The Love Interest

by Kayley Loring

Stop sexting me! Break’s over. I have to go push the special on table 10.

  ME: Stop trying to make me jealous. The only person you’re going to push the special on is me.

  FIONA: We’ll see, Gramps. We’ll see.

  Saucy. I like it. I’ll let her have the last word. My phone vibrates again, but it’s a text from my sister, asking if I’m up and if I’ve called Dad back yet. I tell her I’m calling him right now.

  I’ll call him after my coffee.

  I need to arm myself with caffeine before conversing with Graham Ford. Beloved chronicler of the secret emotional turmoil of Protestant upper middle–class Connecticut suburbanites. Winner of multiple literary awards including two Pulitzers and a National Book Award for fiction, regular contributor to The New Yorker, esteemed literary critic, Professor Emeritus of the University of New York Creative Writing Department, husband of renowned sculptor Gwen Ford, proud grandfather of Bettina Bixby, father of former attorney Celeste Ford-Bixby, and politely disappointed father of brokenhearted bachelor Emmett Ford.

  I love my father. He’s a good man. But it’s hard to be the son of a great man, especially when you’re in the same field as he is. The last time I had dinner with my parents—one month ago—I still hadn’t started my manuscript, hadn’t written a word in two months, hadn’t dated anyone I’d actually liked even a little bit in years. So, he had my mother text me the number of a therapist. When I replied that I had started writing again, my mother asked if I wanted her to beta read for me. Which meant did I want my dad to beta read for me, because my mother is too busy creating pieces for her next gallery exhibit. When I declined, she sent me a link to the Facebook profile of the daughter of my dad’s tennis partner. That’s how it goes in my family.

  So, if Graham Ford is calling me directly, it’s important. I’ll need two cups of coffee first.

  Three cups of coffee later, I call my dad back, and he picks up on the first ring.

  “Emmett?”

  “Yes. Hello.”

  “Are you free to talk now?”

  “Yes. That’s why I called you. What’s up?”

  “You remember my old friend Tom Delancey? He used to come over to the house a lot when you were little.”

  The guy who won the PEN/Faulkner Award two years ago—yeah, I know who he is. “I remember him, of course.”

  “He’s the chair of the Creative Writing Department at UNY now, and he called me yesterday afternoon, in a bit of a jam. I would have called you yesterday, but we had to attend a banquet at Yale and I figured you were writing when we got home… How’s the new book coming along?”

  “It’s coming along just fine, thanks.”

  “Good. Your mother would be happy to read it if you ever need a second pair of eyes.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “Anyway, Tom called me for advice, and I thought of you. One of his visiting professors suddenly had to drop out due to a high-risk pregnancy. He needs someone to replace her for the upcoming year. It’s two graduate-level fiction classes. A workshop and a craft course. Same classes I used to teach. I think it would inspire you to be around aspiring writers, as it did me, and you’d be among illustrious writers on the faculty… I think it would be very good for you.”

  Translation: If you do this, I can finally brag about you to my colleagues.

  “Well, I’m honored that you thought of me.”

  “Both classes are at three in the afternoon, so it shouldn’t alter your schedule too much. I know you’re up against a deadline, but so is everyone else on the faculty. You wouldn’t have to do any advising. It’s just the two courses, two semesters.”

  “Uh-huh. Starting when?”

  “Next week. There’s nothing you’d need to do to prepare other than attend the new-faculty orientation. Tom’s available to have dinner with you tonight at eight. He can answer any other questions you might have. I really think it would be very good for you, son.”

  Jesus. He means business when he repeats himself and calls me “son.”

  “The job’s as good as yours. Obviously, you’d be doing my old friend a favor, but it’s an honor. You were the first and only author I thought of when he called.”

  I don’t know if it’s pathetic or not, how good it feels to hear this. I’ve already made as much money as he has in his entire career, but all I ever wanted was for Graham Ford to be proud of me. That and to somehow keep Sophie alive. I can’t fail at both of those things.

  The only downside I can think of right now is that I’ll have to cancel dinner with Fiona tonight. But there’s always tomorrow. Or later tonight.

  “I really appreciate this, Dad. I’d love to meet Tom for dinner.”

  “Great. I’ll have his secretary call you. He lives uptown, I think.” I hear my mother’s voice in the background. “Oh right. Your mother read another article about the health risks of sitting all day, so she wants you to get a Fitbit.”

  “I’m not doing that, but at least I can walk to UNY.”

  “Good point. Well, I have to get back to this book review for Vogue.”

  “I’ll let you go, then.”

  “Talk soon.”

  “Absolutely. Bye.”

  Well, that was interesting and unexpected. After weeks of monotony and creative anguish, I’m on a roll. Must be on the right path.

  ME: Hi. Something’s come up for work so I can’t take you to dinner at nine. But I can probably meet you later if you’re free. Around eleven? Late night lactose-free milkshake? Cocktastic photo shoot in Times Square? Name it and I’ll do it.

  Fifteen minutes later, I get a reply.

  FIONA: I will consult the cock and get back to you.

  ME: Me too. Wait. Never mind.

  ME: I’m really sorry about this. I will take you to dinner tomorrow if possible.

  FIONA: I will try to contain my excitement.

  FIONA: Gotta go let table 7 know they 86’d the stuffed eggplant.

  ME: Stop sexting me.

  12

  WILLIAM DEXTER

  You Can Viscount on Me by Fiona Walker – Prologue

  William Dexter—Viscount Camden and heir to the Earl of Camden—was widely known to be reliable with women in one way only. Women of polite society spoke of it in hushed tones and exclusively from behind a fluttering fan. While there were those who had vowed to keep their hearts and knees locked where Lord Camden was concerned, those who had already benefited from his skills and reliability in bed were resigned to the fact that they’d open any part of themselves to him if only he’d have them.

  However, aside from an appreciation of his physical aspects—most notably his captivating aquamarine eyes and pleasing posterior—this was the only good thing any of the women he’d known had to say about him. William was cold and moody, incapable of small talk, and determined to remain blissfully ignorant as to the workings of the female brain. That was not one of the parts of a lady he’d ever been interested in…until now.

  Now, he found himself following one woman through a hedge maze after midnight. He was befuddled. Lord Camden was never befuddled. But it was the woman who puzzled him, not the maze. He had been able to find his way to the center of this maze and back out again with his eyes closed ever since he was twelve years old. It was the labyrinth of Lucy’s mind that he was trying to navigate.

  Historically, when he set foot on this path, he was leading some woman to its center for a clandestine “romantic” tryst. There was never any challenge, and the rewards for his efforts lasted as long as it took for the perspiration to dry on his brow. Throughout this day alone, he had already encountered innumerable twists, turns, and dead ends with Lucy, but he was determined to find and reach the deepest, innermost sanctum of her own well-trimmed secret garden.

  Little did he know, the woman he’d come to know as Miss Lucy Finch had already become well aware of his own secret—he had been hiding a large, foolish, and delicate heart behind a carefully manicured hedge of rude comments and rakish behavior. It w
as, in fact, his own center that she was leading him to, and when he finally accepted that, she would accept him—fully and completely. She knew no other way to accept anything. She was either all out or all in.

  Same as William.

  When Lucy hesitated before deciding whether to turn right or left, he managed to grab her arm and pull her into the recess of a nearby alcove. She was his for one breathless starlit moment. Dipping his head down, he circled one arm around her slender waist as he tilted her chin up so his lips could find hers. And find them, they did. Her lips were sweet, soft, receptive, and he considered it one of his highest achievements in life when he felt her go limp as the tip of his tongue teased a certain spot on her neck.

  He could feel her melting into him, and he welcomed it. He was already hard for her, but he could be weak for her too, if only she would let him. He would give up all of his secrets to her—all she’d have to do was ask. Suddenly, as if startled awake, she pulled back. She managed to right herself, free herself from his grasp, and run away from him as soon as she was able to confirm that both of her feet were indeed touching the ground.

  William had managed to convince himself that his interactions with this woman would be of little consequence to him, all the way up until that afternoon. They had gone for a walk in the gardens, with a large group who had ventured out from the drawing room, and then branched off on their own little promenade. She’d delighted him with tales of taunting her family’s nurse when she was a child, discussed the works of Byron and Keats like a scholar, and playfully chastised him instead of being pouty or offended whenever he was rude to her. There was a hint of melancholy beneath her jubilant surface, and he was surprised by how much he wanted to comfort her, for whatever reason. He simply wanted to make her feel good, in all the ways he could.

  “You’re going the wrong way,” he called out to her as she made a left turn.

  She reversed direction but sang out, “You assume you know where it is that I’m trying to get to!”

  “Oh, I know where you’re headed, darling. We’ve both been headed in that direction ever since we met.”

  “I’ll thank you not to speak for me, Lord Camden.” she teased breathlessly.

  “You will be thanking me for so many things by sunrise, Lucy dear.”

  Even her guffaw was music to his ears.

  He slowed his pace because she was about to turn down the path that led to the heart of the maze. He didn’t have his wits about him anymore, but he would need his breath and his stamina for this night to play out the way he intended it to. And it would play out as he intended it to.

  There was a large fountain at the center of the circular maze, rose bushes, and a stone bench situated under two small trees as a reward for successfully reaching the end goal. When William arrived, Lucy was facing the bench, shoulders rising and falling, and she was waiting for him. In one swift motion, he took her in his arms again, brought her down to the bench and onto his lap, and cradled her face in his hands.

  “I’m going to kiss you until you beg for more, dear Lucy.” He didn’t wait for her to respond before brushing his mouth against hers and then parting her lips with his tongue.

  She chastised him while kissing him back, writhing around in his arms, on his lap, in the most delicious and excruciating way. “I’m going to kiss you back until you beg me to stop.” She tugged on his earlobe with her teeth. “Also, get over yourself.”

  “I’ll be getting a leg over you soon enough—wife.”

  “Not if I get on top of you first, husband.”

  Bloody hell. Gettin’ right into it, babe! Now we’re talkin’. Bit unconventional for a prologue in a Regency romance—but fuck it. Let’s mess things up, shall we? I’m here for it.

  I got blue eyes this time, do I? Interestin’ innit?

  Not sure ’bout that whole “get over yourself” business, but it’s a decent first draft, all things considered.

  Well done, you. ’Bout a thousand words down now, under eighty thousand to go, yeah?

  Good show.

  Let’s hope you’ll see that bloke again tonight, since he wouldn’t give you a shag this mornin’. What a knob. Good thing you can take care of your randy self, eh? Maybe you’d better take another “Romance Author Nap.”

  Go on, then. Take one for me, luv. Plug in that bad boy. You need all the power you can get between those legs after that snog.

  13

  FIONA

  “I can’t believe he canceled last night. Are we mad at him? Because I still want to know who cuts his hair.” Jed assembles himself cross-legged at the end of my twin bed, holding his phone in one hand and his cup of coffee in the other. He could have sat on Keiko’s empty twin bed four feet away, since Keiko is always at her boyfriend’s place, but she’s mean and we’re scared of her.

  “Technically he didn’t cancel because he was only hoping he could see me after his work dinner. But now he has a meeting this morning. So, he had to sleep. It’s fine. I got a lot of writing done. And I slept. So that’s all great. You didn’t bring me coffee?” I’m still lying down and staring up at the ceiling, but I would have brought him coffee if I’d woken him up at the ungodly hour of noon. Jed and I have known each other since Berkeley, and he’s the only reason I can afford to live in a two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan.

  “This coffee’s for you,” he says before taking a giant gulp. “And you got a lot of something else done last night too. I heard you.” He gives me an exaggerated wink.

  “Oh God. I will never get used to these paper-thin walls.” I cover my face with the pillow.

  “You should have Oh God-ed into the pillow last night. What kind of work dinner did he have?”

  “I didn’t ask. I think he’s a lawyer. He seems like a lawyer.”

  “You haven’t looked him up?”

  “No. I don’t do that. People are never who they seem to be online.”

  Jed’s staring at his phone, and his eyes are bugging out of their sockets. “Uhhh. Hold my coffee.”

  I sit up and take the coffee mug from him. “What? Don’t tell me. Is he married? I don’t want to know. What? Wait, don’t tell me.”

  “I don’t know yet if he’s married—do you want to know what I do know?”

  I am so jittery now it feels like I’ve already had twelve cups of coffee. “Jed! I don’t know! Do I?”

  “You made out with a New York Times best-selling author of thriller novels yesterday, girl.”

  “What?! Shut up.”

  He shows me the Google Images of Emmett on his phone, and I grab it from him, giving him back the coffee mug. “He’s a writer? That doesn’t even make sense. Why wouldn’t he tell me that?”

  “Did you tell him you’re a writer?”

  “No. But I’m not a huge best-selling author. Yet.”

  “He probably liked that you aren’t a star fucker. That’s why that old guy with the weird voice who was on Sex in the City that one time liked me. Because I didn’t know who he was.”

  He looks so frowny and handsome in his author photos. There’s only a hint of the sadness and humor that I’ve seen in his eyes, and on some level that makes me feel special because I got to see something that his readers and most Googlers don’t get to see. But my body certainly recognizes him, and I’m squeezing my thighs together even as I wrinkle my nose while scanning the article titles because… “Eww. Action thrillers? He wrote the books those Ryan Gosling movies were based on?”

  “Ryan Gosling is hot in those movies. Maybe I should get my hair cut like that.”

  “Jack Irons. I can’t believe he isn’t a lawyer.”

  “Are you disappointed that he’s not a lawyer? Can I take a whack at him?” Jed wrestles his phone away from me, so I reach for my own.

  There are texts from my mom, reminding me to do a heart chakra meditation, asking when she’ll get another cock pic—but none from Emmett. I was the last one to send a text last night, telling him to let me know if he wants to meet up today. This
is the part that I have always dreaded about being attracted to someone that I actually like. The ups and downs. The waiting for a notification, and the rereading of texts, and the analysis of every sentence and moment I can remember between us.

  It’s fucking agony. Delicious. But agonizing.

  I’ve read about it. I’ve seen it in movies, and I’ve felt what it must be like when listening to songs about it. I had never written about it before and thought I could get away with using my imagination to describe it in my manuscript. But this is the first time I’ve really experienced it—the longing for a specific person I’ve already met.

  And I don’t hate it.

  I Google Emmett Ford author married because I am not going to have obsessive nipple-y butterfly thoughts about whether or not a man has chest hair if he’s married. A quick scan appears to confirm that he is not and has not been married. So I am cautiously optimistic. I will hesitantly resume obsessive nipple-y butterfly thoughts about Emmett’s probable lack of chest hairiness.

  “It says here his net worth is ten million and he’s six-foot-two.”

  “See, that’s why I don’t like to Google people. I’d say he’s six-one. And I don’t care what his net worth is.”

  “My last boyfriend reused his coffee filters and stole toilet paper from his job. He once used toilet paper for a coffee filter, and I would not be surprised if the vice versa also occurred. This isn’t Eureka. New York is expensive. You need to care about that kind of thing.”

  “Well, I don’t. That’s not what inspired me about him.”

  “It says here he’s circumcised.”

  “Oh good. Wait. How do they even know that?” I close my browser app and put my phone back onto the bedside table facedown. “I don’t want to know. Stop Googling him.”