by Nikky Kaye
I raised an eyebrow. “Are you looking at porn, young lady?”
“No!” She slammed her laptop shut.
“You’re blushing. You are looking at porn. Tumblr?” I laughed. “Share with the rest of the class.”
“No, really! I’m… blogging.”
Well, that was disappointing. I’d kind of been hoping it was porn. “How did I not know you had a blog?”
“I never told you, for one.” She pulled her feet from my lap and sat up straighter. “But I take some of the questions that I don’t use in Miss Behave and answer them in the blog—just in more detail. It’s more personal, I guess.”
“Wait, have you written about us?”
“No, I haven’t.” Eye roll. “Aren’t we self-centered? No, it’s kind of…” She searched for the words. “You know how my column was—is—kind of old-fashioned? I think ‘prudish’ is the word you used,” she reminded me.
I nodded, still wishing that I hadn’t called Lizzie a prude when I first met her. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
“Anyhow,” she continued, “I take questions and answer them from the perspective of different generations. Like, what would your mom say? What advice would your grandfather give you? How is it different to society today? You know, different contexts.”
I pondered it. “That’s good.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
She told me a little more about it—when she began, some of the reader comments that she’d saved in her memory bank, how it had evolved. As I listened to her talk about the blog, I noticed a light in her eyes that definitely wasn’t there when she talked about her news assignments. It even outshone the enthusiasm she showed for her advice column.
“Does the blog make any money?” I asked. “Ads, affiliate links?”
“It’s starting to. But really, it’s just a hobby.” She waved it off, like the work she put into it didn’t matter. Like her talent didn’t matter.
I hated that she sounded almost apologetic. Fuck that noise. “Does it make you happy?”
With a jolt, I was taken back to our conversation before she found out about Cubicle Crush. Before—if I was being totally honest—I really made love to her for the first time. From the strange look on her face, she was reminded of the same thing.
“Yeah,” she responded slowly. “It does.”
“‘Naked in Disneyland’ kind of happy?”
She hummed thoughtfully. “Honestly? More like ‘naked at Hogwart’s, eating chocolate frogs’ kind of happy.” The idea made her beam as she moved her computer to the coffee table.
That was a lot of happiness.
She announced she was going to get ready for bed while I turned it over in my head, examining the idea like a philosophical argument. What was holding her back? Goals change, dreams change, people change—right? I didn’t expect to fall in love. She hadn’t expected to hate the news desk so much.
I was still mulling it over when she called out in warning, “Hey! You’re going to miss naked happy time here!”
* * *
A few days later, Rob Mooney asked if I could come in to the Hot Mess offices. I didn’t think anything of it, beyond whether or not I could kidnap Lizzie for lunch or something.
When I got there, though, Lizzie was in Rob’s office already. Waiting for me.
“Hey, Ash,” Rob said.
I nodded, slouching into a chair beside my girlfriend. Maybe I could get her in the storage closet after this and finish what we’d started before…
Rob sighed. “There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just gonna spit it out. The owners have decided they want to keep A Guy’s Guy going.”
“Cool.” Oh no, I could see where this was—
He grimaced. “But not Miss Behave.”
Shit.
Lizzie flinched in her seat. Our gazes met. She looked confused and stricken, but not angry. Hopefully she didn’t blame me for this. It was reassuring when she reached over and squeezed my hand briefly, before turning back to her editor.
“So am I on news permanently, then?”
“That’s the trouble…” Rob stared at his desk.
“I’m fired? Are you serious?”
“No way,” I said, standing up. “We’ll just do the column together, then. Why should Lizzie lose her job?”
Mooney looked like he wanted to crawl under his desk, and I didn’t blame him. It didn’t make sense. It wasn’t fair.
“You’re a good writer, Lizzie,” he said. “I’m sure it won’t be too hard—a”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “What if I say no?”
“Then the column will just be scrapped altogether. Or they’ll find someone else. Miss Behave was great at the time,” Rob said, “but now that the sites have merged, they want to go in a different direction. I’m sorry. It’s not personal. Either way…”
Going unspoken was the simple, painful fact that my girlfriend was out of a job. My arms dropped to my sides, my fists clenched in furious frustration.
Lizzie rose stiffly from her chair. In a controlled, quiet voice, she asked if that was all.
The bottom fell out of my stomach. It was obvious to me, if not Mooney, that she didn’t want to cry in her boss’s office. Without waiting for a response, she scurried out the door to god knows where. I’d have to launch a search party with Dara shortly.
“This is bullshit.” I pointed at Rob.
“It’s business.” He exhaled heavily. “I know it sounds like a line but seriously, my hands are tied.” The bags under his eyes were heavier than normal. “Hell, I’m glad I still have a job. I’ve got a mortgage to pay and kids to feed.”
As though that made it easier for Lizzie to be unemployed—because she didn’t have a family to provide for? I opened my mouth to say that, but recognized by the defeated look in his eyes that he was just the messenger. Fuming, I just left the room before I kicked something.
To my surprise, Lizzie was in her cubicle. Totally not to my surprise, Dara was with her. They both looked up at me as I appeared.
“I won’t do it,” I said. “I won’t do it unless you do it with me. We made a pretty good team before, right?”
My girlfriend’s hazel eyes looked greener with tears in them. “Yeah, we did.”
“Okay, then.”
“But let’s be realistic here, Ash. If they don’t want to keep me, they won’t. It’s not the easiest profession to be in right now. I was lucky to have this gig for the past two years. I mean, even Pete is going to have a hard time finding a job, and he went to—”
“Columbia,” Dara finished in chorus with Lizzie. They smiled at each other.
A vibration began low in my chest—a kind of nervous excitement that my body recognized before my brain did. Maybe this wasn’t the end of the world. Maybe there was another solution. Maybe this was what was spinning around in my head earlier in the week, in a nebulous form with tendrils reaching out but not grasping at anything.
Until now.
I knelt down before Lizzie, where she sat in her creaky office chair. “I have a proposition for you.”
“Oh my god,” Dara breathed.
Lizzie’s eyes bugged out as she took in my stance, then she looked at Dara in horror. “He’s not…”
Her friend shook her head. “He can’t be…”
Uh oh. “Calm the fuck down. I said proposition, not proposal.” Although, the idea wasn’t as terrifying as I thought it would be, I suddenly realized.
Both women began breathing again, and I grabbed Lizzie’s hand. She blinked at me, the utter shock at possibly being proposed to having dried up her tears.
“What if I took the job?”
“I can’t stop you. You should do it. It’s your job,” she said gently. “I’ll find some—”
“What if you blogged full-time?”
She jerked her head back in surprise. Apparently the thought had never occurred to her. “I can’t afford that, Ash. I have rent and bills to pay, and—”
> “What if you didn’t have rent?”
Yeah, I was pushing a lot of hypothetical situations out there, but there was a point I was getting toward. Maybe a point of no return, but without her, I didn’t want to go backwards anyhow.
Dara made a squeaking noise and left us alone in the cubicle. I wrapped both of my hands around both of hers, willing mine to stop shaking.
“Move in with me.”
She stared at me for a full twelve seconds before shaking her head. “You’re not ready for that.”
Aha! She didn’t say that she wasn’t ready for it! I grinned at her.
“I don’t need pity, Ash. I appreciate the moral support, though. Thanks.”
Suddenly it all became clear in my mind, like a movie coming into focus. Kneeling at her feet, I felt ten feet tall. Like I could do anything. Like this was right.
“Fuck that. It’s not pity and who the hell knows if they’re ready for that anyway? I love you.”
“I love you, too, but my apartment—”
“Is barely bigger than this cubicle and you pay an extortionate amount of rent. I have a two bedroom apartment and more money than…”
She narrowed her eyes at me as I cleared my throat. We hadn’t really had the “money” conversation yet.
“Okay, more money than you think,” was all I said. “Move in with me. Work from home on the blog.”
“You want me to be a kept woman?” My Miss Behave frowned at me.
I snorted. “Nobody can keep you, Lizzie. You are your own person.”
“Hmmm.”
A hum wasn’t a ‘no’. I wasn’t going to let this go. I wanted her too much. I wanted her happiness too much. “How about I invest in the blog?” I suggested.
Her gorgeous pink lips curved into the smile that made my insides clench reflexively. She flipped our hands around so that my fists were cradled in her small, soft palms. Hummed again.
“My angel investor,” she murmured.
Ha. “Oh, baby. I’m no angel.” I pulled her down on the floor with me and hauled her onto my lap.
Her knees went around my hips as she straddled me, her arms around my neck. “What kind of return are you looking for, angel investor?”
This. I wanted this.
“Lizzie, I have no doubt that your blog will be successful. You’re a good writer, and you’ve got a good idea. That’s beside the point. If you want to get a new job, I’m sure you’ll get one that’s even better than this. But life isn’t fair, and if there’s anything I can do to protect you from the general… suckiness of it, I will. And I’m not going to apologize for that.”
“What if—?”
I swallowed her question with a fierce kiss. She met the demands of my mouth, and backed me into a breathless negotiation of tongues. By the time we separated, we were both panting and I was rock hard.
“Are you trying to seduce me into saying yes?”
I nipped at her jaw, loving the tremor that went through her. “Would it work?”
“Honestly, it might.” Her little laugh had a crack in it—a quake of uncertainty.
“Look, I know you might have misgivings, but I don’t. I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.” Which was saying a lot, considering how cocky I was sometimes. “Be. With. Me.”
Her eyes widened as she shifted her position on my erection. “Let me get this straight. You’re suggesting that I give up my apartment, move in with you, work on my blog from home in my pajamas, and you pay for everything?”
I winced, and not just from priapic pressure. She made it sound so… chauvinistic. “You can still help me with the column, if you want.”
Great. Now I was being chauvinistic and condescending.
“How about a compromise?” she finally said. “You help me negotiate a kickass severance package, and I’ll either look for a new job or work on the blog full-time from my apartment—” she put her hand over my mouth when I opened it to interrupt “—for say, three months, and then we’ll revisit the whole moving in together thing.”
I went over it in my mind. The head above my shoulders saw the logic. The head lower down was less than convinced.
“Is that official advice from Miss Behave?”
She shrugged. “I’m trying to approach this crazy idea—and it is crazy, you know—from the perspective of A Guy’s Guy.”
That was good enough for now. “Okay. Deal.”
She nodded. “Deal.”
“Sorry if I sounded like a caveman.” I’d apologize for sounding like one, but I wasn’t about to apologize for acting like one. She was mine.
“You’re lucky I love you,” she scolded.
“Oh, I’m aware of how lucky I am.” I pressed a kiss to the tip of her nose, just to watch her wrinkle it up in surprise. “I love you, Miss Behave.”
“Don’t think this means you’ve won.”
“Of course not.” I totally won. I’d give it two months before she was in my bed full-time. “Can I still try to seduce you into saying yes?”
“I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.” Her little wriggle on my lap sent a burst of heat through me.
Oh, I would.
Lizzie might have doubts about my love for her, but I would show her that she was Miss Taken.
Epilogue
Lizzie
Two years later
“Does my face look fat in this?” I asked Ash, chewing on the inside of my cheek as I studied the screen.
“You’re gorgeous,” he answered from the next room.
“That’s not what I asked!” I huffed.
He was no help at all. If I fiddled with the filter, I could probably add to the contouring in my neck. It didn’t matter how advanced the cameras became—in vlogs, everyone looked weird.
In the previous two years, my blog had taken off. Six months ago it spawned a YouTube channel that was attracting retired Baby Boomers with lots of devices and free time. Go figure. The effect of that audience was magnifying, but it took me a while to clue in. I only noticed once the advertising on my page became riddled with erectile dysfunction drugs and European river cruises.
I was still learning about vlogging, which was so different than just writing. For example, I couldn’t take breaks to stare off into space while recording a video. I had to put on real clothes—at least above the waist. It had been disturbingly easy to get used to working in my pajamas.
Ash was still writing A Guy’s Guy, but it had morphed along with the merged websites. Now it was more editorial than just advice-based. In addition to freelancing with some high profile magazines, he’d also just finished a book that he was trying to figure out what to do with.
Our apartment had managed to become more minimalistic and modern, despite combining our things, and Dara and I met up at a new craft distillery for drinks and trivia once a week. Oh, and we had a small avocado addiction.
In other words, we were typical Millennials, bordering on hipster. If I weren’t so happy with my life, I’d hate us.
“I still say something looks weird,” I muttered. Ash leaned over my shoulder to look at my laptop.
“Yeah, sorry. Your earlobes…” He shuddered. “They’re kind of droopy.”
I elbowed him in his six-pack but he just strolled away, laughing. Jackass.
“Where’s my protein pow—never mind!” My boyfriend’s gym bag was on the floor beside him in the kitchen as he rummaged through a kitchen cupboard.
Edit. Filter. Undo. Sigh. Fiddling with the video editing software, I reminded him, “Your shaker bottle is in the—”
“Found it, thanks!”
A moment later, he stepped up behind me and bent over to kiss the nape of my neck, below my ponytail.
“Hmmm.” My head tilted to the side. More. Every time he kissed my neck, a tingle went through my body. It was definitely one of my erogenous zones.
To be fair, though, Ash had a remarkable ability to discover new erogenous zones on my body—the biggest one being my brain. Every day he
made me laugh and think and play and learn and, well, just be a better me.
He also made better coffee than I did.
“Turn around,” he growled against my neck.
Zing! My skin prickled with instant arousal. He backed up a little as I spun around in my top of the line, ergonomic desk chair. When I looked up at him, I was surprised not to see canary feathers sticking out of his mouth.
So smug.
“What are you grinning about?” I asked him.
“Your droopy earlobes.”
He dropped a kiss on my lips, which were parted just enough to taste him and want for more. So much more. I curled my fingers in his t-shirt and pulled him down to me again.
“Do you really want to go to the gym?” I raised an eyebrow. “I can give you a workout here.”
He hummed against my lips, his mouth curving. “Tempting. But I promised Mike I’d meet him, and the poor bastard will make a fool of himself if he’s not supervised. I think having a toddler has made him regress.”
I couldn’t lie—I was disappointed. But I shrugged it off. “Your loss.”
Ash slowly slid the strap of my tank top off my bare shoulder then gave me a chiding look for free-boobing it. My back arched instinctively and my nipples hardened at his touch. His thumb gently met them, strumming the tender points lightly as they pressed against the ribbed cotton.
My mouth opened in a silent “oh”.
“Yeah, definitely my loss,” he agreed roughly. With a self-sacrificing sigh, he straightened. I crossed my arms over my chest, covering up my headlights. “What are you going to do for the next couple of hours?”
“Masturbate.”
Something dark and dangerous flashed in his eyes. “You better not.”
“Why not? You get me all riled up… then you leave.” Serves you right, I thought. I stood up, brushing my body up against his like a gentle breeze from the open window.
Stepping to the side, I lifted my arms over my head and rolled my head around in an exaggerated stretch. My tank top rose to reveal my stomach—which is exactly where I wanted his eyes to go. I could practically feel his gaze slide over my body, from my breasts to my bare legs under my tiny shorts.
