CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
EVAN
DESPITE THE CLICHÉ, I CAN’T resist a few minutes watching Rebecca sleep.
I get up early; it’s how I’m wired. But because I don’t want to do anything in the room that would wake her (and because I don’t want to go to my room lest she gets the wrong impression), there’s little I can do with myself.
I head to a corner away from the bed, open the curtains, sip terrible coffee from the hotel coffee maker, and watch the sunrise. I come back to bed when she stirs, eager to see Rebecca rise.
I soak her in. Again I'm struck by the raw beauty millimeters under her surface. Rebecca does all she can to obscure it. She buries her beauty with her sarcasm, her history, her humor, her pain. When unconscious, she can’t hide a thing. Her dark hair spreads across the pillow in a tangled mess. She’s no longer a tiger. Right now, Becca is a beautiful sleeping cat.
She turns, stretches, and opens her eyes.
The reveal I was waiting for. Those big blue eyes. Sleeping Beauty transforms back into Becca right before my eyes.
“Creep,” she says.
“I’m sorry?”
“You’re just sitting there staring at me. I should call the cops.”
“You’re supposed to find it sweet.”
She gives me an Oh, whatever gesture and rolls away.
This woman never ceases to surprise me. I reach out, put my hand on her shoulder, and roll Becca back to face me. The cover shifts and I’m treated to her naked breasts. She doesn’t try to cover up.
“You’re not giving me credit for how adorable I am. Do you know how many girls would love to wake up with some guy fawning all over them?”
“You should track them down and let me sleep.”
“Nobody’s stopping you from sleeping.”
She shoves at me, playful. “Yes, but now I know you’ll just sit there staring at me while I do it, like a creep.”
“You don’t find me looking at you romantic? It’s always romantic in movies.”
She props herself up on one elbow. Now her breasts are on full display, no shame. Last night wasn’t our first time together, but the rules all say it should still be awkward in the morning, or at least could be. Rebecca doesn’t mind giving me show — or, I think, remembering her story about her accidentally topless client call, perhaps she doesn’t realize she’s doing it.
“My mom had a lot of romance novels when I was growing up. I got an early education. Do you want to hear an interesting bit of trivia?”
“Okay.”
“What’s the difference between a lot of romance heroes and creepy stalkers?”
I sense a trap but don’t have an answer. I shake my head.
“The heroes are hot. Otherwise, they’re the same. Apparently, guys can get away with all sorts of stuff if they have a six-pack.”
I look down at myself. I’m still shirtless. I run a hand across the ridges of my abdomen. “So, I should be able to get away with watching you sleep.”
“No,” Becca says, moving to turn over again. “I’m the one girl in the world who can see through the pretty boys’ bullshit.”
If she’s going to fuck with me, I think I can risk fucking with her. “I guess that’s how Steve pulled it off. Because he’s so hot.”
Steve is not hot. Apparently, he used to be, but the bloom has been off the rose for years.
She gives me a long look, and for seconds I think I’ve pissed her off. But apparently any joke at Steve’s expense is a good one, so when she does eventually roll over, she grabs my arm and I fall onto the bed, flat on my face, rolling with her.
I end up on top of her, wearing only my shorts. I have her hands pinned to the sheets above her head. If she weren’t on her back, it would look like surrender. Her tits look delicious.
I put my mouth on one, then the other.
“See?” Becca says, failing hard to resist a smile. “Creep.”
I use my mouth to shut her up. I free her hands, and we make out for a while, bare chest to bare chest. We roll freely, and within minutes we’re basically in a cocoon. I’m hard as a railroad spike, and she’s writhing in invitation, but this is the wrong time for an encore. We’ve got a long trip, and I have a meeting in three hours. I’ll be lucky to make it as it is.
We extricate ourselves. Rebecca won’t reveal enough of her feelings to say it, but I know she doesn’t want to stop. If she weren’t Rebecca — with all her damage and internal walls — she’d say so. She’d beg me back to bed.
I try to rationalize a shower, and once I’ve done that, I tell myself it’d make no difference if she joined me, and we could do it standing with her palms against the tiled wall.
But there’s no time for any of it, and I say so. I get more sarcastic jibes in return, asking me why if time was so tight, I didn’t wake her up earlier instead of watching her sleep like a creepy stalker.
We dress in the same clothes. It’s a little gross, but Becca’s right; I didn’t tell her to bring anything because I wanted to surprise her. I have some basics in my case, but that’s not fair if I change and she can’t.
My limo takes us to the airport. I’ve called ahead, so the plane is waiting. Once we’re airborne, we have tons of time again, but neither of us suggests that we close the door and use the couch as a playground. With some time passed between our morning roll and now, it feels almost presumptuous.
The time passes, and I stuff down the strong bodily need that keeps rising every time I catch her eyes. She’s still wearing the dress that aroused me so much last night. She called down for a kit and got all the makeup off her face, but she’s gorgeous enough, at least in my eyes, that the look is still stunning. It’s hard to believe she’s able to get anywhere or do anything in her personal life. Wouldn’t guys be hitting on her constantly?
I guess that viper’s tongue keeps her safe.
We pass the flight with business. We kick the tires of my education idea again, and although I can’t tell her that I’ll pitch it to the Syndicate when it’s ready, I do tell her that funding shouldn’t be a problem. The idea I gave her last night is rough for sure; it’s the shape of something that we’ll have to pick at for months before the first steps can be taken. And the resulting process will likely take years. There’s plenty to figure out, pro and con.
She still wants to understand her role. I tell her that we need to figure that out, too, but that I think she’ll be in charge of advocacy, starting with raving fans. She’ll build the marketing funnels (to attract talent rather than sell tickets, though there will be a day for that, too), communicate with the interested people, and build the fan base.
“Fans? For an idea, in education of all things, that doesn’t even exist?”
And I say, “If anyone can do it, Rebecca Presley can.”
But not yet, obviously. There simply isn’t anything to do. I tell Becca that we can continue to talk and sketch the idea, but she vehemently shakes her head. We’ve talked enough, and in Becca’s world, where she grew up, “talking” wasn’t the same as “earning your keep.” She’s being paid a million dollars, so she damn well needs to do something.
“Well,” I tell her as the plane begins its descent into Austin, “you could start building email lists for this education initiative.”
She shakes her head. She’s too smart to fall for that; building lists at this pre-pre-pre-point is busywork. We know nothing about the market, our user base or the talent we’ll need. Lists built today would be obsolete by the time we need them.
“Something real, Evan, or I give the money back, and my association with LiveLyfe has to end. I joke about a lot of stuff, but I’m serious about this one. By the time I met Steve, I had money. But I grew up dirt poor. In Festus, Kentucky. The place is an unwashed butthole.”
“I know. It was on your blog. You’re terrible at keeping boundaries.”
With a dead-straight face, Becca says, “So you know. But what I don’t think I’ve written about is this: When I was in my late teens, I had a few boyfriends who wanted to ‘save’ me. I guess I attracted a type. They were poor, too, because all of Festus was poor. But they set me up like a charity, offering me jobs in their daddy’s stores that I wasn’t qualified for. Sometimes they flat-out tried to give me money. I hated it, even then, broke as I was. I don’t like getting something I haven’t earned, Evan. I don’t like to be taken care of.”
“Of course,” I say, even though she’s just given me a hell of a challenge. I need her help on the education thing. That’s not bullshit, and no matter what Rebecca thinks, talking the idea out is valuable. I want her mind on it, and the more I think about the engagement this thing will need, I doubt that I can do it without her. But finding a job for her to do at LiveLyfe right now that will feel like neither charity nor nepotism — a job she’d be good at and want to do? I don’t have jobs like that just lying around.
“You seem to think I’m good at some stuff,” she says.
“I do. You are.”
“Well, other than this educational thing, what matters most to LiveLyfe?”
Almost instantly, I have an idea. The answer is simple. There are two main goals: increase usage of the platform, and make the platform itself more useful to users. The second goal belongs to the developers, but the first half is right in Rebecca’s wheelhouse.
We need people spending more time on LiveLyfe, using it to do more and more things.
That doesn’t just require features. It requires mindshare and bonding.
I tell Rebecca what I have in mind.
She loves the idea but tells me it comes with one condition.