Page 185 of Story of My Life
“Hi, Zoey,” I said.
She spun around and looked at me wide-eyed. “I knew you were fooling around with him. And I was fully willing to forgive you for not telling me. But I didn’t know you were ‘cookbreakfast naked’ fooling around with him! And why are you holding a farm animal like a baby?”
“What’s with the screaming?” Gage asked, wandering into the room with Levi on his heels. “Oh, fuck.”
“I’ll take mine over easy,” Levi said with a smirk at Cam and his tea towel.
“So you’re likedatingdating,”Zoey said over our lakefront chicken salads.
After all the screaming and naked breakfast jokes, Zoey and I had spent the morning going door-to-door at local businesses, explaining Summer Fest and asking for help in temporarily turning the town into an aggressive tourist trap. Everyone seemed surprisingly invested in beating Dominion at its own game for once, and I was getting my hopes up.
I shook my head. “It’s more like exclusive fucking.”
She pointed at me with her fork. “But you’re going to dinner tonight, and I caught you two making out after I busted him making naked eggs.”
“He has a kissable face to go along with his fuckable body.”
“Mm-hmm. And how’s the writing going?”
“Good enough that I emailed you the first ten chapters to allay my publisher’s fears,” I said smugly. “Hopefully they’ll see that writing something new isn’t the worst idea ever for me.”
“I know. I just wanted to hear you say it out loud. I already read it thirty seconds after you emailed it. Before I continue to interrogate you about Real-Life Cam, I just have to say, you’re writing like pre-Jim Hazel.”
“I don’t know if I should take that as a compliment,” I admitted.
“You let him get in your head.”
“Who? Cam? I only let him get in my vagina.”
“Jim, dummy. You let him tell you your characters weren’t angsty enough, that your stories weren’t important enough. That’s why your last two launches sucked. He got his sticky, snobby literary fingers in your head, and you started doubting yourself.”
She was right, and we both knew it. I sighed. “Look, I’m not saying I let him gaslight me, but?—”
“That’s exactly what you let him do. But Jim is in our past. You’re Hazel Freaking Hart, and you’re writing a story that resonates.”
“But it’s also like funny though, right?” I prompted her.
“Of course it’s funny. It’s funny and heartfelt and real. Now back to Cam,” she said. “Youlikehim!”
“I do not! I mean, I like having sex with him. Lots of sex. Tons of orgasms.”
“Stop it before I push you in the lake.”
“Orgasms galore,” I teased.
“You’re mean when you’re sexually satisfied and in looooooove,” Zoey sang.
“I’m not in love. I can barely tolerate the man when he’s got his clothes on.”
“I’m just saying, you’re glowing. You’re writing at pre-Jim speeds. You’re planning a Hallmark-movie-worthy small-town festival to save Story Lake. And you’re showering regularly. I don’t want to jinx it or anything, but I think you might be happy.”
“Maybe small-town life suits me? Speaking of, I need your expertise on running geographically targeted social media ads for Summer Fest. We’ve got a fifty-dollar budget.”
“That should be enough to bring a whopping one point five people to our shindig. But I’ll do my best. Back to you and Cam dating as reported on Neighborly.”
“We’re not dating. We’re…exclusively sexing.” It had been surprisingly easy to get used to our new arrangement. The orgasms had dazzled me into submission, I supposed.
“Uh-huh. Sure. So let me just run through the facts. You’re having sex. You’re going out to dinner together. You’ve officially spent the night together. You watch delicious trash TV together. And you’ve met his entire family.”
