After three months of daily contact, he started begging her to let him fly her out to LA. She refused. After six, he told her he’d be at Sundance with his new movie. She still wasn’t in the market for anything resembling a relationship, especially not with him, but against her better judgment, she’d accepted his offer of a car to escort her the six hours to Utah.
She’d gotten into the back seat, as they’d discussed, in nothing but stilettos, thigh-highs, and an oversized coat. The anticipation of the drive was foreplay in and of itself, her knees pressed together tightly in the back seat, the silk lining of the coat warm against her bare skin. When she knocked on the door of his suite, she was already wet, her pulse pounding hot and feverish between her thighs.
As soon as he opened the door, she regretted coming. It was nothing she could put her finger on, really. Everything about him was more or less the same as she remembered. Mostly less. But she was already there, so she slowly peeled her coat open without a word, and when she saw the awe in his eyes, quickly giving way to lust, she was back in it again.
Overall, the sex was fine. She’d certainly had worse. Butmaybe her expectations were too high. There was no way reality could ever live up to the CVS receipt–length list of promises, boasts, and provocations he’d used to lure her there.
Other than that, she’d had a surprisingly good time with him. Alan was charming, witty, undeniably brilliant, and full of juicy gossip about their mutual acquaintances. She even agreed to go to his premiere with him, to be photographed on the red carpet and then cuddling on a couch at the after-party.
After the pictures came out, her former publicist had emailed her a few gently prying questions about whether she was thinking about releasing new music, and if she was ever coming back to LA. She’d promptly deleted them.
When she got home, she slept for eighteen hours straight, exhausted by the energy it took to maintain the fantasy persona they’d spun together over months of filthy correspondence: the enigmatic, insatiable sex kitten. She didn’t know why she even bothered, when he hadn’t held up his end of the bargain. On her last night there, he’d told her he was in love with her, and she had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing.
She’d considered ending it after that, until he’d sent her an email recapping his personal highlights from the weekend that was so hot it made her second-guess her own perception of what had happened.
There was no harm in letting it go on a little longer, she’d rationalized. It would reach a natural end point. No need to make a big deal about breaking off something that barely even existed.
They didn’t talk as often these days, once a week at most. Their conversations were less personal, too, him following her lead when she brushed off his more probing questions. He stopped bringing up seeing each other in person again. She couldn’t give him up entirely, though. Unlike in real life, he hadno trouble getting her off when she confined him to her imagination, nothing more than a disembodied voice over the phone or dirty words on a screen.
In the end, she closed the text thread without responding, slid her phone into her pocket, and went into the front hallway to put on her coat and boots.
If Pam had noticed Merritt dodging her every time she shopped, she didn’t seem to hold it against her, since she wrapped Merritt in a warm hug as soon as she opened the front door. “I was so sorry to hear that Olivia isn’t feeling well,” she said, leading Merritt through the entryway and into the living room.
Their home felt like a hobbit house, cramped but cozy, perfectly lived-in in a way that made Merritt want to curl up in a patched leather armchair and take a nap. “Poor thing. I remember exactly what that was like,” Pam continued, with a sympathetictsk.“I might have some lavender oil lying around that you can give her, just remind me before you leave. That was alifesaverduring my first trimester.”
“Oh, thank you. She’ll really appreciate that,” Merritt said on autopilot, distracted by the large group of people already assembled in the living room, every eye trained expectantly on her. Thankfully, Pam took charge of the introductions.
Merritt already knew Larry, the seventy-something hippie bachelor who owned the Gilded Lotus, a bohemian knickknack shop that had been a mainstay even longer than Pam and Freya’s store. He was a regular at Dev’s poker night, which he established by pointing a finger gun at her, winking, and saying, “Poker night.”
“Poker night,” Merritt agreed, even though she never participated.
She also sort of knew Daniela, the intimidatingly beautiful woman who ran a small boutique that sold everything fromobscenely expensive candles to obscenely expensive organic skin-care products. Merritt had spent an embarrassing amount of money there, lured in by both the aspirational aura and how amazing it smelled—though in her heart of hearts she knew that whatever made Daniela’s skin glow like that was probably some kind of laser, and not her sixty-eight-dollar rose hip face oil.
There were whispers that Daniela had moved to Crested Peak and opened the store with the fortune she’d inherited from her filthy rich and decades-older husband, but since their interactions mostly revolved around the benefits of lactic versus glycolic acid or whether Merritt wanted her receipt in the bag, it seemed inappropriate to get into it. Still, Merritt appreciated having a challenger for the title of the most scandalous woman in town.
Everyone else was a stranger to her, and she tried her hardest to absorb all the new names, one after the other: a lawyer, a commercial Realtor, a few part-time residents who’d had their vacation homes for so long they were basically locals, two members of the city council, and, to her surprise, the actual mayor. Merritt shook his hand with a bright smile, even though she’d voted for the other candidate, who’d run on a platform of raising taxes on second homes to fund community programs.
“Should we get this party started?” Freya asked, once they were all settled around the room with refreshments—a tight fit, with extra chairs crammed into every free space, but not uncomfortable.
“Let’s wait another minute for Niko,” Pam replied, and Merritt’s ginger tea went up her nose. At that same moment, the front door swung open without a knock.
Of course, Merritt’s brilliant plan to distract herself from Niko failed to take into account the Niko Is Literally Everywhere factor.
“Sorry I’m late. I hope you didn’t wait for me.” His voice was like an ice cube down the back of her shirt, every cell in her body zinging to attention.
“We’d never start without you, baby,” called Freya. She turned back to address the room. “You all know Niko, right?” Everyone murmured in assent. Merritt kept her eyes fixed on the notebook she was thankful she’d had the presence of mind to bring, but since the only empty seat in the room was the folding chair next to her, she knew she couldn’t ignore him for long.
And there he was, easing down beside her, close enough for her to inhale the now familiar sweet-spicy scent of his deodorant, the delicious tang of sweat beneath it.
He inclined his head toward her, like he was about to tell her a secret. “Hi,” he said under his breath, and it felt so weirdly intimate that she was almost embarrassed there were witnesses.
Hi,she mouthed, holding his gaze just long enough to feel her face turn hot, then looking back down at her lap. He inhaled, then hesitated, like he wanted to say something else, but Freya finally called the meeting to order.
Merritt tried her best to pay attention, scribbling down notes, but she wasn’t absorbing a word, her awareness limited to the way Niko’s knee brushed hers whenever he shifted in his seat.
Was he doing it on purpose? He had to be, right? On the other hand, he was so enthusiastically engaged with the discussion that maybe he had no idea. Every graze of denim against her fleece-lined tights became a subconscious game ofhe???s me, he???s me not.
Once the conversation turned to the fundraiser, though, she was able to tune back in. The previous year, they’d gathered musicians from all over Silverton County to form the Crested Peak Symphony Orchestra, performing an evening of classicalmusic under the stars led by a world-renowned conductor. Merritt had wept silently through most of the performance—at the beauty of the music, yes, but also from the visceral sensation of being eight years old again, sitting next to her father on the piano bench, working through that same repertoire—and sent flowers to every member afterward.
