The Balance Thing (19 page)

W
henever I'd imagined sex with Josh (okay, yes, I admit it. I'd imagined sex with Josh ever since that kiss), I'd thought it would be the sort of wild, frenzied thing I'd had in England with what's-his-name.

It wasn't.

I can't even begin to…I mean
slow
isn't really sufficient, and
languid
is too poetic for…maybe some mixture of
intense
and
aching
and
deliberate
and
right
could give a general idea, but honestly, it was just so…
Josh
.

 

AFTERWARD,
when we were all tangled up in each other and gasping for air, I had a hard time thinking anything other than WOW.

That lasted about a minute and a half. Then faint alarm bells began to ring. Alarm about the inevitability of post-sex embarrassment. Alarm about what this meant to him. Hell, alarm about what this meant to me.

So when I said out loud the four words that any rational woman knows she should never say out loud, especially after
the most incredible sex she's ever experienced, the only possible explanation is that I hadn't eaten anything all day and I'd had wine on an empty stomach. And I was still buzzing from the most incredible sex I'd ever experienced.

So yes, I said it.

“What are you thinking?”

He caught my hand as it went automatically flying to my mouth to stuff the words back in.

Hideously, he seemed to take the question seriously. “I'm thinking about that first kiss the other day and how terrible it was.”

Great.

“But the second kiss…” A smile hovered on his lips. He seemed to lose his focus for a moment and shook his head to get it back. “And I'm thinking, suppose the same thing were to happen in bed?”

This was getting interesting. “You mean…”

He nibbled a little on my knuckles. “If the second time is that much better than the first…” He gave me the wickedest grin I'd ever seen. “I'm a dead man.”

I blinked. Josh had made a joke.
Josh!
He had taken the moment with more potential for excruciating embarrassment than any other, and he had…lightened up.

Which made me do something I've never, in all my post-sex experience, ever done before.

I relaxed.

And I felt the beginnings of a wicked grin of my own. “I vote we test that theory immediately.”

Which was the last sensible thing either of us said for several hours.

 

I WAS HUMMING
to myself in the shower when I felt, more than heard, the door slam. Had he gone out for a supply of flaky croissants and the Sunday papers? I dried off to this cheerful fantasy.

There was no note on the riotously disheveled bed. I pulled my best robe around myself and padded down the stairs. No note anywhere there either. But the message light was flashing on my answering machine. Had he recorded a memo for me?

I pushed the button and listened with growing dread.

“Becks! It's Joe Elliot! I'm so pleased you've decided to join WorldWired! The only thing is, instead of starting in the San Francisco office in two weeks, I want to talk you into coming to New York for a meeting a week from Tuesday. Now, I know you said you had some silly little commitment, but I think you'll be able to get out of it, won't you? So give my girl a call and she'll organize all the details. See you soon!”

Click. Buzz.
As the little red light stopped flashing, I did the only thing possible. I screamed.

“NO!”

 

“ARE YOU SURE
he heard the message?” I'd reached Vida on her cell phone. She and Tim were on a wine-tasting weekend in Sonoma. They were always doing things like that these days.

“Of course he heard the message! Why else would he have slammed out of here with no explanation?” I'd sunk down onto the kitchen floor with the phone in my hands and my back against the cabinets.

“But, Becks, you can totally explain it to him—”

“I can't explain anything if he isn't talking to me!”

“Okay.” She went into logical mode. “I'm assuming you've tried to call his cell.”

“Of course I have! It's turned off!”

“Okay, take a deep breath. What exactly did the WorldWired guy say?”

“Just that I'd need to start the job earlier and had to get rid of ‘some silly little commitment' so I could fly off to New York.”

“‘Silly little commitment.' That's bad.”

“I
know
!”

“Okay, breathe…breathe…how long has he been gone and how far could he have gotten? Do you think he's home? And is it better to let him cool off a little or to go over right away—”

I stopped listening to her, because I could have sworn I heard a key in the lock. I popped my head up over the kitchen counter.

“Josh!”

“He's
there
?” Vida shrieked over the phone.

“Gotta go.” I hung up on her.

“Hey,” Josh said, “I didn't think you'd be up yet. I hope you don't mind, but I took your key.”

“Where…” My voice didn't seem to be working correctly. I tried again. “Where were you?”

He held up a white bag. “Two double lattes, assorted croissants and Danish—because I don't know what your favorite is—and the Sunday paper.”

I must have been staring or something because he looked at me kind of funny. “What's wrong?”

I wrapped my arms around him and held on.

Nothing was wrong.

 

“YOU STILL HAVEN'T TOLD HIM?”
Vida stared at me, her fork halfway to her mouth. I'd met her and Connie for dinner the next night to bring them up to speed on…well…my love life.

“Of course I told him. Not until later in the afternoon, but I told him.” After a shameless interlude on my living room floor. Thank God for throw pillows.

“What did he say?” Connie demanded. “Was he furious?”

“Not furious,” I said.

“But what did he say?” Vida insisted.

I shrugged. “He said, ‘Congratulations.'”

He'd actually said a lot more, like how he'd known I'd eventually land on my feet, and how brilliant he'd always thought I was, and how happy he was for me. It was rather nice, having my own personal cheering section who also happened to be a major sex god.

“Anyway.” I couldn't take their beaming faces anymore. I needed to change the subject. “Connie, do you think you'll be staying with your parents for a while?”

She turned to Vida. “That's a polite way of asking me to get my stuff out of her loft so she can turn it into her official palace of sin.”

“Don't be ridiculous. I wouldn't begin to know how to decorate a palace of sin. But, um…”

“I'll get my stuff tonight,” Connie assured me. “And stay at my folks' place until I find a flat somewhere.”

“You really don't think you and Ian might work things out?” Vida asked.

Connie grimaced briefly. “Let's put it this way. I'm willing to make you a good deal on a slightly used wedding dress.”

Vida's eyes widened. “I think I'll pass.”

Connie turned to me. “Shall I hold onto it for you?”

Sometimes I have no idea if she's serious. “Just let me get through the first week of this thing, all right?”

 

THE FIRST WEEK
of this thing was bliss. It was like all those jazz-in-the-background, walking-through-the-park, laughing-at-the-same-things movie montages that let you know two people are meant to be together.

We were kept from being completely nauseating by the fact that we were both so busy. He had to finish the monthly animation for the Web site—the last before the introduction of Dr. Ethan Black—and I had to get everything ready for Vladima's appearance at ComixCon. I told Josh I'd keep handling the Defender of the Night's marketing despite the new job. I like to see things through. Besides, I kind of felt like I owed it to Vladima.

I was also gearing up for WorldWired. I had ten days to organize my life around a demanding job again. I called Connie's cleaning lady and arranged for her to come twice a month, reasoning that I'd never have the time to keep my loft as tidy as I'd grown to like it. I called a drycleaner and arranged for weekly pickups and deliveries, knowing that business suits were far less forgiving of casual laundering than the comfortable clothes I'd been wearing lately. I called Shayla and asked for a suitably executive new haircut.

With all that going on, Josh and I spent every minute we could together. We strolled around Clement Street, browsing for books and picking up vast amounts of takeout dim sum to be eaten in bed. We went to Martuni's for Gershwin night
and sang along to sappy songs. We met people for dinners where we ignored them and rushed to get home. We rented a lot of movies we never watched.

The night before I was scheduled to fly off to New York to meet Joe Elliot, I finished the recording for Vladima's last episode as a solo act. After I'd snarled my last sarcastic line (“I love eating in Chinatown…everyone's so spicy”), Josh came into the booth, took my headphones off, and kissed me the way no vampire should be kissed. Then he took me upstairs, where we never got around to opening a bottle of Dom Pérignon.

Everything was going to be perfect from now on.

I
hadn't done nearly enough to prepare for WorldWired. It wasn't until I was out of the cab, through the gauntlet of security, and seated in business class on my way to New York that I began to think of all the things I should have already taken care of.

I should have read everything that had been written about the company, its competitors, and its target market for the past six months. I should have memorized the entire management staff and organizational structure so when people casually referred to “Mark” or “Bill,” I'd know who they were talking about. I should have analyzed every ad they'd put out for the past two years—particularly since the meeting I was flying to New York for was with an ad agency to discuss a television campaign.

I should have made a to-do list.

There was nothing I could do now but break out my new laptop (which had arrived on my doorstep three days ago, courtesy of Joe Elliot's “girl,” who turned out to be a very nice woman named Chris).

When I opened the computer, there was a small piece of paper on the keyboard. I got a little melty because I knew it had to be a note from Josh.

It wasn't.

It was from Vida. She must have slipped it in the night before when she, Connie, and Max had come over with pizza and wine for a sort of impromptu good luck party.

Tim was definitely having a Zen influence on her. Six weeks ago she would have just said, “Becks, don't get crazy on us.” And she would have said it to my face.

I tucked the note away in a pocket of the computer case and gathered my thoughts.

The one thing I had done since getting the job was send a note to George—Sir George—thanking him for recommending me to WorldWired. I'd written it on a sheet of thick creamy stationery embossed with—what else—a swan.

I started my to-do list with “Send thanks to George.” Then I checked it off. It made me feel better to have one sign of accomplishment among all the tasks I had yet to complete.

I worked at the list until the flight attendant came around with breakfast. By then it was three pages long.

I was already completely behind.

 

THAT NIGHT,
after checking into the very hip Manhattan hotel the company had arranged, meeting Joe Elliot and a few of the guys for dinner, and coming back to my room to raid the mini-bar for chocolate and Scotch, I fired up the laptop again.

I knew I could find a lot of background material on
WorldWired's ad agency online, so I figured I'd spend most of the night doing research, prepping for the meeting with them the next day. I can never sleep the first night in a strange hotel room, so why not put the long dark night to good use?

I clicked open my Web browser, and it sent me directly to Vladima's lair. Josh had been with me when the computer was delivered, and clearly he had done some fiddling with the default settings.

Josh.

I realized with alarm that I hadn't been thinking about him all day. If he was my boyfriend, wasn't I supposed to think about him all day?

Hang on, maybe I had been thinking about him all day. I just hadn't registered it. Now that I set my mind to it, I remembered seeing a young gothed-out couple in the airport and guessing they were Vladima fans. Then, as the couple had started making out in the security line, I'd wondered whether Josh had plans for Vladima and Dr. Ethan Black to get carnal any time soon. Then my mind had wandered to the practical implications of vampire teeth during sex. That just led to thinking about sex, which had made me wonder whether Josh was still warm in bed as I passed through the metal detectors. So I had been thinking of him.

I'd left him sleeping at my place. He'd come over late, about the time the pizza party was breaking up. He'd wanted to take me to the airport in the morning, but I told him I wouldn't let him. So he'd washed the dishes while I'd packed—which somehow made me feel as if we were playing house, but in a good way. Then we'd gone to bed and—just for one instant—I'd wondered why in the world I was leaving him in the morning.

Now I glanced at the clock and realized he'd probably still be at the studio. I opened my e-mail, ignored the messages from WorldWired strangers introducing themselves, and sent Josh a note. It said:

I hit
SEND
feeling like the biggest geek in high school. But there was no retrieving it.

I switched back to the browser and left Vladima to go to WorldWired's home page. Thirty seconds later I got a message notification. He'd written back.

I miss you more
.

I shut down the computer and called him.

 

“THEY'RE KIND OF FREAKS.”

It was an hour later and Josh had just asked me about my new colleagues. Actually, he'd asked me that as soon as he'd
answered the phone, but I refused to answer until he gave me a play-by-play of everything that had happened in Vladima's world that day. The plans for ComixCon were heating up, and I didn't want anything to go wrong while I was gone.

But eventually we'd gotten back to WorldWired.

“Becks, you know people who think drinking blood is socially acceptable, and you're telling me the marketing staff of your Fortune 500 company are freaks?”

“Okay, maybe not freaks. But they're
such
corporate citizens. Every sentence seemed to start with ‘We at WorldWired…'” I sniffed. “And who do I know that drinks blood?”

“I'm afraid to tell you. But I wouldn't worry about the WorldWired guys. Maybe they were just indoctrinating you. They'll probably ease up on that stuff after you've been there a while.”

“I hope so.” I made a face. “And maybe it was just this crowd. They were all that prep school, frat boy, captain-of-the-football-team, aggressively clean-cut and competitive-as-hell type.”

“Were there any women?”

“No.” We'd gone to a fantastically expensive place for dinner. It was all wood paneling and dim lighting and pictures of dead animals on the walls, and they specialized in wild game—buffalo and venison and things I didn't even want to speculate about. “No women except for Bambi—and I ate her for dinner.” Or at least her cousin.

“Bambi was a boy.”

“Really?”

“Trust me, I'm a cartoonist.” I knew exactly the grin that would flash across his face as he said this.

“So it was just me and the manly men, and I had the feeling that after I went back to the hotel they were probably going to go out and do some manly things.”

“Like get lap dances?”

“Something of the sort. Why? Is that what you do when you go out of town?”

“I don't go out of town,” he pointed out. “I just sit here at home and pine away for you.”

“Are you pining?” The thought of that was completely delightful.

“Can't you hear me?”

“It might help if you inserted a heartfelt sigh here and there in the conversation.”

“I'll work on it. So what's the plan for tomorrow?”

“A breakfast meeting with the same crowd, then we go to Madison Avenue to meet with the advertising firm about the new campaign.”

“You've got a breakfast meeting? Isn't it two in the morning there?”

I looked at the clock. “Uh-huh.”

“Shouldn't you be sleeping?”

I rolled over on to my back. “That's not going to happen.”

“Oh, I get it. ‘We at WorldWired' don't sleep.”

“You're so very amusing. No, I just don't sleep in hotel rooms.”

There was a significant pause. “Ever?”

“Not on the first night someplace. After that I can usually manage, with the help of some Tylenol PM.” And some Scotch, but he didn't need to know all my secrets right away.

“But that doesn't work on the first night?”

“No.” I reached for an exorbitantly priced bag of M&Ms.
“It only starts to kick in about an hour before I have to get up, and that just makes me groggy all the next day.”

“You're serious about this.” Josh sounded disbelieving. “How do you make it through the day?”

“That's why they invented caffeine.” I told him. “And look who's talking. I think this is the sleep-deprived calling the kettle exhausted.”

“Yeah, but I only have to stumble downstairs to a nice dark office whenever I drag myself out of bed. I don't have to impress a room full of hotshot New York ad types.”

I stopped in mid-M&M toss, and they went spilling all over the bed instead of anywhere near my opened mouth. “Did you really have to say that? I'm trying not to think about the hotshot New York ad types.”

“Don't tell me you're intimidated? Aren't you a hotshot San Francisco marketing genius?”

“Well”—demurely—“yes.”

“Okay, genius, I want you to do something for me.”

“What?” I reached for a pen.

“First, set your alarm.”

“Totally unnecessary.”

“Humor me.”

I humored him.

“Okay, now, what are you wearing?”

“Josh! Are we going to have phone sex? That's so cool!”

I finally earned the heartfelt sigh I wanted. But I'm willing to bet it was accompanied by an eye roll. “Just tell me.”

“A French maid's uniform.”

“Seriously.”

“Seriously? One of the sample Vladima T-shirts.”

There was a pause. “Okay, that actually does more for
me than the maid thing. But never mind. What's on the bed?”

“The laptop.” And scattered bits of colored chocolate, but I didn't really want to tell him that.

“Turn it off and put it on the desk.”

“Hang on.” I put the phone down and did as he asked. I stopped for a minute to look at myself in my V-wear—a black oversized T-shirt with Vladima in full leather gear emblazoned across it. Yep, I could see why Josh would like it.

“Okay, I'm back. Now what?”

“Now get under the covers.”

I complied.

“And get comfortable. Turn on your side the way you do when you're ready to stop talking to me and go to sleep.”

“But I'm not ready to stop talking to you. And I'm not ready to go to sleep.” I eyed the computer with a twinge of guilt.

“I thought you were humoring me.”

I grumbled, but I turned.

“Now what?”

“Now just listen to me. I'm going to read something to you.”

“Josh—have you started a new script?”

Another sigh. “This is you not talking now, all right?”

“All right. This is me not talking.”

He started to read. It wasn't a new Vladima script. In fact, it was just about as far to the other side of the literature spectrum as you can get.

It was
Little Women
.

I recognized it after about two sentences. “I used to love that book!”

“I know,” he said. “You told me once. I just got you a first edition for your birthday, so be quiet and listen, and you can say ‘Thank you' in four months.”

“Josh!” How long ago had I even mentioned
Little Women
to him? How could he have remembered that? Did he think we'd still be together in four months?

He didn't answer me; he just read. And I listened. And it felt so nice to be lying in bed listening to that voice of his swirling around in my head. His voice and the story I knew almost by heart.

And the next thing I knew, it was morning.

I'll be damned.