Lauren Blakely - Every Second With You

“Cool,” I say, and my palms are sweaty so I rub them against my jeans.

“Why don’t you sit?” She gestures to the open space on the couch next to her. I sink down on the end by the armrest, as far away from her as I can be.

“So, how are you?” I ask, wishing there were a simple way to ask the question I’m here for.

“I’m great. I have a show at the Hager Gallery in a month for some of my paintings, so I’ve been busy prepping for that. As well as getting settled back into the apartment,” she says, gesturing broadly around her home.

I swallow. My throat is so damn dry, I almost wish I took her up on her offer for wine. “You said you just moved back in the building,” I say, repeating what she told me in the elevator simply to get the conversation started.

She nods, and then runs her long, manicured fingernails through her hair, the strands falling through her fingers. “Yes, I divorced my husband shortly after you and I were involved,” she says. Talk about cutting through the bullshit. But then, Sloan was always direct. Like the day three years ago when she told me bluntly that she wanted me, and within an hour we were tangled up in her sheets. “But I moved out for a while there, when we were in court. We recently settled and I got the apartment, so I moved back in.”

“That’s great.”

“Well, as they always say, at least I got the house. And it’s fantastic to be in this location, since Teddy has so many friends around here, and we spend all our time in this area of town.”

“You didn’t have a kid when I knew you. You enjoying being a mom?” I ask, hoping, praying that I can get to the heart of the matter soon, but at least we’re circling the topic.

“I love it,” she says, as if each word tastes delicious. “We do Mommy and Me art classes, and we go to the playground, and I take him to museums.”

“You said his father was artistic.”

“Oh yes. Very much so.”

Her ex-husband was a hedge fund manager, and that knowledge makes my heart speed. “And does he see Teddy much?”

She laughs. “Oh, god no. Not at all.”

Shit. Now it’s about to spring out of my chest. “Mr. McKay is never around?” I ask, as if I can elicit a different answer if I ask a different way.

She shoots me a curious look, as if my question has thrown her. “But that’s how it was when we were together, Trey. Don’t you remember?”

She rests her arm on the back of the couch, inching nearer to me. Holy shit. She’s the same fucking Sloan. Such a seductress.

“My husband never wanted to be with me,” she continues. “He was all about money. He wanted more of it in life. More money. But I wanted art, and I wanted passion. You gave that to me. I needed it so badly,” she says, and there’s desperation in her voice, but sexiness, too. Desperately sexy—that’s Sloan. “We had some good times, didn’t we?”

I part my lips, but don’t speak.

“Great times, actually,” she says, and then closes her eyes, and sighs deeply, like she’s taking a trip down naughty memory lane in her head. She opens her eyes, and leans forward. “You were the best sex of my life, Trey. And you were only eighteen. But my god, you made me feel extraordinary. You made me feel beautiful and passionate and alive,” she says, and she runs her hands down her sides, like her whole body is lighting up with the memories of our sex, and I’m going to need to leave so fucking soon. Not because I want her, because I don’t. But because I shouldn’t even be hearing this. “You pretty much ruined me for other men. Don’t you know that?”

I sink back into the cushions, trying to angle away from her, for distance, for sanity. Then I say fuck it. I need to rip off this goddamn Band-Aid. “Shit, Sloan, I gotta ask. Is he mine? Is Teddy mine? I mean, his eyes, and the timing, and everything.”

The whole apartment turns hazy, as if the walls and the floor have entered a slow-motion zone, and the seconds after my question have made landfall stretch on for hours, like an endless road at night. Sloan’s face is inscrutable. Then she opens her mouth, her bright white teeth gleaming. She throws her head back and laughs. “No. No. Is that what you thought? Is that why you’re here?”

“Uh, yeah,” I say, and relief washes over me. I swear I can feel it spreading in my body, like warmth from a fireplace.

“Teddy’s father is a sperm donor,” she says in a clear and determined voice. “And the reason he looks like you is you were my template.”

My jaw drops. “What?”

That’s the strangest thing I have ever heard.

She nods. “Like I said, you made me feel things. You made me feel beautiful and passionate. And those were the things I’d been missing in my life with my husband, so after we divorced and I wanted a child, I went to a sperm bank. And I found someone who was artistic, who was tall, who had gorgeous green eyes.”

I scrub a hand across my jaw, let out a long stream of air. I shake my head once more, as if the strangeness will go away.

Go away.

Like me.

I stand up, and it’s easy, so easy, to extend a hand to shake. To thank her for her time. To say goodbye. To let the past be in the past.

“I hope you and Teddy have a great life,” I say, and I leave.

Harley trusts me. I need to start trusting myself more.

Because I can do this. I can be a husband, I can be a father, I can be the man Harley needs me to be. I’m not that guy anymore, who used to screw cougars for kicks. I’m Harley’s, and I need to be with her.

I go home and spend the night with my wife.

Trey

She’s bouncing on the bed. “Look, look!!!”

I blink, rub my eyes, and then take the phone she’s thrust into my hand. The screen is open to a Web page with a news story. “Show of hands. Did you buy the salacious call girl book in the last two weeks? C’mon. You know you did. Thousands upon thousands of readers snagged a copy; that’s how the book shot to the top of the bestseller lists. Turns out the girl pulling the tricks—” I stop reading to look at Harley. “That’s kind of tacky.”

She waves a hand frantically. “Who cares? It’s a media blog. It’s not the Washington Post. Just read.”

“Turns out the girl pulling the tricks didn’t get paid for the tales. Word on the street is she was blackmailed by the book’s editor. When reached for comment, the publisher said he’s looking into the allegations.”

Then the story ends. “That’s it? That’s the big plan to take down Mr. Stewart? I don’t get it.”

“Hit refresh. The updated version should be live any second. I just got off the phone with the head of the publishing house.”

I click refresh and wait several seconds for the page to reload. I scroll to the end of the story, and, as promised, there’s now more. “After checking the editor’s email records, phone log, and royalty schedule for Anonymous, the publisher has confirmed that Anonymous was the target of a blackmail scheme by the editor. The writer of the tell-all has expressed her wish to remain anonymous and has requested that any royalties due from the first two weeks of the book’s sale go to the charity Save the Orphaned Elephants, and that further proceeds from the book be donated to the New York City Halfway House for Girls. So, get your kicks on and feel good about yourself. You can read the tawdry tales and know the money is going to a good cause.”

Harley

He grins wildly. “You are fucking brilliant. You know that?”

I raise my arms high in the victory sign. “I am a genius!”

I grab the phone from Trey to dial Cam. “What’s the story?”

“The elephant man is pleased,” he says, and I punch my fist in the air.

“We’re all good then?”

“It seems this debt has been paid,” Cam says. “You can get on that plane to California and not worry one bit about little old me, or little old him. But you better send me pictures of that baby. You hear me, now?”

Before I can answer, Tess shouts in the background. “We want gobs of baby pictures!”

I laugh. “I promise.”

Later in the day, I check my newsfeed again to find one more update to the breaking story about the call girl book. This update gives me the pleasure that only comeuppance can deliver. “Miranda Cuthbert has tendered her resignation, and repaid the funds she kept from the first two weeks of sales. Word on the street is her saga won’t end there. Sources say the state is looking into whether an extortion case can be made against Ms. Cuthbert.”

“Karma’s a bitch,” I say, after I read the latest update out loud to Kristen and Trey.

“Yes, it is,” she says. “And I am so going to base my next screenplay on you.”

“And you’re going to move to California and shoot it there, so I can see you more.”

“You better believe it. I’m next in line on that California Gold Rush you’re starting,” she says, as we spend the evening together in the living room. Jordan is here, too, and we order pizza, and the three of them drink beers, and I enjoy a Diet Coke. Well, that’s not entirely true. The baby and I enjoy a Diet Coke, because caffeine seems to make the little one wiggle in my belly, too.

After we finish the pizza, it’s time to say goodbye to my best friend.

“I’m going to seriously miss you,” I tell her.

“I’m going to majorly miss you. Especially since you’re taking the good bathroom towels with you.”

Trey clears his throat. “Actually, if you and Jordan want new towels, I might be able to chip in.”

Reaching into his wallet, he takes out a white and blue plastic card from Bed, Bath & Beyond, and slaps it down on the table. “Consider this a housewarming gift,” he says to Jordan and Kristen.