The Spectacular Now

 

And therein lies the whole of man's plight. Human time does not turn in a circle; it runs ahead in a straight line. That is why man cannot be happy: happiness is the longing for repetition.

- Milan Kundera

 

 

RISKE

 

Day 2… and I woke up to a note at my front door.

Last night, after I dropped off a drunk Griff at his suite and wound up cursing out a ready-to-bail Chris, I somehow found my way back to my hotel room, where I did anything but sleep. My mind raced for hours after I closed my computer and I couldn’t think of anything but storming four floors down in the hotel, knocking down Kat’s door and fucking all of the hate out of her system, replacing it with the feelings she once felt nine years ago—when we were seventeen and stupid. When tomorrow never ended and each day was better than the last.

It was torture… finding out that we were staying in the same hotel.

Last night, I would have given anything to be that fucking kid again, but the life I’d led and the choices I made couldn’t be undone. There was no backwards. There was only forwards. And unless I found a way to make Kat see me, I knew anything we’d had between us would be utterly fucked. And not in the good way.

I was still the liar that broke her heart. And nothing had changed.

Of course, my hair was shorter, the money longer, but the lying part was as true as it’d ever been. She still didn’t know the truth about my past or present, and for as long as I could, I was going to keep it that way.

Until I figured out what to do with her. I knew what I should do with her, but the risk-taking teenager I’d been that made the man I’d become, wouldn’t let me.

With Kat Lexington, nothing was simple. And I was a fucking fool to think that it could have been—that I could walk away unscathed… without telling her why I left in the first place. From last night’s conversation, it was clear that she hadn’t forgotten it.

Would I be able to walk away from her again this time—to make the clean break that I’d attempted nearly ten years ago?

The thought hammered into my head, even louder than the hammering that was happening against my hotel door. I opened it without glancing through the peephole, stepping out of the way to let an insolent Griff stagger his way inside.

Still in his robe, he plopped on the bed with a resounding thud. He sighed the second he hit the sheets.

“Your bed is softer than mine,” he mumbled.

“Says the man with the hard head…”

“No, it definitely is. Marjorie Peters slept in it, and she said the same herself. My bed was one big slab of sheetrock.”

I turned to Griff. “Marjorie Peters spent the night? How…?”

“What do you mean ‘how’? This is me we’re talking about.”

“Yes, Griff. You. And ‘you’ was hammered out of your fucking skull. You could barely walk, let alone fuck—though I’m sure you weren’t doing one much longer than the other when you were growing up.”

Griff grinned. “Come on… I wasn’t fucking that early in life. I did make up for lost time, though. I should get paid to give classes in pussy. Starting with your best friend, Chris.”

I threw the morning newspaper at him. “He’s your best friend, too, numb-nuts.”

“Not if he keeps cock-blocking me, he’s not. Foxx, I swear… if that fucker doesn’t use his dick soon, the whole organ—cock to balls—is gonna fall off. I don’t think he’s slept with anyone since his last girlfriend—if you could call her that. The tramp used him for his money, the swanky dinners and the occasional flowers. For God’s sake, she tried to fuck me when it was all said and done. I’d have paid my secretary to personally kick her ass.” He sat up. “I mean, if he was going to get a gold digger, he could least find one that knew her way around a cock. You should have seen the way she tried to rub against my crotch.”

“Sheila rubbed against your…?” I put my hands to my temple. “Fuck it. I don’t even wanna know. Just… save that memory of yours for some of today’s introductions. Wouldn’t want you ‘repeat-meeting’ some editor you happened to screw and forget. I don’t need a deja vu of the Austin conference. That’s assuming, of course, that Marjorie Peters didn’t literally fuck your brains out…” I went for the ice, filling up my cup from the bucket. “What’s on the agenda?”

“‘The Joys of Publishing’ by Boring McNobody. A bunch of seminars and bullshit. They grab whatever cock-in-the-mouth, wannabe intellectual for these things. Not that I don’t appreciate the comped suite and all, Foxx… but why did you bring Chris and me here? If I have to sit through another one of the daytime demos about how to market a novel, I’m going to blow my brains out. I’d rather be getting blown by the nearest Romance author on the docket. I got a few dirty words they could use…”

I crossed my arms, leaning against the TV stand. “Like you’d rather be at the office, pretending to do work…” I shook my head. “Not a fucking chance… Chris is my CFO. You’re my head of cybersecurity.” Griff glared at me. “And yes, that doesn’t have shit to do with actual literature, but if I have to suffer through this fuckery, then you two do, too.” I pointed. “Weren’t you the one that suggested that, as best friends, you, Chris and I do everything together?”

Griff smirked, standing. “That was when you were fucking that sexy ass model, Danica Kennedy six months ago. And speaking of ‘sexy asses,’ who were the Betty and Veronica duo from last night?”

I straightened. “Who?”

“You know… the knockout brunette your eyes kept straying to across the room. And the blonde, the one with sad eyes and the tits that reached near her neck? Those women?”

My heart slammed against my chest. I walked to the door without looking back at Griff. “Ladies from a past life. That’s all.” I opened the door. “And if you want to keep your life, you’ll get dressed.” I picked up the note just outside the hall. “Our itinerary,” I said, waving the paper, “says that we have a long day ahead of us.”

“And if we’re lucky,” Griff strolled towards the door, “an even longer night.” He winked. “So, buckle your seat belt up, Archie. Pack your lube and let the real fun begin…”

 

 

***

 

KAT

 

The note was just the beginning.

After I’d read it, I spent the better part of the afternoon, reeling—my mind meandering in so many different directions that if it weren’t for Laney plucking my thigh periodically to grab my attention, I might have missed out on half the summit.

I couldn’t concentrate. And who could…? When the speaker was drier than day-old bread? When you hadn’t slept right in a week’s worth of days? When you received cryptic threats at your doorstep…?

In the span of twenty-four hours, I’d had to come to terms with all three…

Up early after a long night of ruthless teasing with Brendon Foxx, I awakened not to find the newspaper and OJ at my door, but an envelope, sealed and signed to me. I thought it might have been my daily itinerary, but as I ripped open the seal, I saw something infinitely scarier—two lines meant to bait me, typed in bold ink.

You don’t belong.

Leave while you still can.

And nothing else. No return address. It had been typed in Sans Serif font—no handwriting. No indications of whether a man or woman had written it and no distinctive traces, like the lingering of perfume or cologne or the classic telltales that every great cheesy mystery book always had.

I wasn’t worried about the note, no. It was a feeling closer to wariness.

I reminded myself that as the founder of a travel, foods and art publication, I’d rejected enough angry aspiring writers to fill a Harper Collins editor’s waste bin. A few of those angry writers were no doubt here at the Summit, but that someone would be bold enough to confront me, sick enough to try to scare me, worked me into a bitch fit that even made Laney afraid.

I couldn’t explain what was happening around me. All I knew was that things had definitely changed.

My life was becoming the stuff of tabloid fodder, a Hallmark movie. “Heroes” disappeared into thin air. Bad guys skulked in hotel hallways. And the heroine…? The heroine of this Kat Lexington production couldn’t pick her asshole from a hole in the ground because she was too busy falling for a figurative asshole, a business and literary rival whose poisoning she had plotted only a week before.

Turns out the “star” of my crazy life’s little film wasn’t any different from the dense and lust-drunk women she’d pretended not to be. I had a vision of what success in my life was supposed to look like, and it wasn’t supposed to look anything like this—with me fumbling under a growing infatuation, desperately searching for my next career move after a debilitating fire.

I felt like a child in school again, drawing hearts around the name of the kid in class who liked to throw spitballs her way. We’d gone through a battle, Brendon Foxx and I—come to verbal blows.

Was I really ready to forgive and forget? After all I’d been through? After everything that an arrogant bastard like Ethan Riske had taught me about men?

I didn’t know.

All I knew is that by the time Laney and I had left our hotel rooms to head to dinner, I had a knot in my throat the size of Texas. I was wondering what I would feel if I had to see Ethan again. I was wondering what I would feel if I didn’t.

I took a seat in the grand hall ballroom at a table with linens more expensive than the dress I was wearing. Sliding the thin straps of my sexy navy number up over my sensitive shoulders, I settled in at the dining hall table with a frown on my face… and a shiver down my spine.

The shiver was only confirmed when I felt a puff of light breathing on the back of my neck. The smell of expensive cologne overwhelmed me, and I looked up and stared into a set of brown eyes so deep they could be black. The hair that framed them was just as black and it was attached to an attractive face, a wide set of lips and a gleaming smile.

I glared at the man in front of me openly. Not because of his looks, though he was sort of handsome, but because I knew his face. I’d seen it on more television shows than I could count, and there was a time that I would have done unspeakable things to come face-to-face with that face.

The face that launched a thousand sitcom spin-offs.

Harrison Kennedy.

He extended a hand. I looked down at it. It wasn’t to shake. He pointed.

“Is this seat taken?” he said, motioning to the one beside me.

“No,” I almost flustered, feeling my heart pick up in pace for the first time all day. “No. Go right ahead.”

He nodded. “Thank you.”

The journalist-turned-TV-star sat in the chair beside me, and I had to slap Laney’s knee to keep her from squealing. I cleared my throat.

“You’re very welcome.”

A herd of publishers, publicists and authors swarmed to the table and before I could get another word with the famous Mr. Kennedy, he was accosted by every publishing groupie this side of the state who was eager to eat beside a Pulitzer Prize winner.

Clearly, I was dismissed. This just wasn’t my night.

I sat on our crowded end of the round table, taking little bites of my food, fighting to keep them down as I watched grown men fall over themselves to get to the famous writer.

The sleaziness of it all made my skin crawl, and with a few minutes left to the serving of dinner, I walked away, making my way to the bar for a shot of whiskey while some screenwriter chatted Laney up. Not that the networking would do us any good; my little publishing press was floundering. I caught myself in conversation with the bartender on the far side of the room, because if I was going to fail, I was going to do it in style.

I hadn’t made one connection here or met one noteworthy person worth keeping in contact with. I thought about the comment Brendon Foxx once made about me working at Red Lobster, and figured that I might as well start working on my biscuit recipe. I was on my third shot before Laney finally made her way over.

She sighed, smiling. “That guy over there? He wants to write a book about saving the rainforest. Granted, I don’t think he even knows where a rainforest is…” She stared over at him. “But look at his pecs…”

I took a sip of my whiskey, grimacing. “Pecs don’t sell books, Lane.”

“The hell they don’t,” she retorted. “We put his face on the inside cover, get him on a bookstore tour and the rest will be history. The rainforest won’t be the only wet thing Bud will have to deal with.”

I sat down my glass. “Bud? His name is Bud? Like the beer…?”

“Orrr…” Laney drew out. “Like a word you use for ‘pal’ or ‘friend.’” She glanced Bud’s way again. “He could be my friend. Hell, he could be way more than my friend.”

I turned to my best friend. “Remind me to thank the universe for never hiring you as an agent.”

She grinned, swiping my drink. “The universe says ‘You’re welcome.’” She took a hefty sip. Placing the glass back on the bar, my secretary and aspiring screenwriter “sugar-mama” practically glided back in Bud’s direction. It was the first time I was alone all night and I welcomed the solitude with open arms, letting myself sink into the depths of a deepening depression that threatened to swallow me whole into someone else cozied up to my corner of the carefully made wooden bar, bringing in with them the scent of champagne and something slightly stronger.

His voice was a hiss across my skin.

“See anything you like?” Harrison hovered near my right shoulder. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Deep in my own personal goal to get drunk, I’d almost forgotten that he was back there. I didn’t turn to look at him. Not yet.

“Just this whiskey. But she’s a bit on the bitter side. I like something with a little more smoke, a bit more spice.”

“Well, then you’ll love this…” He leaned in as if he were telling me a secret. “This is some of my own.”

He handed me a silver flask under the bar. He laughed, a whisky-scoured sound that made me jump, and I took the container, turning my back towards the bartender so I could take a sly whiff. It smelled like death.

“Ugh, I’m sorry.” I handed it back to him. “I actually like living. But thank you.”

Harrison simply chuckled. “I do, too. But in my opinion, a worthwhile life is one worth taking a risk in. You’re not really alive… until you find the things that make you feel that way. Does that make sense?”

I thought of the risks I had taken—in life, in love. Strangely, they were the only things I didn’t regret. I hadn’t regretted starting my business… even if it was failing. I hadn’t regretted loving Ethan Riske—once… even when he left, even when he crushed my heart, breaking every bit of the heart that was left in me.

Those experiences had only made me stronger, wiser. And now at twenty-six—damn near twenty-seven, I was going to take another risk. I was going to ask Harrison Kennedy, writer extraordinaire, to be my author.

I snatched the flask back from him, taking a huge swallow. The gulp went down like gasoline… and Harrison’s grin only widened.

I was sure I knew what I was doing…

Or did I?