and live a little. You still dating the editor?

I never gave him Arden’s name because, well, he hadn’t asked. I also hadn’t told him we’d gotten engaged. I wasn’t sure why, but I was struggling with a way to say it. Not that Ransom would care. Our relationship wasn’t like that. But he was anti-marriage. That I knew. And I didn’t want to hear his negativity on the subject.

Me: I am. But we’re both busy.

Ransom: Don’t be that girl. The onewho waits around for a guy to call. Go do something without him.

Me: Eh, that requires peopling. I love the written word more than humans. You know that.

Ransom: You might be onto something there. Most people suck.

It might have been nine years, eleven months, and three days since I’d last heard his voice, but it was still so clear in my head. That was weird, wasn’t it?

Me: Which people are sucking in your world as of late?

Ransom: Than is being a dumb shit. I’m getting fucking anxiety because of him.

I stared down at the words. It wasn’t the first time he’d complained about his brother, but this seemed different. Or I was reading into it because I had been awake for twenty-one hours.

Me: Problems in the distillery?

That was normally his complaint with Than.

Ransom: No. It’s a female. A hot one. But off-limits. He’s got his head messed up over her. I don’t get it. There are a million hot females out there. Pick another.

Comments like this I was used to. Ransom acting as if one beautiful woman was interchangeable with another. He never looked deeper than their appearance. He wasn’t the kind of guy who wanted more. Just a hot fuck. His words, not mine. And unlike my books, I couldn’t write him into changing. Wanting more, getting completely obsessed with one woman and not being able to see any other. This was real life. Not my imagination.

Me: Maybe he’s in love.

Like I’d expected, his response was immediate.

Ransom: That’s bullshit, and you know it, Shakespeare. I’ve explained men to you. We want sex. The more kink, the better. Then we want to move on to the next one. That’s the real thing going on in men’s heads. We are driven by our dick. Then our dick gets bored and wants a new cunt.

I rolled my eyes with a sigh. This was reality with Ransom. Perhaps that was why I’d loved writing him into the role of a man who believed this way, then found out that love was real, and when he met the right woman, he’d change.

Me: Then I am sure Than will move on and forget her soon enough.

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