by J. L. White
“He didn’t like your work?” Isabella asks.
Sam shrugs. “He liked it fine and knew how to make it better. He knows his shit, I’ll give him that. I did learn a lot, but gawd he’s just such an abrasive ass. Normally I like abrasive.”
All three of us nod.
“But he had these pet names for everyone in the department, and that just irritated the hell out of me. He thinks he’s being cute, but he’s not and everyone just kind of tolerates it.”
“How’d a guy like that end up in charge?” Isabella asks.
“What was his pet name for you?” I want to know.
Sam makes a face at me. “Munchkin. He even sang the fucking munchkin song to me once. The asshole.”
I grin as she looks at Isabella. “Because his cousin is one of the partners, and because he’s a damned designing genius. I hate that guy.”
Isabella and I laugh. Maybe Sam looks upset, but trust me, when Sam’s upset there’s no question about it. No jokes. No calling anyone a genius. When she’s pissed she’s a little flaming ball of napalm and everyone with half a brain knows to get the hell out of her way.
She spends a few more minutes entertaining us with tales of her old job and filling us in on her new one, then we start talking about Isabella and Shane’s honeymoon plans.
“How long are you going to be in Greece?” I ask.
“A couple weeks,” she says, “but we actually just added a week to our trip so we can go to England too. He thinks we’re just doing the London thing, but I have a surprise for him. I hired a researcher to look into his family history, and she finally sent me what she found. She traced one of his lines all the way back to 1684 in Cornwall, England! His family even has a crest. So I’m taking him to check out the little village his family is from.”
“Oh my god,” Sam says, grinning, “you guys are such nerds.”
Isabella sticks her tongue out, then grins. “I’m getting his crest framed for his office too. He’s going to be so excited.”
“Oh yeah,” Sam says, leering, “how excited?”
“Shut up, Sam,” Isabella retorts, but her smile says it all.
Sam laughs, then her eyes light on me suddenly and she says, “Oh, Chloe! I was digging through your archives the other day and found your Turtle Brownie recipe.” Her eyes roll up and she puts her hand on her chest. “Oh my god, soooooo good!”
I smile. “You liked it, huh?”
“Jack ate nearly the whole pan all by himself when I was at work one day.”
“Is Jack still coming over and swiping your food?” Isabella asks.
“Some things never change,” Ashley says with a grin. True that. Our friend Jack has been swiping our food for years.
“I had to make another pan and hide it from him,” Sam continues. “He found it eventually anyway but there were a couple left so I packed them. Yum, yum, yum, girl.”
I smile and the conversation takes another random turn, the way conversations with your girlfriends tend to do. I have to admit though, I’m having difficulty paying attention. Because even Sam trying my Turtle Brownie recipe has its origin in Grayson Piers.
There’s no escaping this man today.
Chapter 5
The Genesis of Turtle Brownies
I asked for a tour of his house, but we didn’t make it very far. Around the corner from the living area was a more casual room with a couch, TV, closet for pool supplies and towels, and a patio door leading to the outside. I made a comment about christening the couch, but we took each other so eagerly we ended up on the floor instead.
Afterward, we sat together, finally making it to the couch. I was still nude but all wrapped up in the soft throw he kept on the back of it. He sat next to me with just a portion of the blanket thrown over his lap, but his chest was still uncovered for me to enjoy.
We got to talking about his YouTube channel and how he and his friend Tom got the whole thing off the ground. It all sounded so perfect, I was surprised to hear him say he was ready to try something new.
“Don’t you like it?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said simply, “it’s fun and it’s performing really great. But it’s kind of... lost its novelty I guess. I enjoy photography but I’m more of a hobbyist. Tom’s a professional and really passionate about it. He’s been the driving force in some ways. I like what we’re doing, but I think I want a new topic. Maybe something I could do on my own. I’ve been kicking around a few ideas.”
“Like what?”
He shrugged. “I’m not sure yet. I’m leaning toward a travel channel.”
“Now that would be fun,” I said.
He nodded and his eyes lit up. “Wouldn’t it? I’m still trying to work out an angle though. It’s really hard to get something that broad to take off.”
“I once read a blog about this Canadian couple that picked up and moved to Columbia or somewhere. They started a blog and are making a living at it. I was so jealous. Their blog is all about how to go be an expat somewhere. It was really interesting.”
“Exactly. I need some way to narrow things down.” He put his arm on the back of the couch and started lightly playing with my hair. “I’m tossing around some ideas. I’m kind of waiting for inspiration to strike. I know what it takes to get a channel going and I don’t want to dive into something new unless I’m sure it’s something that will keep me engaged for a while. I tend to get bored kind of easily.”
“Me too.”
That’s when I decided to fess up about my Job Application Addiction. “You know, this place where I work, it’s a good company. The people are really nice. They’re dedicated to their employees and try to promote from within. They’ve invested a lot of training in me already and my manager said that when one of their project managers leaves, they might move me into her position. She’s quitting after she has her baby, but that’s not for another five months. Anyway, it would just be a first step but it would at least put my degree to more use. I’d be supervising a few people and get a raise. But honestly? I don’t want to do any of it. I mean, I’m sure I will. Why wouldn’t I? But that doesn’t stop me from putting out applications everywhere.”
“Like where?”
“Really random crap all over the place. I don’t know why I’m applying to any of these places, because aside from some of them not really being in my field, some are from out of state. I just feel so restless. It’s like I’ll hear about a city and start looking at job boards and before I know it, I’m applying for things. One day I looked up most livable cities or something and started going to their job boards. San Francisco. Chicago. Tallahassee. Tucson.”
“I got my degree at U of A,” he said. “Tucson’s a great town.”
I nodded. “That’s what I hear. But I’m telling you, I’ve applied everywhere. Denver. Houston. Boise.”
Little did I know that I’d be offered a job and on my way to Boise in less than a week.
“What’s worse,” I continued, “is that I’ve even had a few call backs but I never follow up. I mean, I can’t just pick up and move to freaking Houston or wherever. Then the next week I’m right back at it again. I’m starting to feel like an addict.”
He laughed.
“The thing is, I’m either applying to weird shit that I have zero qualifications for. Or I apply for stuff I might be qualified to do in five years or something. Or I apply to stuff I am qualified to do, because I just want to go... I don’t know, somewhere. And of course, those are the people calling me back, but do I really want to pick up and move and spend all that money to haul my ass to Denver just to have another job that’s going to bore the shit out of me?”
He laughed and nodded.
“Plus, my brother’s here and I feel like I need to stay close.”
“He’s in Swan Pointe?” Grayson asked.
“No. Right now he’s home with my dad, but in a couple weeks he’ll be back at Hartman College. He’s starting his sophomore year there.”
“And where’
s home?”
“Temecula. It’s between LA and San Diego. More inland though.”
“So why do you feel you need to stay close to your brother? Is he your only one?”
I nod. “He’s four years younger than me. Our mom died about eight years ago. He was just eleven, poor kid.”
“Poor you, too,” he said quietly, giving me a look of empathy (thank god it wasn’t that pitying look I hate so much).
“Yeah, it was really hard.”
He removed his arm from the back of the couch and took my hand. “How did she die? Can I ask?”
“Yeah, it’s okay. She was driving home from work in the dead of winter. She hit a patch of black ice and her car flipped and went down into a ravine.”
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
“Yeah. Me too. I think about her every day. She was amazing,” I smiled the smile I reserve for memories about my mom. “I think you would’ve liked her.”
He smiled too.
“My dad really fell apart when it happened though. I mean, really bad. He’d get himself to work but that was about it. He’s doing a lot better now, but for a few years there, I was kind of the mom and looking out for Bobby and trying to keep him together. He went off the deep end too and was failing all his classes. I mean all his classes. It was crazy. The principal would leave messages on the machine at the house and I don’t even know what my dad did about it. Nothing that I could tell. So it kind of fell to me. I cooked and cleaned the house and threatened Bobby until he’d finally get some homework done and dad just sat on the couch like a zombie.”
“Wow,” he said softly.
I shrugged. It was what it was. “It’s a lot better now. My English teacher stopped me after class one day. I think this was a year and a half after Mom died. Anyway, I don’t know how my teacher caught on to things but she asked me some questions and I told her just a little. She told me about this support group for kids who’ve lost a parent, but she thought it’d help all of us. I don’t know, something about the way she described it really clicked with me. I spent three days harassing my dad about it and wouldn’t let up. I finally told him he’d better take us or I was going to steal the car and run away.”
Grayson raised his eyebrows and smiled, apparently impressed.
“I don’t think I would’ve really done that,” I said, “but I wasn’t going to give up either. He finally signed us up and that first meeting was really good. They have activities for the kids to do while the adults go off and talk about whatever. I don’t even remember what our first activity was. Maybe it was decorating the memory stones. I forget. Anyway, that group was good because we weren’t, like, sitting around talking about everything and crying or something. It was a lot of fun and just... I don’t know... just nice to be with other kids who knew what it was like, because most kids have no idea, you know?”
He nodded and squeezed my hand. I realized he was listening, really listening to me. I’d told Brad about my mom, of course, but I never really got into all this with him. I don’t know why. I think he would’ve listened. He wasn’t that much of an ass. But... Grayson felt safer. I didn’t quite realize how guarded I’d become with Brad until I sat there talking to Grayson about my mom and my family. And it felt okay.
“They had this anger activity once. I think this was our third meeting or something. Anyway, at the beginning the leaders talked about all the emotions you have after a parent dies, and how they’re sometimes on the inside where no one can see them. I think they went through all the emotions, but that night they focused on anger. So everything was healthy ways to get it out, like popping bubble wrap. And we got to throw bean bags at a wall and try to knock off all these sticky notes. It was really fun and we really got into it. I remember watching Bobby as he was throwing those bean bags. He was laughing like the other kids, but I could see it in his eyes, you know? All the stuff underneath. The parents came back then because we had one last activity we were going to do with everyone, the parents too. It was this little race with wadded up balls of paper and hockey sticks.”
Grayson was listening intently, stroking the back of my hand with his thumb.
“Anyway, so we did all this stuff and the leaders wrapped things up and I remember thinking how strange and refreshing it was to have someone acknowledge everything I was going through without me feeling like a pariah about it. It just was, and it was really nice. Then, I’ll never forget this, on the way home, Dad said, ‘I sure miss your mother.’ And he didn’t ever say stuff like that. He just didn’t. I said ‘Me too,’ and then it was quiet for a while. I looked into the backseat and Bobby was crying pretty hard. A long time later he told me he’d never cried about her before. Can you imagine? This was like two years later and he finally cried over her. No wonder he was having such a hard time. Anyway, my dad noticed and reached back and patted Bobby’s knee and then we were all crying and cried all the way home.”
My eyes were watering just talking about it.
“It was really good though, you know?” I said, and Grayson nodded. “Things slowly got better after that.”
I settled back against the couch cushions, done with my story. Grayson took a deep breath. “Well. It sounds like you saved your family there, Chloe.”
I shrugged. I didn’t know about that.
“It must be hard to let go of that responsibility,” he said, “now that the crisis is over.”
I laughed lightly. “The crisis is hardly over. My brother’s in college mingling with frat boys.” I rolled my eyes. “Me and my friends tried to keep a pretty close eye on him last year.”
Grayson smiled. “Did he get into a lot of trouble?”
I sighed. “Not really, I guess. Normal stuff, really. But, you know, he’s my baby brother. I don’t want to see him get hurt.”
“I can understand that,” he said, but he gave me a knowing smile, as if he knew better.
“I know. I need to let go.” I’d known this for a while, but saying and doing were two different things sometimes.
“So, if you really, really could do anything. No restrictions. No barriers. No baby brothers to mother. If you could live any dream you wanted...”
I shrugged helplessly. “Still the food blog thing,” I said. “Not a little one either. I’d want it to be huge. National. I’d have tons of great recipes, like my Turtle Brownies.”
“Mmmm, that’s sounds good.”
“They’re fucking amazing,” I said, and he laughed. “But I’d also want to do reviews of local restaurants. I think it’d be fun. I love food. And not just the snobby stuff either. There’s this place in Rosebrook just a block from my college. Delsa’s Diner. They serve a concoction they call Volcano Fries.”
I stopped long enough to make yummy sounds. He laughed.
“There’s nothing upscale about those fries at all, but they’re soooo good. I think it’d be fun to have reviews of places like that right alongside reviews of The Net.”
He nodded. “Yeah, and you could do profiles of the owners or chefs or something. Then when your posts go live they’ll tell everyone they know to check it out and that’ll help drive traffic to your site.”
“Good idea!”
“So why aren’t you doing it?”
“Well...”
I didn’t know the answer to that. I’d never talked with anyone who thought blogging could be a viable career path. I knew people did it, but like Brad always said...
I stopped my train of thought, wondering why that asshole was still up in my head. Everything with him was about being practical. But maybe I didn’t want to be practical anymore.
Still, even with Grayson sitting right in front of me and making anything seem possible, I discovered letting go of old fears was not so easily done.
“Statistically, only a small number of bloggers actually make a living,” I said.
He shrugged. “What difference does that make? You know how many YouTubers aren’t making money? Why should that stop me from doing it?”<
br />
I blinked at him. “Just... the odds?”
He shrugged again. “It’s good to know what you’re up against, sure. That’s part of knowing what you have to do to succeed. But I enjoy what we’re doing enough that I’m willing to put in the work required to beat the odds. And it is work. And it’s hard. And we’ve had all kinds of setbacks we’ve had to get through. There were times I wondered if we were crazy for doing it. But I just kept thinking, this is what I want to do, so I’m doing it. It’s no different than the guy who works his tail off in law school, right? I’m not afraid of work. I just want to spend it doing something I actually enjoy. Is that so crazy?”
“It sounds amazing,” I said. “Like a fantasy.”
He furrowed his brows at me and cocked his head, as if he sensed both my deep desire for this and my fear of even trying. Then he leaned in and asked the question that started to change everything.
Chapter 6
“Come on, Chloe. What’s the worst thing that could happen?”
It wasn’t a casual question. It was serious, and I knew it. We were getting to the heart of things now.
“Just,” I said quietly, “I don’t know. I guess that I’d put all that work in and nothing would happen. In the end I’d be right back where I started.”
“Because it’s not making money?” he asked.
“Well...” I shrugged, “yeah.” But that suddenly wasn’t feeling like a very good reason.
“If you try and fail,” he said firmly, but gently, “that’s not going back to where you are right now. Where you are right now, you’re always going to wonder. You’re always going to wish.” He gave my hand a little squeeze and held my eyes. “It’s always going to be a regret.”
I felt that in my heart. How awful it sounded, too, to just always be wishing and hoping and feeling defeated before I even started.
