Beach Read

GUS SLID OUT of the booth, and I followed, gathering the donut box and my cup of sizzling shit. It had stopped raining, but now heavy fog hung in clumps. Without another word, we got into the car and drove away from DONUTS, the word glowing teal in the rearview mirror.

“It’s the happy endings,” Gus said suddenly as he pulled onto the main drag.

“What?” My stomach clenched. They all live happily ever after. Again.

Gus cleared his throat. “It’s not that I don’t take romance seriously as a genre. And I like reading about women. But I have a hard time with happy endings.” His eyes cautiously flashed my way, then went back to the road.

“A hard time?” I repeated, as if that would make the words make sense to me. “You have a hard time … reading happy endings?”

He rubbed at the curve of his bicep, an anxious tic I didn’t remember. “I guess.”

“Why?” I asked, more confused than offended now.

“Life is pretty much a series of good and bad moments right up until the moment you die,” he said stiffly. “Which is arguably a bad one. Love doesn’t change that. I have a hard time suspending my disbelief. Besides, can you think of a single real-life romance that actually ended like Bridget fucking Jones?”

There it was, the Gus Everett I knew. The one who’d thought I was hopelessly naive. And even if I had some evidence he’d been right, I wasn’t ready to let him trash the thing that had once meant more to me than anything else, the genre that had kept me afloat when Mom relapsed and our whole imagined future disappeared like smoke on a breeze.

“First of all,” I said, “‘Bridget fucking Jones’ is an ongoing series. It is literally the worst example you could have chosen to prove that point. It’s the antithesis of the oversimplified and inaccurate stereotype of the genre. It does exactly what I aim to: it makes its readers feel known and understood, like their stories—women’s stories—matter. And secondly, are you honestly saying you don’t believe in love?”

I felt a little desperate, like if I let him win this fight, it would be the final straw: there’d be no getting back to myself, to believing in love and seeing the world and the people in it as pure, beautiful things—to loving writing.

Gus’s brow furrowed, his dark eyes flashing from me to the road with that intent, absorbing look Shadi and I had spent so much time trying to put into words. “Sure, love happens,” he said finally. “But it’s better to be realistic so shit’s not constantly blowing up in your face. And love is way more likely to blow up in your face than to bring eternal happiness. And if it doesn’t hurt you, then you’re the one hurting someone else.

“Entering a relationship is borderline sadomasochistic. Especially when you can get everything you would from a romantic relationship from a friendship, without destroying anyone’s life when it inevitably ends.”

“Everything?” I said. “Sex?”

He arched an eyebrow. “You don’t even need friendship to get sex.”

“And what, it never turns into more for you?” I said. “You can keep things that detached?”

“If you’re realistic,” he said. “You need a policy. It doesn’t turn into more if it only happens once.”

Wow. The shelf life had shortened. “See?” I said. “You are coldly horny, Gus.”

He glanced sidelong at me, smiling.

“What?”

“That’s the second time you’ve called me Gus tonight.”

My cheeks flushed. Right, Everett seemed to be his preference these days. “So?”

“Come on, January.” His eyes went back to the road, the twin spears of the headlights reaching over the asphalt and catching blips of the evergreens whipping past. “I remember you.” His gaze settled on me again, his eyes nearly as solid and heavy as if they were hands.

I was grateful for the dark as heat rushed to my face. “From?”

“Stop. It wasn’t that long ago. And there was that one night.”

Oh, God. We weren’t going to talk about that one night, were we? The only night we’d talked outside of class. Well, not talked. We’d been at the same frat party. The theme had been a very vague “Classics.”

Gus and his friend Parker had come as Ponyboy and Johnny and spent the night getting called “Greased Lightning” by drunk frat boys. Shadi and I had gone as truck-stop Thelma (her) and Louise (me).

Gus’s girl-of-the-hour, Tessa, had gone home for the weekend. She and I lived in the same student apartments and wound up at a lot of the same parties. She was the latest reason Gus and I had been crossing paths, but that night was different.

It was the beginning of the school year, not quite fall. Shadi and I had been dancing in the basement, whose cement walls were sweating. All night, I’d been watching Gus, fuming a little because his last short story had been so good and he was still ridiculously attractive and his criticism was still on point and I was tired of him asking to borrow my pens, and furthermore, he’d caught me staring at him, and ever since, I’d felt—or thought (hoped?) I’d felt—him watching me too.

At the makeshift bar in the next room. At the beer pong table upstairs. In the kitchen at the keg. And then he was standing still in the throng of bodies jumping and spastically dancing to “Sandstorm” (Shadi had hijacked the iPod, as she was wont to do), only a few yards away from me, and we were both staring at each other, and somehow I felt vindicated by this, sure that all this time, he’d seen me as his competition after all.

I didn’t know if I’d made my way to him, or if he’d made his way to me, or if we’d met in the middle. All I knew was that we’d ended up dancing with (on?) each other. There were flashes of memory from that night that still made me buzz: his hands on my hips, my hands on his neck, his face against my throat, his arms around my waist.

Coldly horny? No, Gus Everett had been all hot breath and sparking touches.

Rivalry or not, it had been palpable how much we wanted each other that night. We had both been ready to make a bad decision.

And then Shadi had saved the day by shaving her head in the bathroom with clippers she’d found under the sink and getting us both kicked out and banned from that particular frat’s parties for life. Although we hadn’t tried to go back in the last few years and I suspected frats had a rather short memory. Four years, max.

Apparently, I had a much longer memory.

“January?”

I looked up and startled at the dark gaze I’d been remembering, now here in the car with me. I’d forgotten the tiny white scar to the right of his Cupid’s bow and now wondered how I’d managed it.

I cleared my throat. “You told Pete we just met the other night.”

“I told her we were neighbors,” he allowed. Eyes back on the road. Eyes back on me. It felt like a personal attack, the way he kept looking at me then away after just a second too long. His mouth twitched. “I wasn’t sure you remembered me.”

Something about that made my insides feel like a ribbon being drawn across scissors until it curled. He went on: “But no one calls me Gus except people I knew before publishing.”

“Because?” I asked.

“Because I don’t like every whack job next-door neighbor I’ve ever had to be able to Google me and leave me scathing reviews?” he said. “Or ask me for free books.”

“Oh, I don’t need free books,” I assured him.

“Really?” he teased. “You don’t want to add a fifth level to your shrine?”

“You’re not going to distract me,” I said. “I’m not done with this conversation.”

“Shit. I honestly didn’t mean to offend you,” he promised. “Again.”

“You didn’t offend me,” I said uncertainly. Or maybe he had, but his apology had caught me off guard yet again. More so, I was baffled. “I just think you’re being silly.”

We’d reached our houses without me even noticing, and Gus parked along the curb and faced me. For the second time I noticed how small the car was, how close we were, how the dark seemed to magnify the intensity of his eyes as they fixed on mine. “January, why did you come here?”

I laughed, uncomfortable. “Into the car you begged me to get into?”

He shook his head, frustrated. “You’re different now.”

I felt the blood rush into my cheeks. “You mean I’m not a fairy princess anymore.”

Confusion rippled across his face.

“That’s what you called me,” I said, “back then. You want me to say you were right. I got my wake-up call and things don’t work out like they do in my books, right?”

His head tilted, the muscle in his jaw leaping. “That’s not what I was saying.”

“It’s exactly what you were saying.”

He shook his head again. “Well, it’s not what I meant,” he said. “I meant to say … You were always so …” He huffed. “I don’t know, you’re drinking wine out of your purse. I’m guessing there’s a reason for that.”

My mouth jammed shut, and my chest tightened. Probably Gus Everett was the last person I’d expect to read me like that.

I looked out the window toward the beach house as if it were a glowing red emergency exit sign, a savior from this conversation. I could hear waves breaking on the shore behind the houses, but the fog hung too thick for me to see anything.

“I’m not asking you to tell me,” Gus said after a second. “I just … I don’t know. It’s weird to see you like this.”

I turned toward him and folded my legs up on the seat as I studied him, searching his expression for irony. But his face was serious, his dark eyes narrowed and his brow pinched, his head doing that particular half tilt that made me feel like I was under a microscope. The Sexy, Evil stare that suggested he was reading your mind.

“I’m not writing,” I said. I wasn’t sure why I was admitting it, least of all to Gus, but better him than Anya or Sandy. “I’m out of money, and my editor’s desperate to buy something from me—and all I’ve got is a handful of bad pages and three months to finish a book someone other than my mom will spend US dollars on. That’s what’s going on.”

I batted away thoughts of my tattered relationship with Mom and the conversation we’d had after the funeral to focus on the lesser evil of my situation.

“I’ve done it before,” I said. “Four books, no problem. And it’s bad enough that I feel like I’m incapable of doing the one thing I’m good at, the thing that makes me feel like me, and then there’s the added fact that I’m totally out of money.”

Gus nodded thoughtfully. “It’s always harder to write when you have to. It’s like … the pressure turns it into a job, like anything else, and you might as well be selling insurance. The story suddenly loses any urgency to be told.”

“Exactly,” I agreed.

“But you’ll figure it out,” he said coolly after a second. “I’m sure there are a million Happily Ever Afters floating around in that brain.”

“Okay, A, no, there aren’t,” I said. “And B, it’s not as easy as you think, Gus. Happy endings don’t matter if the getting there sucks.”

I tipped my head against the window. “At this point, it honestly might be easier for me to pack it in on the upbeat women’s fiction and hop aboard the Bleak Literary Fiction train. At least it would give me an excuse to describe boobs in some horrifying new way. Like bulbous succulents of flesh and sinew. I never get to say bulbous succulents of flesh in my books.”

Gus leaned back against the driver’s side door and let out a laugh, which made me feel simultaneously bad for teasing him and ridiculously victorious for having made him laugh yet again. In college, I’d barely seen him crack a smile. Clearly I wasn’t the only one who’d changed.

“You could never write like that,” he said. “It’s not your style.”

I crossed my arms. “You don’t think I’m capable?”

Gus rolled his eyes. “I’m just saying it’s not who you are.”

“It’s not who I was,” I corrected. “But as you’ve pointed out, I’m different now.”

“You’re going through something,” he said, and again, I felt an uncomfortable prickle at him seeming to x-ray me like that, and at the spark of the old competitive flame Gus always ignited in me. “But I’d wager you’re about as likely to churn out something dark and dreary as I am to go all When Harry Met Sally.”

“I can write whatever I want,” I said. “Though I can see how writing a Happily Ever After might be hard for someone whose happy endings usually happen during one-night stands.”

Gus’s eyes darkened, and his mouth hitched into an uneven smile. “Are you challenging me, Andrews?”

“I’m just saying,” I parroted him, “it’s not who you are.”

Gus scratched his jaw, his eyes clouding as he recessed into thought. His hand dropped to rest over the steering wheel and his focus shifted sharply to me. “Okay,” he said. “I have an idea.”

“A seventh Pirates of the Caribbean movie?” I said. “It’s so crazy it might work!”

“Actually,” Gus said, “I thought we could make a deal.”

“What sort of deal, Augustus?”

He visibly shuddered at the sound of his full name and reached across the car. A spark of anticipation—of what, I wasn’t sure—rushed through me. But he was only opening the box in my lap and grabbing another donut. Coconut.

He bit into it. “You try writing bleak literary fiction, see if that’s who you are now, if you’re capable of being that person”—I rolled my eyes and snatched the last bite of donut from his hand. He went on, unbothered—“and I’ll write a Happily Ever After.”

My eyes snapped up to his. The fringes of the porch light were making their way through the fog now, brushing at the car window and catching at the sharp angle of his face and the dark wave that fell across his forehead. “You’re kidding.”

“I’m not,” he said. “You’re not the only one who’s been in a rut. I could use a break from what I’m doing—”

“Because writing a romance will be so easy it will essentially be a nap for you,” I teased.

“And you can lean into your bleak new outlook and see how it fits. If this is the new January Andrews. And whoever sells their book first—with a pen name, if you prefer—wins.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but no words came out. I closed it and tried again. “Wins what?”

Gus’s brow lifted. “Well, first of all, you’ll have sold a book, so you can pay your bills and keep your purse stocked with wine. Secondly …” He thought for a moment. “The loser will promote the winner’s book, write an endorsement for the cover, recommend it in interviews, choose it when guest judging for book clubs, and all that, guaranteeing sales. And thirdly, if you win, you’ll be able to rub it in my face forever, which I suspect you’d consider nearly priceless.”

I couldn’t come close to hiding the smile blooming across my face. “True.” Everything he was saying made at least some sense. Wheels were turning in my head—wheels that had been out of order for the past year. I really did think I could write the kind of book Gus wrote, that I could mimic The Great American Novel.

It was different with love stories. They meant too much to me, and my readers had waited too long for me to give them something I didn’t wholeheartedly believe in.

It was all starting to add up. Everything except one detail. I narrowed my eyes. Gus exaggeratedly narrowed his back. “What do you stand to gain here?” I asked.

“Oh, all the same things,” he said. “I want something to lord over you. And money. Money’s always helpful.”

“Uh-oh,” I said. “Is there trouble in Coldly Horny Paradise?”

“My books take a long time to write,” Gus said. “The advances have been good, but even with my scholarships, I had a lot of student loans, and some old debt, and then I put a lot into this house. If I can sell something quick, it will help me out.”

I gasped and clutched my heart. “And you would stoop to peddling the sadomasochistic American dream of lasting love?”

Gus frowned. “If you’re not into the plan, just forget it.”

But now I couldn’t forget it. Now I needed to prove to Gus that what I did was harder than it looked, that I was just as capable as he was. Besides, having Augustus Everett promote a book of mine would have benefits I couldn’t afford to pass up.

“I’m in,” I said.

His eyes bored into me, that evil smile climbing the corner of his top lip. “You sure? This could be truly humiliating.”

An involuntary laugh sprang out of me. “Oh, I’m counting on it,” I said. “But I’ll make it a little easier on you. I’ll throw in a rom-com crash course.”

“Fine,” Gus said. “Then I’ll take you through my research process. I’ll help you lean into your latent nihilism, and you’ll teach me how to sing like no one’s listening, dance like no one’s watching, and love like I’ve never been hurt before.”

His faint grin was contagious, if overconfident.

“You really think you can do this?” I asked.

He lifted one shoulder. “You think you can?”

I held his gaze as I thought. “And you’ll endorse the book? If I win and sell the book, you’ll write a shiny pull quote to slap on the cover, no matter how bad it is.”

His eyes were doing the thing again. The sexy/evil thing where they expanded and darkened as he lost himself in thought. “I remember how you wrote when you were twenty-two,” he said carefully. “It won’t be bad.”

I fought a blush. I didn’t understand how he could do that, bounce between being rude, almost condescending, and disarmingly complimentary.

“But yes,” he added, leaning forward. “Even if you give me a novelization of the sequel to Gigli, if you sell it, I will endorse it.”

I sat back to put some distance between us. “Okay. So what about this? We spend our weekdays writing, and leave the end of the week for education.”

“Education,” he repeated.

“On Fridays, I’ll go with you to do whatever research you would usually do. Which would include …” I gestured for him to fill in the blank.

He smiled crookedly. It was extremely evil. “Oh, all sorts of riveting things,” he supplied. “And then on Saturdays, we’ll do whatever you usually do for research—hot-air balloon trips, sailing lessons, two-person motorcycle rides, candlelit restaurants with patio seating and bad cover bands, and all that shit.”

Heat spread up my neck. He had just nailed me, again. I mean, I hadn’t done the two-person motorcycle rides (I had no death wish), but I had taken a hot-air balloon ride to prepare for my third novel, Northern Light.

The corner of his mouth twitched, apparently delighted by my expression.

“So. We have a deal?” He held out his hand to me.

My mind spun in dizzying circles. It wasn’t like I had any other ideas. Maybe a depressed writer could only make a depressing book. “Okay.” I slid my hand into his, pretending not to feel the sparks leaping from his skin straight into my veins.

“Just one more thing,” he said soberly.

“What?”

“Promise not to fall in love with me.”

“Oh my God!” I shoved his shoulder and flopped back into my seat, laughing. “Are you slightly misquoting A Walk to Remember at me?”

Gus cracked another smile. “Excellent movie,” he said. “Sorry, film.”

I rolled my eyes, still shivering with laughter.

A half laugh rattled out of him too. “I’m serious. I think I got to second base in the theater during that one.”

“I refuse to believe anyone would cheapen the greatest love story involving Mandy Moore ever told by letting a teenage Gus Everett cop a feel.”

“Believe whatever you want, January Andrews,” he said. “Jack Reacher risks his life every day to guarantee you that freedom.”