“Seven-oh-six.” But that was pre-Dani. Today I was coasting toward three thousand words.
Jane looked at me, eyes steely. “I know you don’t want me to keep mentioning this,” she whispered with a glance back at Dani, who was still on her phone, probably dying from the awkwardness, “but December twentieth is fast approaching.”
“I’m well-aware, and I’m going to hit the deadline. I always do.” I was M.C. Bradford. Being on-time was kind of my thing. I’d only ever asked for an extension once. I wouldn’t need to do it again.
“How many words is the average Bastyan Saga book?” Dani asked. I glanced in the rearview mirror to see her looking at me over the bridge of her reading glasses.
I tried to remember. It wasn’t the kind of stat I filed away to pull up as a party trick. “I think most of them are around 150k.”
“Wow,” Dani said.
I glanced at her in the mirror again.
“Sorry,” she said, “that sounds like an impressive number.” She shook her head. “Not sure if it actually is…”
“One hundred and fifty thousand words is about five hundred fifty or so pages,” Jane said automatically, like the most annoying computer program in the world. “How many words do you have so far on this manuscript?”
I pretended to be thinking, but I knew exactly how many I had. Of course I did. The number stuck out like a neon sign at the bottom of my manuscript document. “Eighty-five thousand.”
“You’re sixty-five thousand short,” Jane said.
“Give or take. The book doesn’t have to be as long as the others.”
“Maybe not,” Jane said, “but it will need to be close, and it will have to have a complete story.”
“I’ve got it handled, Jane.” I pulled into the first parking spot I could find in town. “We’ll go hang out at the cookie thing for a little bit and then head home, and I’ll write like the wind. No big deal.”
I checked on Dani again, and she shot me a hopeful smile and a thumbs up. I grinned back. If she could believe in me, then so would I.
…
Dani
Fred waved to me from his gingerbread-filled table on the other side of the room.
I waved back cheerfully, and Una nudged my ribs. “You and Fred,” she said. “When are you two finally going out?”
Me and Fred. Unfortunately, those words sounded as logical as sauerkraut and grape jelly or chocolate and pepperoni in my ear. “We haven’t discussed it.”
“Well, don’t wait too long,” she said. “Someone else might snatch him up.” She bit the head off one of his gingerbread humans like a lion tearing into a gazelle.
Someone else could snatch him up, as far as I was concerned. Heck, someone else should snatch him up. What had I been thinking, agreeing to a date with him? Fred was a nice guy, but I wasn’t attracted to him. I wouldn’t mind grabbing a bite to chat and commiserate—divorced person to divorced person—but I couldn’t imagine doing more than that with Fred. Not like Matt and me in his bedroom the other night…
I fanned my neck.
“You okay?” Una asked.
“Hot flash.” At forty-five, it was as good an excuse as any, and much more socially acceptable than, “I was fantasizing about the hot, adventurous sex I had with my boss in the bedroom I was paid to clean. First he bent me over his ottoman and then he led me into his shower and used the handheld attachment—”
“Peppermint oil,” Una said without hesitation. Of course she had an essential oil remedy for hot flashes at the ready.
“I’ll remember that.” Pretending to stretch, I glanced around the room. I found Matt, with his baseball cap pulled down over his eyes, and Jane hovering in a dark, secluded corner, talking close, almost intimately.
I wondered what they were talking about, if she knew about the two of us. The way she insisted on coming with us today didn’t seem organic. It felt like she was daring Matt to tell her what he was really up to. And I was left to wonder why he wouldn’t. We hadn’t actually discussed keeping our fling a secret, though I personally planned on leaving my family in the dark. They didn’t need to know I was hooking up with my boss. Jane and Matt, though, they seemed to have a more open, honest, no-holds-barred relationship. What would keep him from telling her about us? Embarrassment, privacy, or something else?
“What’s up with them?” Una nodded in the direction of Matt and Jane.
“Nothing,” I said, quickly.
“They’re not sleeping together?”
“No!” I said way too loudly. I readjusted the volume of my voice. “They have a very brother-sister-type relationship.”
Una stared at them for a bit longer than socially acceptable, narrowing her gaze and appraising them like a gemstone. “I think you’re wrong about that,” she said. “Older guy, younger woman. It wouldn’t be surprising.”
“Maybe not,” I said. “But there’s nothing going on between Matt and Jane.”
I snuck another peek at them—him casually leaning against the wall, her hanging on to his every word. No, even I had to admit, it wasn’t hard to imagine them together.
My ex started dating a woman fifteen years younger than us mere weeks after we split up. When we met, Fred had probably seen me as potentially his younger woman, which, well, I guessed I should take solace in the fact that I could still be someone’s younger woman.
For the next few weeks, I had Matt as a distraction, but once he left, I’d be alone again and trying to meet someone new. Guys my age were looking for women in their twenties and thirties, and I probably had to set my sights on men in their fifties and beyond or I’d be alone forever.
For some reason, the picture of me watching a shuffleboard competition popped into my head.
I glanced across the room at Fred and shot him a wave, which he happily returned. I forced a smile back. My fling with Matt had an expiration date, and I couldn’t forget that.
Feigning a stretch, I turned toward him and Jane. His eyes met mine with a look that sent my stomach on a loop-de-loop, upside-down rollercoaster.
Yes, I had to stay focused on life after Matt, otherwise I could very easily lose myself in our present situation.
…
Matt
December 11th, still nine days until deadline
“This is such a great event,” Jane said. “I’m so glad I decided to come along.”
“Me, too,” I said dully, folding my arms and leaning against the wall behind us. “It’s great having you here.” From under the brim of my hat, I watched Dani as she chatted with her sister-in-law. She’d tied her hair back in a bun, revealing pointy ears that made her look like a cute elf. I suppressed a smile.