Page 32 of Side Piece

ALEX: You up?

TESS: It’s noon.

ALEX: No, it’s 9.

TESS: Noon.

ALEX: I thought we agreed to be in the same time zone. Thinking about you.

I’m in my kitchen making coffee and scrolling Twitter as I wait. I rub my face a couple of times to try and wake up. My dick is half hard in my ratty basketball shorts.

TESS: Morning wood?

ALEX: Yup. Come to LA. You can do something about it now.

TESS: Come to Birmingham

ALEX: Birmingham isn’t on your website.

She should know I’m a moron and a sappy idiot for her, and apparently a stalker. The more I want to be with Tess, the more I try to prove I’m not a douche. I guess I forgot how to be a partner to someone. Take that back. I’ve never had a partner before. Jesus, what kind of spell has she cast?

My travel is brutal for the next couple of weeks, and now Jeff just wants to do the election results show in DC, in our super small studio. He feels all of our firsts should be there even though we work in LA now.

TESS: Sorry. Had to sign a book.

ALEX: Good timing, so did I.

TESS: HA! Private publisher event and corporate retreat. They’re paying me a shit ton of money to speak.

ALEX: How much is a shit ton for a writer?

TESS: You’re a writer.

ALEX: Fiction’s different. Grisham money or Klosterman money?

TESS: Between Danielle Steele, Zadie Smith, and Stephenie Meyer.

ALEX: Point taken. How much?

TESS: Thinking of booking me? Enough to buy something pretty.

ALEX: Ferraris are pretty, as are farmer’s market daisies.

TESS: I prefer daisies.

I smile at her daisy reference. I wonder if she still has my discarded keychain.

ALEX: Queen of the daisies, are you?

TESS: I’m not so much a queen, closer to Princess Daisy. And 17.

ALEX: 17 what? 17 daisies?

TESS: Not flowers.

ALEX: Fuck me. I’m in the wrong business. $1700 for a day?

TESS: Add a zero.