“IsBuzzFeednot a popular concept?”
“Alex,”I groan.
He laughs, reclining. “We’resoclose to being ready to pitch our growth strategy. We’d get staff expansion, and Gus will probably be promoted to editor in chief.” Alex looks at me. “Maybe we’ll even getyou,in a more permanent capacity.” I’m kind of distracted by his hands tracing circles on my skin, so I nearly miss the way his face changes when he says, “Well. Until London, that is.”
“Right. London.”
I have no clue whetherBite the Hand—and Alex’s job by extension—would stay safe through an acquisition. On one hand, there’s not much like it on the market, which makes the conceptdesirable. On the other, it’s an expensive new venture that might get put on a back burner for years.
The shine in his eyes has me arching toward him, a sunflower straining toward its light source. He’s so beautiful. Always, but especially now, lit up from the inside out as he talks about all the plans he has for BTH, all the big, bright ideas.
He’d make a good CEO.
“Alex,” I whisper. “What if something terrible happens?”
His eyes flick down to mine, and they gutter a little at my expression. “What terrible thing is going to happen?” he murmurs. It’s an unassuming question. He’s not hunting for intel, but I think he finds some anyway. “Hey,” he says. “At the end of the day, we can romanticize our jobs all we want, but we’re just selling magazines. When you think about it like that, the stakes are embarrassingly low.”
But what if the stakes were actually that we might not have jobs to romanticize?
I push the thought out and shake my head. “You’re right.” My fingers pull at the tab of my soda, and it erupts, spewing froth all over me. “Crap! You really had to throw it.”
Wordlessly, Alex leans down andslurpsDiet Coke off my stomach.
“Alex!” I shriek.
He sits back up. “I acknowledge that that was weird, but I don’t want to wash my sheets yet. The laundromat near my building is…notnear my building.” He grins as I shake my head and take a sip of my drink. Then, seconds later, he gives me a straight command: “Tell me what’s got you so interested in London.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Can I tell you with my clothes on?”
His face falls, which makes me giggle. “I guess.”
I re-dress and sit on the edge of the bed, and Alex reclines, one hand behind his head as he waits patiently for my answer. I fight anirrational urge to climb into his lap, but the inked reminder of his tattoo spread across his forearm catches my eye.
“My mom was from London,” I start. “Notting Hill, actually. But her parents were the stereotypical type of British stuffy that’s more obtuse than it is endearing, and she moved to the US as a band’s photographer-slash-groupie when she was my age. She and my dad met at a music festival, fell in love, and she never moved back to the UK.”
“Wow,” Alex says. “That’s, like, a whole movie plot.”
“Yeah.” I laugh.
“So, you want to move to London to feel connected to her?”
I consider this. “Yes and no,” I say, twiddling my thumbs. “I mean, yes, part of me wants to go specifically there because she was from there. But in a broader sense, I just… I just have this urge to drop everything andgo.I’ve spent a lot of my life scared of change—I mean, I’ve never traveled anywhere except the Florida Panhandle and one trip out west in an RV—and then, I moved to New York, which was objectively terrifying, and I could have crashed and burned. But instead, my whole world opened up, and I just crave that feeling now. I want more of it. I can’t justsettleanymore, not now that I know there’s another option. And London makes sense because Little Cooper has a branch there, which means I could afford to live abroad, and I think working forTake Me Therewould be the coolest. So, really, it just seems like a job and a life that’s been waiting for me to want it.”
When I’m finished talking, slightly winded, retroactively disentangling the absolute word vomit I just expelled, Alex’s lips are pulled up faintly into the ghost of a smile. “Those are all really great reasons.”
“Have you been? To London?”
“I studied abroad there for a summer.”
I roll my eyes. “Of course you did. I should have known.”
He laughs. “How’d you wind up majoring in finance?”
I cock my head, trying to keep up with his train of thought. “What?”
“It’s just that after hearing all that, I don’t see your parents pushing you toward it.”
“Fluke.” I shrug. “I meant to circle printmaking on my college applications.”
