It’s a five-hundred-square-foot one-room studio with high ceilings. When I moved in I painted the walls light blue and stenciled in big scripty letters on the far wall my favorite saying from Ian: love is the best gift I’ve ever had the privilege to give. The only other decorations are the curtains that I sewed from some lacy fabric.
I kept the furniture minimal. There’s my bed, a dresser and night stand, my futon, a coffee table, and that’s it. My kitchen is a row of three cabinets, a small countertop, a sink, a tiny oven with a countertop stove, and a mini fridge. There’s a dirty pile of laundry next to the bed and a couple of books on the floor next to the futon. Otherwise, thankfully, it’s clean-ish.
“Well?” I ask, meaning, what do you think?
Josh doesn’t say anything. I turn to him and realize that he’s staring at the quote on my wall.
“What’s that about?” he asks.
I blush then start to take off my coat and unwrap my scarf. I hang them on the coat rack by my door.
“I like Ian’s quotes. Obviously. I’ve worked for him for almost seven years.” I hold out my hands for Josh’s coat.
But Josh wrinkles his brow, then, “Actually. It’s getting late, I think I’m going to head out.”
I frown. Something Josh said to my brother sinks in. Josh said he’d crash in the city. At his place. I imagine it, the crumbling walls, the old mattress on the floor, the construction debris. It sounds too depressing for words.
“I was thinking,” I say. “You were really nice today, and the least I can do is let you sleep on my futon.” I gesture to the futon under the wall quote.
Josh shakes his head.
“So you don’t have to take the train all the way to Williamsburg,” I quickly add. “My futon’s not comfortable, it’s got this nasty metal bar in the middle, but I mean, it’s better than a dusty construction site. You told my brother that you’d sleep in Williamsburg, but that sounds depressing, so…”
He still doesn’t say anything so I say, “Besides, we need to talk about how we’re going forward from here.”
“Thanks.” He gives me an amused smile. “But as tempting as your not-so-comfortable futon sounds, I need to get going.”
“Oh,” I squeak, and even though I feel a weird sort of disappointment, I try not to let it show. “That’s alright. Like I said, I’ll keep you updated on everything. I can text you after the transfer when I get my results. Plus, we need to sort out the contract but we can do that through lawyers.”
“Gemma.” Josh reaches out and puts his fingers to my chin.
I stop talking.
He moves his thumb and drags it across my bottom lip. The room spins a bit and I feel slightly short of breath. The callous on the tip of his thumb rubs over the fleshy part of my mouth.
What? What the…?
My lips part as I draw in a breath and then Josh pulls his hand away.
He clears his throat and then, “You had lime zest on your lips.” He holds out his thumb, and sure enough, there’s a bit of lime on the pad of this thumb.
An image of me sucking it off his thumb flashes through my mind.
My lady parts clench.
Gah. Why?
“The contract,” I blurt out. “We need to sort out the details.”
“Let’s catch up this weekend,” he says.
Strangely, my heart thunders in my chest.
“Okay,” I say over the thundering in my ears. “Thanks again. Thanks for everything. You have no idea.”
He looks at me then turns, walks out, and shuts the door with a quiet snick.
I walk over to my not-so-comfortable futon and sit down with an exhausted flop.
What a day.
12
I’m at my desk, clicking my mouse to the beat of a pop song playing over my headphones. Today, I’m working on finishing up a social media story about the power of friendship. I worked with a designer to create this cute animation following the friendship of a fox and a rabbit. You’d think they wouldn’t be friends since foxes eat rabbits, but Ian’s quotes create a storyline that has friendship budding in only seven installments.
I don’t want to brag, but it’s kind of awesome.
I smile at the cute fox and fluffy rabbit on my screen, then I look across the room toward Ian’s office. It’s dark. He’s been in LA for the past few days and I haven’t heard from him. Not that that’s unusual. When Ian is on media tours he works twenty-hour days and no one at the office hears from him unless it’s an emergency.
I sent him a text yesterday: Hope you’re having a good time in sunny LA, you lucky dog.
He didn’t write back. Which is fine. Obviously. He’s busy inspiring millions.
And I’m busy inspiring myself.
I’ve spent my nights logged into the fertility forums reading old posts and lurking on new posts. I also ordered about nine thousand books on infertility covering every topic imaginable from growing awesome super-fertile eggs by avoiding BPA to the raw food fertility diet to maintaining the proper mindset. The only thing the books don’t cover is how to navigate an evolving relationship with Josh Lewenthal.
That’s what I should’ve typed into the bookstore search engine.
Book title: How to make a baby and have an uncomplicated, platonic relationship with Josh Lewenthal while pursuing your career, finding fulfillment, and dating your incredibly sexy boss, self-help guru Ian Fortune.
Author: No one. Ever.
Right. So, that’s that. The stack of books by my futon has turned into a mountain and I’m confused about what happened with Josh. Which I don’t need. I asked him to be a donor for many reasons, one of which was that I’m not attracted to him/interested in him.
But spending such an emotional day with him was…nice.
Fine. More than nice.
He texted this morning. All it said was: How’s Friday night?
I wrote back: I babysit for Leah on Fridays.
He wrote: See you then. We’ll do our thing after.
Honestly, what kind of guy wants to babysit kids on a Friday night? I mean, yeah, he’s living at his dad’s, which is only five minutes from Leah’s house, and he does know the kids and my sister and her husband, obviously, but…doesn’t he want to hang out with his guy friends, or go on a hot date?
So I texted: Don’t you usually have a hot date on Fridays?
He wrote back: Haha.
Then: That hot dog stand was a real tragedy for my dating life.