Page 68 of Thirsty
His phone ringing interrupted the serene beauty. He frowned at the unfamiliar number, but his phone wasn’t tagging it as spam. Curious, he answered.
“Why aren’t you returning my calls?” Ava demanded.
The surprise of hearing her voice sent a wave of nausea through him. He looked at the number on his phone again, and Ava correctly interpreted his silence. “It’s Henry’s phone,” she said. “I was wondering if it was me you were dodging or everyone. Guess I have my answer!”
“Jesus, Ava,” Charlie said. “Are you watchingKilling Eveagain?”
She giggled. “Yeah, I’m a spy. So...”
He swallowed, saying nothing, and she sighed. “Listen—we need to talk about the column!”
“It’s doing well,” he said, reflexively. He had the jittery feelingthat he needed to get off the phone as soon as possible, which didn’t really make any sense. But every second the conversation ticked on, he felt a little closer to crawling out of his skin.
“It’s doingincrediblywell,” Ava said, pride radiating through the phone. “That’s why we need to capitalize on it!”
“Capitalize,” Charlie said. “Yeah. What do you, um.”
“I mean, anything!” Ava said. “For one thing, I feel like you need to come in and do a victory lap around the office. You know boomers don’t think anyone’s real unless they see them, in person, wearing a suit.”
Charlie laughed thinly. “I guess.”
“But it’s not just that,” Ava gushed. “You’re crushing it lately! People love the Crone. We could get you on some panels, or—you could write a book!”
“A book?” His voice echoed off the sleepy streets around him, sounding unnaturally loud.
“Whatever you want, Charlie,” Ava said. “I just don’t want you to waste what you have right now. People are finally paying attention! Let’s show ’em what you’ve got.”
“Right,” Charlie said. He felt dizzy. “I’ll, uh, think about it.”
“You should,” Ava said. “If we play our cards right, you could even get an offer from somewhere else.”
“Somewhere else?” Charlie asked. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, you’ve been kicking such ass, some other site might want to steal you away.” She sounded positively smug about the idea. “To move your column—or, you, really—your services as an advice writer, to some other platform. For a big cash payout.”
He laughed a little, hollowly. “That’s not a real thing.”
“Um, it totally is,” Ava said. “You’d be an amazing get for a lot of places.Midnightmight not be big enough for you anymore.”
Charlie scoffed.
“And listen, on that topic, I feel like we should put a meeting on the books about your latest Crone columns, in terms of voice,” Ava said.
Charlie paused. “What do you mean, voice?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, sounding distracted. “Normally as the Crone you kind of ham it up, but some of your latest columns have been sounding a lot like a regular twentysomething gay guy.”
“I am a regular twentysomething gay guy,” he said flatly. An early-morning jogger gave him a funny look as he passed by.
“Right, I just mean that’s not usually the Crone’s voice,” Ava said. “You were talking about, like,circling backin one of your columns. That’s not really a Crone thing.”
It was beginning to feel like there was a fire in Charlie’s chest, slowly smoldering and eating everything away. Maybe it had been there ever since he’d started his column; because of what it meant to him, how lucky he knew he was, and how much he had at stake. But that fire was burning harder than ever now with everything he was keeping from Lorenzo, and Charlie felt like he was losing more and more of himself to crumbling ash.
“In another column I think you saidspeaking for myself,” Ava said. “You don’t usually—”
“Speak for myself?” Charlie snapped.
“Babe,” Ava said, sounding like he’d suddenly caught her attention. “Are you feeling like a change in persona? Because we can talk about that—”
