Page 26 of Love is an Open Book
She swallows, her throat working, and my own pulse kicks up. “Guess away.” She’s joining me in this game. And it is a game, I remind myself. An experiment for her work. Not personal. Notreal, even though my pounding pulse says otherwise.
What would Mia like? She’s someone who gives freely of herself. Her time. Her energy. Aware, sensitive. Receptive. “You’re used to taking the lead, controlling how much you feel. Holding yourself back. I’d like to see you come undone. To take you past the point of holding back, to watch you get swept away.”
Her mouth is parted, pink tongue visible between her lips, and I speak the next words on instinct alone. “I’d start with slow kisses, deep ones.” I can’t tear my eyes away from her. “Drawing out the moment until you couldn’t take it anymore. You’d want me to rush things, prove nothing could make you lose your grip, but I’d take my time. Savor you with lingering kisses, and you’d surprise yourself with how much you wanted more.”
She lets out a shuddering breath. “You think I’d be surprised by how I’d respond to you?”
For a moment I’m speechless, knocked off-balance by her directness. Even more so when she unfolds her legs and leans in, matching my pose. “You don’t think I’d be ready for all of that and more? That I’ve been craving the freedom to cross that line?” Her lips curve upward. “The only surprising thing is you thinking I haven’t already imagined how good you’d taste.”
Our knuckles are brushing, our faces inches away, and the only thing keeping words from becoming reality is years of habit. Years of reminding myself there are good reasons we don’t touch, good reasons we don’t give voice to thoughts like these. Reasons that have fully fled my mind at this point, but muscle memory keeps me still, keeps my distance. The intensity in her gaze sparks something in my chest, but I learned to ignore those bursts of attraction.
Which is good, because a moment later Mia pulls back, a smug grin on her face. “Is that what you had in mind? Because we might want to tone it down if we don’t want our hypothetical colleagues to catch on.”
She was pretending. Of course she was. Pulling from her creative well and years of writing love stories. Or maybe, like me, she was finally letting go.
Nine
Mia
The cursor blinks on a blank page. Forty-five minutes since I awkwardly segued us back into normalcy—three flips of the hourglass—and my replies to Gavin’s emails are the sum total of my word count for the day.
I haven’t managed to write a single word since our attempt at role-playing. Seeing that side of Gavin gave me the irresistible urge to explore, like a book left open on a table. He’s terrible at bluffing—when we play cards with Joe and Sera, I always know when he has a bad hand—and I didn’t expect him to be so good at pretending to flirt. Except it didn’t feel like pretend. It felt effortless. Real. Which is why I never should’ve agreed to blur the lines with him.
Nearly ten years of friendship and he was able to fake flirt his way under my skin in less than ten minutes. In my defense, he’s heard me moan about countless bad first dates and helped me cope with all my breakups. He’s like an inside agent, using my deepest desires against me, or in this case,forme. Because what he was saying really worked for me.
Surprising, since office romance didn’t work out too well when I tried it in real life. After breaking up with Ted, I had a couple years of false starts. Disappointing first dates and short relationships where things didn’t click. I was working at a small accounting firm and hit it off with a coworker. After a tax season of long hours and late-night fast-food runs, we mutually agreed to take things further. About a month into dating him, I mentioned maybe it was time to bring up our relationship at work and stop pretending we were just friends. His response?Aren’t we?Things at the office were a lot less fun after that.
It was years ago, and I’d forgotten all about stolen watercooler glances until Gavin started talking about how he’d act if he were interested in me. And for a long, forbidden moment, I’d wished it was our friendship that had slipped into something more, instead of the other men who’d left me unsatisfied.
We came close, once before. A guy I’d gone out with a few times got us tickets to a musical I’d been dying to see, then ghosted me a week before the show. Gavin surprised me with great seats to make up for it. At intermission we saw the jerk I’d been dating, holding hands with another woman. Gavin had looped an arm around my shoulders as the lights dimmed and made a joke about a rebound being the best way to get over someone.As your friend, he said, low into my ear as the orchestra swelled,I’d be willing to fill that role.
But we agreed to always be the reason the other smiled, and no one smiles after their heart is broken.I’d never break your heart, he’d said, and I’d answered,I know. But then reminded him if we fell in love, things wouldn’t be so simple.
Yet in my attempt to avoid the complications of fake dating, I’ve landed us in a situation that’s the farthest thing from uncomplicated. I can’t help stealing glances at him, as if a few words could shift him from my lovable best friend into... what? A boyfriend? That would be a step backward, based on my own experience.
He’s frowning slightly at the screen, lips pursed... and why am I looking at his mouth? I yank my gaze away and open the file containing Victor’s character journal. The truth is, writing those tongue-in-cheek responses to Gavin’s chair complaints was the most fun I’ve had at my desk in months. Acting out workplace romance brought the third book in the series to mind, a romance between Sydney’s friend, an editor, and a publicist he works with. I reenvision a pivotal scene in that novel from Victor’s perspective.
I already know him inside and out. He and Sydney have been secondary characters for the entire series. Best friends, ready to step in with one-liners and last-minute rides to the airport. They’re woven into the heart of the books, the thread that connects everyone’s stories.
Their bond is unbreakable, and some readers argue it’s the strongest relationship of all. But it’s not love. Or at least not the romantic kind. Not yet.
Authors are warned never to write ourselves into our characters. To keep a healthy distance. But I couldn’t help pouring myself into these two. Gave them soft hearts easily bruised, and an unshakable trust in each other. Told myself it was fine because I’d never have to delve into what was keeping them from a happy-ever-after.
That’s why, when the producers approached me about a fourth book, my knee-jerk reaction was to say no. But the more I thought about it, the more I wanted that for them. I love the idea of the cheerleaders, the goofballs, the friends always ready with quiet support or vocal encouragement, getting dragged onto center stage to discover what’s keeping them apart isn’t worth holding on to.
But because I went and made these characters so much like me, that’s pretty impossible. My own parents’ love story didn’t even last until the birth of their second child. Them not being together wasn’t a tragedy so much as a fact I saw echoed incountless other lives—sometimes love works out, and a lot of times it fails miserably.
I believe happy endings exist in real life, but they’re not guaranteed. I like knowing the end before I begin. I even flip to the last page of love triangle romance novels to make sure I don’t root for the wrong person. I want to give readers that same certainty with Sydney and Victor, but first I need to convince myself.
Seeing the scene from his friends’ love story play out through Victor’s eyes, I realize his focus isn’t on the drama unfolding, but on Sydney. Writing this into my manuscript would be a flashback, filling in the gaps of why he’s ready for something more. Mind outpacing my typing, I enter that blissful place where I’m swept away in writing, and when I look up, the late-afternoon sun is filtering through the branches outside the window, my back aches, and Gavin is gone.
I pull my phone out of the desk drawer and see a text.
Gavin:Are there mandated breaks in this workplace? Getting coffee. Don’t tell those nightmare HR people.
Smiling, I text a thumbs-up and ask if he can grab me a bagel or something from the pastry case, then open the internet browser. I’ve just typed “cost to rent out a theater” for a possible grand gesture into the search bar when Gavin walks in with an iced coffee and a quiche. “What’re you working on?”
“Research.” For once it’s true and not a pointless rabbit hole I’ve gone down to avoid writing. “You got here fast.”
