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Drew: I was tempted to, but you look really good in a suit. It’s my new favorite outfit. Though I was mostly imagining you removing it while I was watching, TBH

I picture Drew on a hotel bed, watching me as I tug off my tie, sliding a skirt higher and higher while her thighs spread wide. Fuck.

Me: Well, now you’ve got me imagining it too.

Drew: Imagining yourself undressing? I’d think that wouldn’t be a novelty at this point.

I laugh.

Me: You’re there too.

Drew: Come to New York and I could be.

I suddenly feel breathless, my heart beating hard, this weird surge of testosterone like I’m a teenager again. It’s been a very long time since I’ve blown off my obligations for a woman.

It would be unbelievably irresponsible. And I already know I’m going if she’s serious about this.

I could, I reply and then wait, holding my breath, watching those swirling dots as she phrases her reply.

Drew: Peninsula. I’ll leave you a key under the name Sexy Viking. DO NOT remove the suit until I get there.

34

DREW

Talk shows are normally the bane of my existence—obstacle courses filled with landmines and quicksand. They entail skirting around all questions about my love life and my childhood, and the implied questions about how I made it big when a thousand more talented women did not. I can speak ill of no one and have to act abundantly grateful to people and entities I hate: my manager, my family, my record label. One wrong step and within hours it will be circulating over the news and social media.

Tonight was different. Because messing up wasn’t the worst thing that could happen. Instead, I worried something might delay Josh, or delay me so I couldn’t get back to Josh. If we’d been under nuclear attack during the show, my primary concern would have been its impact on the train schedules.

Don’t get your hopes up, I tell myself. He probably came to his senses.

But my hopes are up anyway. I rush through the interview, distractedly decline the host’s invitation to some after-party, and practically run all the way to the waiting car.

I’m dialing his number before I’m fully seated. “Are you at the hotel?” I demand.

“No,” he says, sounding aggrieved. “There was something on the tracks near Philly. We got delayed. Pulling in now.”

“I’m in the car on the way back to the hotel. Are you at Penn Station? We’ll pick you up.”

“You don’t have to do that,” he says. The background noise changes from quiet to chaotic and echoing. He must be at the station. “I can just catch a cab.”

I can’t explain the weird trip of anxiety I feel. I can’t explain that I don’t want to be separated from him for even one minute if I don’t need to be, that I panic at the idea of him wandering outside Penn Station at night, though I’ve been outside Penn Station plenty of times without feeling worried once. Is this how he felt when he saw me leaving to run in the dark in Waikiki? It can’t possibly be.

“We’ll be there in two minutes,” I say, making eye contact with the driver in the rearview mirror. He nods. “Send me your location. And don’t get mugged.”

He laughs. “I could fight ten guys at once. At least ten. All at the same time. Tarantino movies are a pale imitation of my fighting skills.”

“You,” I reply, feeling unduly aggravated, “sound absolutely ridiculous.”

We arrive at the entrance near 8th and 31st and I stare at the sea of people there, willing one of the dark shapes roaming around to suddenly materialize into Josh.

When one of them suddenly does—in a suit and overcoat, bag slung over his shoulder—it feels like I’m suddenly made of confetti and champagne, all of it bubbling and fizzing inside me at the same time.

I roll down the back window. “Hey, big boy. You looking for a good time?”

His face lights up with a lopsided grin and he walks toward the car, opening the door and sliding in beside me in a burst of winter air and warm skin.

The driver has thoughtfully put the privacy glass up. “Hey,” he says, turning his head toward me, linking icy fingers through my warm ones. His lips press to mine, hard and fast, as if he can’t help himself.