“Yeah. They’re like these total Guardian-reading liberals but they got all Edwardian about it the moment their first-born son turned out to be a girl.”
“Wow. I’m so sorry.”
Nik picked idly at the covers. Then muttered, “Truthfully, I wasn’t great either. But can you try calling her? I’ve got her private number.”
It was kind of surreal, having to ring a stranger—a famous stranger, no less—totally out of the blue. I was starting to get nervy flashbacks to the telethon, except the stakes were way higher. What if Nik’s sister thought I was a stalker or a journalist or the world’s bizarrest marketing company and hung up on me?
Thankfully she didn’t.
Although I emerged from the conversation with barely any memory of it. Just this holy fuck, I spoke with Poppy Carrie feeling.
She’d called Nik Nikki.
And was going to be on the next flight.
* * *
That night, feeling oddly buoyant, not sure if I had any right to feel buoyant and finally decided to go with it regardless, I treated myself to an epic bath, pouring almost all of the free Molton Brown products into it until I had my very own watery bubble cloud. Unfortunately, it was way less fun than I thought it was going to be because it was a depressingly large tub to contain a single, smallish Arden. And woke up the beast of my missing Caspian, which I mostly kept tucked up inside me while I did other things. But sometimes, when I was alone, it shook off its lethargy and came at me with teeth and claws until I was nothing but small wounds.
Reaching for my phone, I twisted myself into what I hoped was a sultry-like position, all otter-sleek and glistening, one shoulder and my tattooed hip emerging naughtily from a shield of foam. Holding the lens above me at an angle, I gave it my biggest, best, most-inviting pout-smile. Like I was saying kiss me kiss me. Or maybe just fuck my mouth.
Snap snap. Click click.
A couple of filters.
And off to Caspian.
A few minutes later I got back: You’ve lost weight. Are you taking proper care of yourself?
One hundred percent incorrect answer, I swiped.
I’m in a meeting. Pause. You’re very enticing.
I miss enticing you.
Another pause. Then: Come home as soon as you can. You can entice me in person.
The bathwater was getting cool, so I hopped out and wrapped myself in a towel. And that was when I noticed the notification light was flashing on my non-Caspian phone. I glanced at my email out of habit, rather than interest, fully expecting something along the lines of “Dear Arden, it has been eight gazillion years since you were last on Facebook. We miss you!”
But it was an email from Milieu.
They wanted (with some edits) to publish my article.
My article…
It just went to show how much your friend getting mushed by traffic could knock you because, for a moment, I had no idea what the hell I’d sent them. And then I remembered. Dancing with Ellery in an abandoned hospital. Another world. One where getting into Milieu was everything I wanted.
And I’d done it. I’d actually done it.
I couldn’t feel happy about it yet, though. Nik was too close and this was too distant. But in the strangest way I could feel my future waiting for me. Like that long summer after my A-levels, with Oxford gleaming on the horizon. Except this wasn’t a dream created by ten centuries of other people’s expectations. It was for me. And maybe I’d fuck it up or it wouldn’t work out. But that would be mine too.
Dragging my laptop out of my luggage, I plopped myself Sarah Jessica Parker style on the bed and dug into my edits. Got them off in a couple of hours, with some sweating, and only a little bit of cursing.
The reply came back as I was getting ready to sleep.
And contained the most magical words in the universe: We’d love to see more of your writing.
Chapter 17
