“Dad!” Blake says in horror. “No. That man is no longer child-appropriate. He has a lightning bolt tattooed on his face.”
“Cool, I want lightning bolt on my face,” Kevin says with a wondrous look. “Just like Harry Potter.”
“See what you did, dad,” Blake says.
“Actually I think it’s a cross on his face,” his dad points out, glaring at them both. “But no one is getting any face tattoos!”
I watch them all volleying back and forth for a moment before I realize I don’t really belong here and the longer I stand here, the more I have to pretend that this whole girlfriend label isn’t weird.
“Well it was nice meeting you Kevin,” I say, giving him a slight bow since he’s holding a sword and all. “Nice to meet you Mr. Crawford.”
“Likewise,” he says absently, not looking up from the register.
“Call me,” I tell Blake quickly before turning on my heel and leaving before things get weirder.
I’m half-way down the street when I hear Blake calling after me.
I turn to see him dodging a man on a unicycle before catching up.
“Sorry about that,” he says, putting his hand on my shoulder. The unicycle guy pedals past, muttering obscenities.
“About what? Volunteering me for LARPing or telling your family I’m your girlfriend?”
“Both,” he says. “Come on, you know how I am. I had to tell them you were a girlfriend to get them off my back. I couldn’t tell them you were my writing partner.” He runs his hand through his floppy hair and looks off for a moment. When his gaze returns to mine, he flashes me a smug smile. “You know that we’re just fucking. That’s all we are, all we will be. It’s just good fun.”
Damn. I have to pretend that that doesn’t hurt. For all intents and purposes it shouldn’t hurt me but it does. C’est la vie.
“Right,” I say flatly.
He studies me. “You agree, don’t you? I mean that’s what you want. To be partners that fuck on the side.”
I manage a stiff smile. Sometimes I forget how crude he can be. “As long as writing is the priority.”
“Good, yes, of course it will be,” he says, nodding quickly. He shoots a glance over his shoulder. “I have to get back to the store. Send me your files tonight and I’ll turn them over to the editor.”
“Sounds good,” I tell him. “Talk to you later.”
I turn away from him and head down the street as a force field comes over me, the one I used to have before I got all caught up in him. I don’t have any experience with casual sex but if I want to keep having my fun, I’m going to have to learn to rein all my feelings in before things get complicated.
Then again, I’m having hot sex with my writing partner. I’m starting to think it’s complicated already.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Blake
I swear I don’t understand women.
I never will.
After I shagged the hell out of Amanda and she shagged the hell out of me, she totally lost the plot. And I don’t mean that in book terms. I mean, things got weird. I think it was because Kevin had called her my girlfriend in front of her. And me. And my father. I could practically see her jumping out of her skin in horror.
But then after I explained to her that we were basically fuck buddies who worked together—an office romance, if you will—that didn’t help either. If anything, she seemed to shut down in front of my eyes, completely withdrew.
If she were any other girl and this were any other situation I would have just said see ya, I have no time for your daft bullshit. But because I do like her, you know, as a person, as well as a good shag, and I work with her, that really wasn’t an option. We had to see each other whether we wanted to or not.
Actually it ended up being for the best that we couldn’t ignore each other.
So we kept on meeting up to work on the book.
And we would put all that weird shit aside and we’d write.
We went through edits together one night.
And then I ate her out on the couch.
The next day we did more edits.
She sucked me off in my car when I dropped her off.
After that we tried our hand at formatting before I took her doggy-style on her bed, not even caring that her roommate could hear us.
Needless to say, we got the book professionally formatted instead.
Which left us more time to screw.
Fuck.
Shag.
Bang.
Basically anything that involved getting off.
Anything to loosen her up.
Anything to take advantage of her kinky side which was very slowly coming out to play.
And then…
Then we pressed publish.
And then we sat back.
And waited.
Until the book was live.
Falling for the Secret Male Stripper, with its pithy blurb and headless model on the cover (holding a Photoshopped ruler, because of course he’s also a teacher), popped up on Amazon, ready to purchase.
We did it.
All systems are a go.
Amanda is curled next to me on the couch, feet pressed up against my side, nursing a glass of red wine. Her glasses are off and her hair is down and her face is flushed for so many reasons but I know one of them is because I just went down on her moments ago. I can still taste her on my tongue, something I don’t mind lingering.
We both have our laptops out, both of us are on Amazon’s KDP page and monitoring our sales. The Facebook ads just started running so we’re waiting to see if that translates into results because at the moment, we have zero.