Page 79 of Ambiguous
“Why did you just get all sad panda there?”
“Thinking about my job being an obstacle to us getting together reminds me of all the other things I don’t like about it. I think I need to find another one.”
“Excellent. Your boss is a blowhard; I never understood why you put up with him to begin with. Let me know if you want me to proofread your résumé.”
“I did see some attorneys in my building from a firm I’m interested in, so that’s something. I hate leaving, though. I don’t want to abandon Jules to someone else at the firm. They’re assholes.” I groan and scrub my face. “God, saying that is disloyal to them, and I have a duty of loyalty to my firm and my clients. I’m gonna get fired.”
“You’re not getting fired. Don’t forget, your client is getting a better product from Julian if he’s inspired to write.”
“I guess.”
“You’re just in this weird phase where you’re getting to know one another, but you can’t actually see if you’re physically or romantically compatible because that would be a violation of a bunch of lawyer crap.”
“Thanks,” I say. “Lawyer crap. Way to minimize my existence down to two words.”
She shrugs. “I’m simplifying. After he turns in his album and you’re free to move about the cabin, then you can go on to the next phase: getting to know if all these feelings and impulses you have toward each other actually are something or just the thrill of the forbidden.”
“I don’t think it’s that last one. I didn’t think he was forbidden when he kissed me the first time. It totally slipped my mind. So I wasn’t like, oh, I’m not supposed to do this, let me do it anyway. It more just…happened.”
Her face slackens as she tries to picture it. Then she blinks and shakes herself. “Fuck, that’s hot.”
I grin. “I didn’t mention it before, but you may have noticed. Julian Hill is really, really attractive.”
She shoves me gently. “No kidding. I saw him first. I listened to him first.”
“And there’s gonna be more music. Any day now, he’s going to finish the new album and turn it in. Then we’re going to be able to figure out who we are to each other when we don’t have to hold back.”
Emily closes her eyes and sighs. “That’s so exciting. I want to watch.”
“No fucking way.”
“Yeah, that sentence sounded way less pervy in my head.” She snickers. “I didn’t mean it like that. I want you to have your privacy. I’m just so happy that you seem to be finding a real love life instead of this fiction that you’ve perpetrated for years.”
“It’s not fiction. It’s just… what we did.”
“You need to break up with Kurt.”
“I will.” I sigh. “I have to find a way to broach it to him and the campaign.”
“No one except you and your partner should have that much input into your love life,” she insists.
“Yeah, I know. But it’s just political positioning. It has nothing to do with my real feelings.”
“And you’re finding out that you can’t actually live without love.”
My gaze flicks upward. “Plenty of people do.”
“But is that how you, Sam, want to live?”
It isn’t. After meeting Julian, I’m realizing that not every entertainer is like Asa. Julian surprises me at every turn with the way he isn’t into traditional rock star activities like partying and drugs. I like the way I am with him and the way he makes me feel. And he tells me the feeling’s mutual.
I shake my head. “I want to try and see what it’s like. The possibility of love.”
Glancing from side to side, I note the world does not appear to have ended.
She gasps and holds her fist to her mouth, her eyes shining, then fans her cheeks with her hands. “I never thought I’d see the day.”
“Me, either.”
