Those dark days flash before me, along with the long nights, the emptiness, the suffocating weight of missing.
“Grief is a very hard thing.”
“I lost my focus. I couldn’t even get motivated to work. I was just sort of floundering.”
“What changed for you?”
“My friends saw what was happening and wanted to help. After several months like that, TJ and my sister, my cousins Spencer and Jo, and my buddy Nolan came over and said, ‘We love you, but we’re staging an intervention. It’s time for you to do this. You sold your business for a reason, and that wasn’t to wallow.’ It was the kick in the pants I needed to jump-start Carpe Diem.”
“They really helped you.”
“They did. Carpe Diem was my dream. This company matters to me. I’m not doing this for Anna. I’m doing it because it was my vision after I sold Coupled—to provide women a better alternative to online dating. And I’d lost sight of it.”
“And that really motivates you,” she says.
“It does. I know you don’t agree with my approach—”
“It’s okay.” She sets a gentle hand on my arm, her voice soothing. “We don’t have to see eye to eye.”
“Yeah?” I ask.
“We’re different,” she reassures me. “That’s just the way it goes. It’s not a bad thing.” Her smile fades, though, and she’s quiet for a long moment. “Are you still in love with her?” she finally asks.
I sit up, grip her thigh. “No. I wouldn’t sleep with you if I was in love with her.”
“You wouldn’t?”
I stare at her like she’s crazy. “Bellamy, that’d be wrong.”
“To her?”
I shake my head. “To you. To me. Wrong all around. I loved her, yes. I was devastated when she died, yes. But I moved on. I like living. I like doing.” Still, I think I know why she asked. “But I don’t want to be hurt like that again.”
She hums like it’s a lot to process, and I hope she understands me. “That’s why you don’t date.”
“Yes. I’m all for romance. I believe it’s possible. But I think it’s best suited to others. Like you.” I squeeze her shoulder. “You believe in love. Neon-billboard-at-night love.”
“I do, which is crazy, because I’ve been burned.” She bumps her shoulder against mine, shifting the mood with a tiny grin. “But if I tell you, that big old dragon of jealousy will go thrashing around.”
I growl in answer. “You’ve awakened the dragon.”
She tap dances her fingers up my chest. “Aw, that’s the Easton I know. Jealous and crazy over past men.”
“I hate any man who’s ever touched you,” I say, meaning it.
“Well, then, you’d really hate Braxton. I was with him for two years, and he cheated on me the whole time.”
I seethe. I grunt. “Who is this jackass?”
“Just an ex. But even so, I won’t give him power over me by turning off my desire for love. I’ve seen what love can do. I believe in its power. My dad was wildly in love with my mom and broken when she died. But then he met my stepmom, and he fell in love again. They’re crazy for each other. That’s why I know it’s possible, even if you’ve been hurt,” she says, squeezing my hand.
I want to believe what she’s saying is true for everyone, but the prospect of losing someone I love is too intense, too terrifying. I couldn’t endure that pain twice.
“You’re probably right, in theory,” I admit.
She laughs softly. “But theory is not reality, so it’s good that we have this understanding.”
I gesture from her to me, then to the bed. “Is that what this is? An understanding?”
An understanding has promise. Maybe we can both have a little something.
“I think we just made one. You don’t want more. And I do. So, this thing between us—this orgasm thing—will fade out and burn away. And that’s just the way it goes,” she says.
Wait. Is that all?
But truly, that’s all it can be.
“Yes, we have an understanding,” I say.
“Good,” she says, then her stomach growls. “Can this understanding also involve food?”
“What kind of food? The kind I can order or the kind I can make?”
Her eyes pop open. “I want the great Easton Ford to cook me dinner.”
“You should have everything you want, Bellamy,” I say, and brush my lips to hers, lingering in a kiss.
Then I cook her dinner, and she leaves a little before midnight.
I go to bed alone, and that feels a little empty.
Maybe that’s what understandings are. But alone is safe. And that’s exactly what I want.
29
Order of Arousal
From the Email Correspondence of Bellamy Hart and Easton Ford
Dear Bellamy,
* * *
By the way, you had spinach in your teeth from dinner last night.
* * *
Yours in food on your face,
Easton
Dear Easton,
* * *
And was I right? Were you still turned on?
* * *
Yours in maybe I meant to do it,