Heidi patted his arm. “You can grab my fortune instead. It’s about making wiser decisions, and I have no interest in that.”
He laughed. “I’ll bet you don’t.”
April was lost. “I’m sorry, Heidi, but I missed something. What were you thinking about? And what does it have to do with me?”
“She was thinking we could help one another, if you had the time and interest.” Mel smiled at April. “We keep saying we should have costumes for our performances. You know, outfits that would work together onstage and show we’re a folk group. But none of us can figure out what exactly that would look like. If you’d be willing to turn your design eye to those—”
“We could help you sew one of your costumes,” Pablo finished. “If that’s something that would interest you. If not, no worries.”
The molded plastic chair beneath her squeaked as April lurched forward, the movement jerky in her enthusiasm.
“Yes.” She beamed at her new coworkers. All of them, in turn.
“I would love that.”
This was what she’d been missing in her work. Openness and the ability to talk about her life outside the office. Relationships built on and because of that openness.
God, the freedom was intoxicating. She was practically giddy with it.
“We’ll let you get a bit more settled first, and then we can work out the details.” Mel waved a ring-bedecked hand. “If you change your mind in the meantime, not a problem.”
“You have a lot going on at the moment. Obviously.” Heidi’s nose ring glinted as she leaned back in her chair. “Look, it’s really none of our business, and feel free not to answer, but—”
“Marcus Caster-Rupp is the bane of my existence as a lesbian,” Mel interrupted. “If he didn’t exist, I would be all the way at the end of the Kinsey scale, but alas.”
Heidi shrugged. “I’m bi, so I embrace my status as a Castersexual.”
“What’s he like in person?” Mel asked. “Equally hot?”
While Kei rolled his eyes and stood to gather his trash, Pablo rested his elbows on the table. “Did he say anything about his skin care routine?”
“Please tell us he’s actually a decent guy. He seems that way in all his interviews, but . . .” Heidi scrunched up her face in an anticipatory wince. “You just don’t know.”
What could April say? “Ummm, okay.” Easy stuff first. “I don’t know anything about his skin care routine. I’m sorry, Pablo. You might want to check online. There might be articles about it.”
He shook his head, then began consolidating his own trash. “I probably couldn’t afford the products he uses anyway, but I was curious. My girlfriend says his face has ‘the perfect amount of weathering.’ Whatever that means.”
April knew what it meant.
Those crinkles at the corners of his eyes and the faint lines across his forehead only enhanced his appeal. They were the gilt on his already gorgeous lily.
Now on to shakier ground.
“He’s just as handsome in person,” she told Mel. “Maybe more so.”
Because in person, he was real. A shirt wrinkled by her fist or a loose shoelace only made him seem warmer and more solid and . . . touchable.
Face-to-face, he was still blindingly beautiful, yes, but not perfect. Not a demigod. Just a man. And since he was a real person to her now, she didn’t want to talk about his sexual appeal to strangers. Like her explicit fics, the topic suddenly seemed like a violation.
His physical beauty she would gladly discuss. His fuckability? No. Not anymore.
“Whew.” Mel made a show of fanning herself. “I’m not certain that’s physically possible, but I trust your judgment. You’re the only one who’s been up close and personal with him, after all.”
Finally, the most complicated response of all.
Please tell us he’s actually a decent guy.
April wouldn’t discuss the differences between his public persona and private demeanor. He had his reasons for maintaining that facade, whatever they were, and she wouldn’t violate his privacy in that way, either. She also wouldn’t violate her own by describing their final moments together or the reason for her anger.
But she could tell a circumscribed truth.
“You don’t have to worry, Heidi.” She did her best to smile, because she was telling the truth, and she wanted its sincerity believed. “He was nothing but kind to me.”
Even though he’d nudged her toward the gym and a healthy breakfast, she meant that. He’d almost certainly intended the invitation as a gesture of concern, despite its inherent condescension. And when he’d talked about the buffet, she’d cut him off before he could finish telling her the choices. Maybe he’d have kept listing weight-loss-friendly options, but maybe—
No, there was no point going over that moment yet again. She’d made her decision, and she’d live with it. No matter how many times she’d questioned her knee-jerk reaction to his words this past week.
You know, those probably are the items he always has for breakfast, given the nutritional and fitness demands of his work. The thought wouldn’t leave her, no matter how she exhausted herself unpacking boxes and moving furniture. You asked what he could recommend, and if that’s what he eats, healthy foods were very literally all he could honestly recommend.
Her smile faded, despite her best efforts. “I don’t think we’ll be going out again, so I’m afraid I won’t have more insider information in the future.”
Even if she changed her mind at this point, even if she texted him to propose another date—which she definitely, definitely wouldn’t—he might not accept. Not after the way she’d turned cold and dismissive in the cab, and not given the hurt she’d heard underlining every word he’d said after that point.
But he hadn’t forced that hurt on her, either. Hadn’t transformed it into an emotional bludgeon, a way to manipulate her into changing her mind. Hadn’t argued or bombarded her with texts afterward.
He’d taken his dismissal with grace.
More grace, in the end, than she’d used in issuing it.
Mel pushed back her chair and stood, sympathy soft in her gaze. “We won’t ask you about him again. I promise. And if any of us gets too nosy in the future, please tell us, and we’ll back off. Immediately and without hurt feelings.”
“It’s fine.” April consolidated the leftovers on the table, carefully avoiding further eye contact. “In your position, I’d have been asking the exact same questions.”
Then they all got back to work, and she spent a quiet afternoon contending with various documents.
Documents—and doubts.
So many doubts.
BAWN HAD POSTED a new fic during her workday.
Eyes prickling and hot with tears, April clicked on it that evening.
The story was confirmation, if she’d needed it. He’d lied to her. Clearly he’d had internet access long enough to get his newest work uploaded. Which would also be long enough to send a brief DM, if he’d wanted to do so. Which he didn’t anymore.
As always, he’d used a phrase from E. Wade’s books to title his fic. This time, he’d drawn from a passage in the third story, one containing Lavinia’s thoughts about Aeneas: Though a half god, he is no less a man. And as such, prone to blunder full as often as any of his brethren.
Unlike all BAWN’s previous fics, though, “No Less a Man” ventured into the bedroom. It didn’t require an E rating, so it must not be too graphic, but it was his first story to be rated M.
That was . . . odd.
He’d used her misery ahoy! tag, as well as the alternative she’d once proposed, here be angst, and at her incidental inclusion in the story he’d written and posted without her help or input, she had to stare up at the ceiling for a minute and blink hard.
As she began to read his words from an unfamiliar remove, without having seen the story first, without having brainstormed it together or proofread it for him, she had to stop. Sinuses clogging, she got up from her half-unpacked desk and wandered into the cluttered kitchen. The darkness of the backyard through the over-sink window soothed her stinging eyes, and cool water helped her swallow past the thickness in her throat.
She tossed her shredded tissue into the trash can and sat back down at her computer. Maybe she wouldn’t read his future stories, but she couldn’t ignore this one.
After the first few paragraphs, she knew someone else had beta-read the story. There were more transcription errors than normal, but far fewer than would exist without outside help.
After a few more paragraphs, she was crying again, this time openly.
In the story, compliant with but not included in book!canon, Lavinia and Aeneas found themselves newly married and alone in their bedchamber, both trying their best to come to terms with a marriage neither had wanted, despite their obedience to the will of the gods and the decree of the Fates.
They kissed, pleasurably enough for both parties. They held each other. When he questioned her willingness to proceed, she gave her consent to further intimacy.
He began to stroke her arms, her hair, her back, startled but pleased by a rising swell of desire. Lavinia, though, remained stiff under his touch, and Aeneas eventually drew back in confusion.
In the context of Wade’s books, using the author’s characterization of Lavinia, the reasons for her hesitation were more than clear. She barely knew her husband and had expected to marry another man—Turnus—instead. She needed time to come to terms with such vast and unexpected changes in her life before welcoming Aeneas into her bed.
But even if she’d known him longer and better, it wouldn’t have mattered. Not for their first time together. Given her history, she would fear any man’s response to her angular body, her beaky nose and crooked smile and jutting ears.
To relax during bedplay, she’d require gentleness. Patience. Understanding.
But BAWN’s story was written from Aeneas’s point of view, as ever, and he didn’t have the faintest idea what his new wife was thinking and remembering, much less what she needed to relax into their lovemaking. So he blundered, exactly as Lavinia had noted he might.