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“Look at you this morning. Nice shirt. Well, at least you’re honest,” Violet said, pointing at my chest, which read: Hot Mess.

“You know I’m not into false advertising,” I replied with a shrug, my lips scrunched up in a half-pout. She rolled her blue eyes, batted her thick eyelashes, and let out a sigh. Then, she walked me to my cubicle and started talking about the most recent developments on her upcoming nuptials to my best friend.

I listened, paying as much attention as I could at nine on a Tuesday morning, but my mind went back to her playful joke.

Hot mess.

I owned what I was. I didn’t lie about it. I was one hundred percent conscious of the fact that I was indeed a hot mess. I embraced it. I didn’t quite revel in it, but I liked to think I accepted my fate and the fact that I was never going to be at peace with myself.

On the outside, it looked like I had it all.

I had somehow been blessed with good genes by Mother Nature, and I had more talent in my right hand than most did in their whole body.

I laughed at my own thought, because it sounded like a dirty joke.

“Something funny?” Violet asked.

“Not really, just thought about a cat video I saw online last night.”

“I didn’t know you were into cat videos—you, the snark queen.”

“Even snark queens can have a secret fondness of kitties, but don’t let anyone know I said that,” I told her, cocking one eyebrow.

“Is it the one with the cats and pizza? Marty and I laughed an entire evening watching that on replay.”

“Hmm, no. It wasn’t that one.”

When I said I had talent in my right hand, I wasn’t joking. As a comic book artist at Paz Media, I had the job many kids and teens—heck, even adults—dream of, if one didn’t care about being part of an industry that was constantly on the brink of failure, that is.

Still, my job was my life. It had been my dream for as long as I could remember, and as hard as it was living with the constant uncertainty, I lived and breathed the comic world. At the moment, Paz Media was doing really well, at least from what my best friend and CEO, Marty Fredrickson, said, but publishing was a fickle business. Even so, I hoped I didn’t have to worry about being jobless for at least a couple of years.

I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. I’d spent a large part of my life learning how to draw and working to become a comic book artist. I’d worked for years on other people’s titles, waiting for the moment I could finally work on more personal projects, and that moment had finally arrived. I was the sole creator of Switch, a story about a transgender cop who decides to transition. I had worked on the story for years, and we had started publishing it two years ago. It wasn’t an instant hit, but eventually it found a following, and it was well received in the LGBTQ community. I was very proud of that since I’d done extensive research to get the main character right. Despite my sour disposition, which Violet liked to joke about, I’d made a few good friends in the transgender community. I was proud of my work and the fact that the comic was one of those that kept a steady cash flow coming to Paz Media.

So far, it had been translated into five languages—my comic book.

Sometimes, I couldn’t believe I got to live my dream.

That alone should have been enough.

After all, it was everything I’d wanted since I was thirteen.

It shouldn’t have mattered that the rest of my life turned out to be lonelier than I’d ever imagined it would be. It shouldn’t have really mattered that every important person in my life ended up deserting me for one reason or another…but it did.

I knew I had many reasons to be grateful to be alive, but sometimes I just couldn’t help it.

In a way, I felt cursed.

I felt like Rogue from X-Men, unable to touch the people she loved. Anyone I deeply cared about either abandoned me or passed away unexpectedly.

Because of the events that shaped my life early on, I had kind of given up on the idea that I would be anything other than alone for the rest of my life.

I hadn’t seen my father since I was a teen, and my mother and I hardly talked on the phone. I didn’t have a significant other, and I wasn’t looking for one.

I wasn’t a hot mess in the way most people would think; I wasn’t the cute, quirky, goofy girl. I was a moody, restless, sometimes depressed fuck, the type of person who would purposely swim into her black hole of sadness, almost to the point of not being able to breathe.

Very few people knew this, since I concealed my true self behind the mask of a careless bitch.

It was a carefully studied persona, a combination of smartassness, edgy clothes, and resting bitch face. My façade worked, keeping people at a distance, to the point that the other nerds I worked with rarely included me in their idiotic daily conversations.

They knew to leave me alone, and I was okay with it.

From the moment I crossed the threshold of Paz Media, the only thing moving me forward was my love for drawing, for telling a story with pictures.

It’s the only love I truly cherish.

I pondered giving therapy another go, but I had tried that after the accident.

It was disastrous.

Nothing good came out of it. It didn’t help me deal with my emotional pain any better than I would have fared on my own. I didn’t need to go see another shrink to have him tell me I had abandonment issues, and that I couldn’t let go of my deeply rooted feeling of guilt.

These days, I was a closed-off weirdo who intentionally drove everyone away. Well, ninety percent of the time I tended to keep people away, and ten percent of the time I would drive men away after a fuck or two.

That was what I was good at, and it was what was good for me.

It was what I knew I could manage without getting in too deep, without getting too close. I didn’t need love.

My work, my art was the only thing I felt anything for, the only thing keeping me truly alive…and Violet and Marty, too, I supposed.

As I tried to listen to my friend’s monologue on floral centerpieces, I wondered if my life could have been different if I hadn’t gone through all that pain years ago.

Would my life be different now? Would I be happy? Would my best friend and I still be best friends?

I never wanted to go through that kind of heartbreak again. My life was just fine this way. It was safe. It was—

“Good morning, Violet…Lena.”

Amos’ voice startled me, as it often did on the rare occasions he spoke to me, because we were on non-speaking terms. We hadn’t spoken in so long, not since a little after he started working there.

All because of what had happened between us that night.

I barely nodded a hello, too surprised to even manage a word. I should have looked away immediately. Instead, my eyes settled on him, taking in every feature of his masculine, strange beauty. He was tall, with wide shoulders; his build alone made him stand out in a sea of geeks, but it was his face and the magnetic hold of his brown eyes that made him more appealing. His black, longish hair cascaded on his forehead that he brushed to the side one too many times. His eyebrows straight and full like the ones of comic book characters. Too often, I’d seen those eyebrows pull into a straight line when his hazelnut-brown eyes looked at me. His nose was straight, but slightly too big. Yet, it managed to make his profile look even more masculine, and it complemented his full lips. I remembered running my fingers along his square jaw.

That did it. I was immediately hit with the memory of his touch, of his lips on mine, of his strong arms around me.

His brown eyes studied me for just a second before darting in Violet’s direction.

My heart sank in the pit of my stomach.

“Hey, Amos. How are you? Ohayou gozaimasu. Did I tell you I’m learning Japanese? Marty and I have decided to go to Japan for our honeymoon,” Violet announced, as if it was a piece of information she needed to share with him that morning.

Amos and I didn’t really talk and we also hardly crossed paths; his cubicle was on the opposite side of the floor.

Why is he over here on my side?

A forced smile stretched across his face as he passed us in the hallway. He didn’t glance in my direction again. I knew he wouldn’t, but still, a stupid ache wrapped around my heart, tightening around it like a boa constrictor.

Stupid, stupid heart. I clenched my jaw and looked down, trying to avoid staring at him.

“Cool. I’ll see you around. Sorry, but I have to go. I actually have a meeting with Marty and I’m ten minutes late.” He turned his back to us and kept walking.

“Oh, don’t worry. He won’t mind!” Violet chirped.

I followed Amos’ silhouette down the hall as it got smaller and smaller.

“Good God almighty! I know I’m engaged, but man, that guy is hot. Am I mistaken or has he put on some serious muscle?” she asked.

She knew I didn’t like talking about him and avoided it at all costs.

“I didn’t notice,” I lied.

“Oh, bullshit. You did notice. I saw you look at him, Lena.”

“I did not look at him. He was just in my way. Where else was I supposed to look?” We reached my cubicle and I dropped my purse on my desk. I fired up my Mac then checked my phone for missed calls. There were none, because no one liked to leave voicemails anymore—thank God. Talk about awkward as fuck.

Bless the twenty-first century and the invention of electronic mail.

Still, right then I could have used a distraction, an urgent message about an impending-doom type of catastrophe that would have let me escape Violet’s insinuations unscathed. I checked my emails on my phone, deliberately ignoring her.

“Let’s talk about Amos,” she said abruptly, leaning against the partition of my cubicle.

“Let’s not,” I retorted, leaning against the back of my chair. I hadn’t even had any coffee. It was way too early for this shit, especially without any type of alcohol involved.

“Do you remember that night at Marty’s? He and I had just started dating and we had a party to celebrate the new hires. Someone suggested we start playing seven minutes in heaven…whose idea was it?”

“I don’t know.” Yeah, whose idea was it? What a dumb idea that was.

I stretched my arms up and yawned, hoping she’d drop the subject. She’d tried before, and I never let her have it.

But no such luck.

“If I remember correctly, you and Amos kissed, didn’t you?” Her tone was playful and snarky. She didn’t need to ask; she remembered perfectly well. I narrowed my eyes at her, feigning annoyance.

“You’re wrong. You were so drunk that night you ended up sleeping at Marty’s for the first time. Remember that?”

“No, missy. I’ve heard the story from other people. You were one of the first couples to go in and after you came out, you didn’t look like yourself at all. That’s what I remember, and that’s what everyone else said. And then you managed to slip away like you often do. You’re a master escape artist when it comes to fleeing a party.”

“The party was about dead when I left,” I told her, raising my eyebrows in an effort to look confident about my words.

Violet could sometimes see right through me.

“How was the kiss?” The look on her face showed just as much determination as the tone of her voice did.

“There was no kiss.”

“You’re lying. I know you well enough by now to know when you’re lying, Lena,” she pleaded. “Tell me the truth, once and for all.”

“Fine. The kiss was…” Mind-bending, soul-crushing, the best kiss I’ve ever had in my entire life. “It was…inconsequential.” Unforgettable. I licked my lips and swallowed, my throat suddenly dry. She eyed me questioningly, and I shrugged. “It was nothing special, which is why I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Lena.”

“Violet,” I said, mimicking her tone. “If you don’t drop the subject, I will drop out of your wedding.”

Her eyes widened in shock, but she quickly recovered.

“You’re bluffing. You wouldn’t do something like that to me, or to Marty.”

“Try me.”

She let out a deep breath, exasperated. “Fine. I’ll stop asking you about it.”

“Good.”

“Jeez. If only your fans knew how you are in real life,” she said in a sarcastic tone, cocking one eyebrow at me.

I shot her an annoyed look. “You wouldn’t.”

“No. You’re lucky, I won’t. I know you don’t even want to have anything to do with that. That’s all Marty. I know he makes you guys play nice on social media.”

“Yeah, the asshole,” I said seriously, but when I looked at her, we both pursed our lips, stifling a laugh.

“So…the kiss was nothing special, was it? Completely terrible?”

“Violet!”

“Okay, okay. I’m going to go back to my numbers now. You be good. See you at lunch?”

“Maybe…if you’re lucky.”

“You always say that, and then I never see you.”

“Because I don’t do lunch.”

“So stop saying I might see you.”

“So stop asking,” I retorted.

“Bye, friend. See you later.”

Despite the frequent bickering, Violet was one of my best friends. The other one was Marty, of course. They were the only people I shared anything with, the only ones I cared about.

I’d met Marty fresh out of college, during the darkest time of my life. He was a random online connection that turned out to be a true friendship, a lifeline. We met in real life after months of chatting in an anime chatroom, having long, detailed conversations about our favorite artists and our love of comics, and we’d been friends ever since. Although we enjoyed each other’s company, and even though I found him to be cute in that certain geeky way with his unruly light-brown hair and wide-rimmed glasses that partially hid his soulful blue eyes, there was never a physical attraction between us.

Ours had always been a cerebral one.

His screen name had been McFly1985, an homage to his favorite childhood movie, Back to the Future, and I’d called him McFly ever since. We’d been friends for years, and he was the one who’d kept me alive during those terrible months. They always felt like years, the excruciating pain making that time seem so much longer.

Still running empty on caffeine, I walked to the breakroom in a daze, thinking about Marty and his visionary entrepreneurship, about him and Violet, a comic book-worthy couple.

I pressed the button of the Keurig and stood leaning against the counter, waiting for the coffee to brew. I tuned out the conversation a couple of techs were having and brought the cup to my lips, pressing them against the mug, taking the first sip.

It warmed me up, and then Marty and Amos entered the room.

I jumped, almost spilling the coffee on myself. I straightened up and gave Marty a half-smile.

“At ease, soldier,” he said with a wave of his hand.

“Har har. See you around, boss,” I replied as I moved to leave.

“Lena.” I turned around to look at my friend, who knew entirely too well how fidgety I got when trying to hide my distress.

“Come see me later, okay?” He gave me a warm smile, and I smiled back.

“Of course.” I nodded in agreement.

As I turned to leave, Amos St. Clair was right in front of me. Our gazes locked, and my eyes fell to his lips.

Don’t go there. Don’t think about it.

But then his smell enveloped me, reaching my nostrils, forcing me to remember.

The way he felt…the way he tasted. I needed to walk away and forget about all of it.

Damn Violet for even talking about something that happened two years ago.

I tried to sidestep to the right to get out of his way, but he mirrored my movement and did the same when I moved to the left, stuck in an awkward dance.

“Sorry,” I mumbled as I finally got out of his way. I stepped out of the breakroom as fast as I could without spilling my hot coffee and rushed back to my desk.

Don’t think about it.

It was easy to say, not easy to do.

I thought about it often, despite knowing I shouldn’t.

The truth was, I did remember. I remembered everything about that night.

I remembered everything about his kiss, because it was the best kiss I’d ever had.

No one had ever kissed me like that, not before him, and not since.

Stop thinking about it.

But I couldn’t. I could never stop thinking about it. I hadn’t been able to do so for the last two years.