I’m halfway through making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich like the adult who lives with her grandmother I am, when my phone chimes and vibrates against the counter. Since my emails are less urgent these days, my to-do list padded with a little extra wiggle room, it’s no longer a sound that comes along with a spike in heart rate and anxiety.
And it’s…nice. Like my to-do list isn’t the only thing with space to breathe.
Back in Miami, I would’ve considered taking a whole hour for lunch a waste of time, but now it resets me midday, splitting up any bad or stressful news, before it can rob me of my entire day.
I’ve even begun to play the piano here and there, though the sheet music I ordered probably won’t sound good for another few weeks or even a month. But even that’s okay, as I’m finding joy in the mix of clumsy-beginner and muscle-memory riffs.
I swipe the peanut butter left on the knife with a finger and pop it in my mouth, snag a mini bag of potato chips out of the pantry, and head to the couch to fully enjoy and experience my break.
Fifi comes along, leaping onto the cushion next to me so she can lick a couple of my potato chips clean of salt. We’ve settled into a nice rhythm, she and I and the rest of the ladies—I can’t remember the last time that invisible fist of dread came for my throat.
I go to snag the remote off the coffee table, but get distracted by a text, and despite all my big talk, I’m lifting my phone before I can remind myself this is supposed to be Mia Time.
But when I see it’s from Eniola, letting me know she’s sent the photos to my email, I’m glad for my lapse in self-control, not to mention the great timing. There’s NSFW and then there’s opening up racy snapshots of yourselfwhileat work, something this publicist would highly advise against.
I debate opening the attachment on my cell, where the photos will be smaller and it’ll be easier for me to be less hard on myself. Immediately, our body positivity practice kicks in, and I grin at how often the ladies quote me quoting Miss Americana herself, with a “We don’t do that anymore.”
With that, I decide it’s worth retrieving my laptop. I download the folder, double click to open, and draw a sharp breath.
The lighting and angles do glorious things to my body, to the point I zoom in to prove to myself it’s me, not some Victoria’s Secret model who’s been photoshopped in. Holding the pose on the tufted couch with my back overly arched felt a bit awkward, the tip of the stiletto poised on the armrest, but damn is the result worth it.
Fifi pokes her head between me and the screen as I click through the series, the bright glow illuminating her whiskers and long fringe on the tips of her ears.
My skin is porcelain, my eyes pop, and I even pull off a pout in a shot that looks like the photographer stumbled upon me rolling around in bed. Which is typically what I do when I can’t sleep, but it’s never resulted in such perfectly tousled curls and casual cool sexiness before.
No wonder the me from that night got frisky with Noah Drayton in a golf cart.
I’m flooded with tingly electricity at the memory of his mouth and his hands on me, my heart racing so fast it leaves me dizzy—then and now. Most of the emotional tornadoes I experience are fueled by turmoil and uncertainty; this is a twirling, whirling dust devil, dancing happily across the plains.
I’ve been on a high for well over a week, and hope and happiness are attempting to assure me everything truly is going to work out. For this property and me.
I return my attention to the racy photos onscreen.
Heat rushes to my cheeks as I reach the poses where I’m wearing the lingerie I flashed Noah under the cover of a weeping willow tree. Sensuality has always been a complicated issue for me, and before last week, I would’ve insisted it was such a tiny part, it didn’t much matter.
These photos sought out that sliver and exposed it. And then, like oxygen and an open flame, Noah fueled my desire until it spread and consumed me.
I squeeze my thighs together, a residual thrill coursing through me. The echoes of my pleasure were still pinging around the cocoon of the willow tree when I’d shyly asked how he’d like me to return the favor.
“Favor?” He’d reached out and snagged a cinnamon-tinted curl. “Sugar, that was all for me.”
Turns out, with the right guy, it’s not such a tiny piece after all.
And the woman in the boudoir shots onscreen certainly agrees.
Eniola included a handful of transitionary shots, and I return my own smile, appreciating her for capturing my quirky and comedic sides as well. All joy, no inhibitions, my laugh as genuine as can be.
Every single trait that made up me, includingsexy.
Immediately my brain slams the door, my chest constricting with a warning about not being conceited—people don’t like girls who are stuck-up.
They don’t like girls who are loud.
Girls who are too smart, too confident or independent.
A lot of the time, it actually feels like the world doesn’t like girls at all.
It’s why we’re exhausted, constantly battling the voices that tell us we shouldn’t like what we like or like how we look. Yet each generation we make a little more progress, the warrior princesses who came before giving us a boost so we can climb that much higher.
