I stripped off my yoga pants and my skimpy workout shirt. I hid my underwear under my discarded clothes and assessed my forty-five-year-old body in the full-length mirror. Matt was about to be the first person who wasn’t my doctor to see me fully undressed in way too long. I stood up straight. Yes, I was older than when I’d done this for the first time, but so was Matt. And I was a naked woman, ready and willing to sleep with him. He most likely wouldn’t look beyond the nudity to assess my alleged imperfections. I had to keep reminding myself of that fact.
In the closet, I found a blue tie and wrapped it around my neck. Then I sprawled out on the bed, letting the tie fall between my breasts.
“Okay!” I called. “Come on in.”
Matt opened the door and did a double take when he saw me there, naked, posed seductively, and anticipating him. “Holy…”
“Markys.” I curled a finger and beckoned him over to me.
Wide-eyed, he asked, “Are we really doing this?”
“We’re doing this.”
“All right, Lady Tatyana.” Yanking his shirt off, he rushed over to me and pounced. “Get ready.”
…
Matt
December 11th, nine days before deadline
“Where are you going?” Jane strolled out of the first floor bedroom she used as her office and caught me as I was putting on my coat.
“Out.” I wasn’t a sneaky teenager, and she wasn’t my mom, so why did I feel like I’d just been caught in the act of disobedience? Oh, yeah, maybe because I was sneaking out of the house to have sex with Dani at her parents’ place while they were away for the afternoon. Like we were actual teens.
Jane crossed her arms over her chest and gave me her best no-nonsense, “I’m not buying it” look. “How’s the writing going today?”
“Pretty well.” After Dani left the other night, after several rounds of epic, gymnastic sex that made my heart pound just thinking about it, I got a second wind and wrote for a few hours. And then all day yesterday and for the first half of today, the words poured out of me. The love story between Cassya and Alyster the pirate was really heating up.
“And how many words have you written today?”
“Enough,” I said quickly. I probably hadn’t written enough for Jane’s taste, but I had managed to write bare-bones drafts of the next three scenes, giving me a concrete plan for where the story would go next. I was proud of what I’d accomplished; for the first time in a long time, I was in the groove.
I’d earned a little time off to clear my head.
Jane glanced at the kitchen door, through which Dani had just appeared, also pulling on her coat.
Dani looked like a deer in the headlights. “Hi, Jane.”
Jane glared at me. “What’s going on?”
I, undeterred, pulled my coat on the rest of the way. “We’re going to a cookie exchange.” That was where Dani’s family was today. Jane knew everything about this town, so I couldn’t simply make up a fake Christmas event. She’d see right through it.
Dani, without missing a beat, ran back into the kitchen and grabbed a white bakery box, which she held up to show Jane. “Jam thumbprints.” She’d actually made those exclusively for me, but I was proud of her for recognizing the need to use them in service of our lie.
“You’re going to the cookie exchange?” Jane grinned knowingly at me.
“It’s a Wackernagel tradition,” I said.
“Yeah,” Jane said, “I know that. I’m questioning the notion that you of all people would be going to a crowded event full of people who might recognize you.”
Damn it. She had me there.
Dani’s big blue-gray eyes had gone wide. “If it’s a problem, Jane—”
“It’s not a problem,” I said. “I can’t sit there in my office day after day trying to write. Getting out in the world inspires me. Jane understands that.” I bugged my eyeballs out at her.
“I do. I do understand that.” Jane spun around and retreated to her office.
My shoulders relaxed, and I winked at Dani. Jane believed us, or at least she was kind enough to pretend to believe us so Dani and I could go out and have fun and maybe try that thing again where we pretended Danyl was watching us—
“What are you doing?” I asked.
Jane had grabbed her coat from her office and was now putting it on. “I’m coming with,” she said.
“No, you’re not,” I said.
Dani stood stock still, her white knuckles gripping the decoy bakery box.
“Like you said.” Jane smirked at me. “The cookie exchange is a Wackernagel tradition, and I could stand to blow off some steam, as well.” She buttoned up the black jacket. “If that’s okay with you two.”
Jane had the upper hand here. I had to either give in and admit what Dani and I were actually up to or continue the ruse and call her bluff. Jane was like the little sister I never had, and she was messing with me. She knew I always had a hard time admitting she was right, like when she wanted me to hire a housekeeper, and she would ride this little ruse out until I came clean.
Well, I’d show her. This thing between Dani and me was none of her business.
“Great,” I said, plastering on a cheery disposition and grabbing the hat Dani had found for me the other day. “The more the merrier!”
“Super,” Jane said.
Dani’s eyes ping-ponged between Jane and me as she silently watched our conversation like we were warring siblings who refused to let the other person win.
When we got out to my car, Dani let Jane have the front seat. “When you say you wrote ‘enough’ words yesterday,” Jane said as I reversed out of my parking spot, “exactly how many do you mean?”
“I mean I hit my limit for that writing session. It’s not an exact science for me.” I glanced in the mirror at Dani, who was checking her phone, probably sending out an SOS message to one of her family members to rescue her from this waking nightmare. “Some writers can say definitively, ‘I write at least two thousand words a day, rain or shine.’ That’s not me. Sometimes I write thirty-five hundred. Other days it’s three-fifty.”
“How many did you write yesterday?”
“Two-thousand fifty-three,” I said proudly. Yes, most of those were about Cassya and Alyster, but so what? They still counted. And they were good words, too. I loved how that storyline was taking shape.
Jane nodded, impressed. “And the day before that?”