The Honey-Don’t List by Christina Lauren

 

Irealize I’m a somewhat socially awkward guy and will occasionally misread a romantic situation, but I’m usually misreading it in the wrong direction—a phenomenon that my older sister calls my “flypaper tendency.” Jenn says I’m unlikely to think a girl is interested in me until she’s literally plastered to my side. She’s not wrong—and the strategy has generally worked.

Last night with Carey, for example. She was pretty clear about what she wanted, and that she wanted it from me, specifically. In fact, I don’t think I’ve been with a woman who was more precise in her instruction. This morning she seemed to want more of the same—and I was happy to oblige.

So when I come upstairs with coffee and bagels to find my room completely empty—no clothes, no condom wrappers anywhere, even the bed has been hastily made—the only conclusion I can draw is that Carey flipped out, and I misread everything.

I sit at the edge of the mattress, balancing a cardboard tray of coffees on my lap and cycling through what we said and did, trying to find where it fell apart. It doesn’t take a lot of emotional intelligence to figure out that Carey needed an outlet last night … and that outlet was me.

Am I okay being used for sex? Generally, yes. In this case, though, it’s complicated by the reality of our future forced proximity, and the genuine feelings I’ve developed for her. I like her. I like her laugh, and how competent she is. I like her teasing humor that doesn’t mask how much she’s always taking care of everyone else. I like her mouth, her body, and her skin, too. I like her vulnerability—as much as I know I shouldn’t be drawn to it, I am—and I like what I realize is her complete creative genius.

I put her coffee on the desk and step out onto the balcony to drink mine. Am I really that surprised that she vanished? More easily than imagining her waiting for me, I can picture her in my bed, the stress of ignoring her phone mounting until she finally got up and dressed, heading to her room to shower and wipe the slate clean for the day. We’ve been friendly for only a matter of days, and yesterday’s meltdown aside, I doubt she’s ever shirked responsibility for an hour.

In truth, we barely know each other, and what we do know tells me we don’t have much in common. She might want to stay in Jackson forever; I live in a tiny studio that I’ve barely furnished because I don’t expect to be there for more than a year or two. Relatedly, I don’t let Melissa and Rusty hit me anywhere emotional, because it’s just a job. But Carey’s life is all tied up in theirs; their circus is her entire world.

And yet, despite these problems, I can’t immediately shake the way being with her felt totally right, even if it was for only twelve hours.

 

We have a late start this morning because we’re only going to Sacramento to sign some books for store stock before driving to spend the night in Medford, Oregon. The leisurely start to the day means I have time to shower, pack, and then figure out what to do with myself. Rusty is, as usual, sleeping until the very last minute before we leave. Thankfully I won’t sit around thinking about Carey or feeling useless: Melissa texts me a to-do list.

James could you take care of the following:

-Pick up some Alka-Seltzer for Russ

-He also needs a pack of plain white undershirts

-The bus could use a humidifier

The air is bright and sharp; the wind catches me off guard. I knew that San Francisco could be cold, but it’s still disorienting to feel the chill on my face with the iconic backdrop of a brilliant blue sky over the Golden Gate Bridge. A stress headache pulses at the edges of my temples.

It’s not a terrible thing if this fling with Carey turns into nothing. If I can just keep my head down and focus until the second season is rolling, I’ll have a great focal point on my résumé. Rather than citing my duration on the job, I’ll be able to say I worked on season five of New Spaces and the first season of Home Sweet Home. Rusty will give whatever recommendation I need him to give, I know. From here, I can move on to another position—an actual engineering role. While I don’t enjoy the cult of personality in the entertainment world, the pace and variety are so much better than the lifeless humdrum of my cubicle at the old job. If I could someday leverage the connections from Comb+Honey to get a job on a show that actually values science and engineering—something on the Discovery Channel—I would be thrilled.

Halfway up a steep hill, my phone buzzes in my pocket.

A clashing blend of relief and unease bubbles through me: it’s Carey.

I lift the phone to my ear, turning my back to the wind. “Hey.”

“Where are you?” she asks.

For a breath, I want to laugh. Now she’s asking where I am? I look up, searching for a landmark or street sign. “Kearny Street?”

“I don’t know why I asked,” she says, laughing. “I have no idea where that is.”

A small ache presses into my chest as I register the dichotomy of this immediate, easy conversation and the complexity of our present relationship. “I don’t really, either,” I admit. “I’m just following Google Maps to get to a Walgreens.”

“Melly honey-do-listed you?” she asks, teasing.

“Yeah.”

For a moment, all I can hear is the wind whipping through my phone. I pull my hand away, peeking at the screen to make sure I haven’t lost her call.

Finally, she says, “James. I’m sorry I left.”

“It’s okay,” I tell her. And it is. As much as I’d like to do it again, one and done is more straightforward.

“Melly came in.”

It takes me a beat to register her meaning. “Came in … to my room? This morning?”

“She had a key. I guess she thought it was Rusty’s room.”

I think back to check-in. Rusty’s name was on one room, mine was on the other, but I didn’t think it mattered who ended up where; I handed him one and took the second. But it did matter, because of course Melissa asked Joe for a copy of what was supposed to be Rusty’s key.

I groan. “That was my fault.”

Carey laughs. “Yeah, I’m gloating a little that you weren’t the perfect assistant for once.”

So she didn’t just bolt. I’m surprised by the power of my relief. I’d so quickly convinced myself that it was fine, that I didn’t need to pursue this, and then one word from her about it not being what I thought—she didn’t panic and flee—and I’m practically melting into the sidewalk. Maybe we can figure it out after all.

“Was she mad?” I ask, wincing.

Carey barks out an incredulous laugh. “What do you think?”

“I think she flipped out. Where are you right now?”

“I’m back in my room. Once I convinced her that I wasn’t lying there naked in Rusty’s bed—oh my God, what a horrible sentence—she calmed down. The fact that he wasn’t still in bed snoring next to me and that there was a tidy row of your work clothes in the closet helped. I should say she calmed down a little.”

I think she’s going to tell me what Melissa said once she knew Carey had been with me, not Rusty, but the line goes silent again.

Finally, I have to ask. “What did she think about … us?”

I hear her shift somehow and can imagine her sitting on her left hand, trying to get it to relax. “She wasn’t crazy about it.”

“I’m sure she wasn’t.” I hate having this conversation like this, through the phone, where I’m standing in the middle of a windy sidewalk and she’s alone in her hotel room, recovering after another tirade from Melissa. I want to be sitting next to her, talking. Even if we didn’t touch, I could read her face.

But maybe I don’t need more cues. Right now the silence feels pretty definitive.

Her words barely make it through the line: “I had a really nice time, though, James. I mean it. It was the best sex I’ve ever had. God, that sounds stupid.”

“It doesn’t sound stupid. I was thinking the same thing this morning.”

She doesn’t say anything else.

“So,” I say quietly, getting it. “That’s it?”

“I think so.”

One perfect night, and with a nearly silent exhale, we’re done.

She clears her throat. “But, it’s just the reality. Things are nuts right now, and—”

“You don’t have to explain it to me, Carey.” I turn and lean into the side of a building. “You know I understand the situation.”

“I know you do.”

The ease with which we’ve both let this go ignites something in me, just a spark, but it’s big enough to trip the rest of the realization. Carey is so good at taking care of everyone else, but she is beyond shitty at taking care of herself. I know there’s a stronger backbone in there—she showed it to me yesterday. I’m not willing to let her bury it just to avoid conflict.

“Actually, wait.” I turn against the wind. “No, I don’t.”

I can practically hear the way this takes her aback. “What?”

“I don’t understand. We don’t have to pursue this between us if it doesn’t feel right to you, but Melissa’s opinion, stress levels, or demands shouldn’t have anything to do with it.”

“James.” She says this single syllable as if she’s exhausted—which I’m sure she is. But the fire has been lit, and I think it needs to be lit in her, too.

“I know that she pays you well,” I say. “I know that you’re critical for the designs and worry you won’t be able to replicate that somewhere else. I know that you have a long history with them, and I even know that health insurance is a really important consideration for you. But Melissa is—and I’m just being honest here—she is abusive.”

“She’s not—”

“You said yourself that you can’t even be honest with your own therapist. What would she tell you if you could?” I pause. “You know she would say the same thing.”

When she doesn’t respond to this, I press on. “You can find another job,” I say. “One that doesn’t demand you have absolutely no life. One that gives you credit for your work, and pays you well, and has health insurance.”

She still doesn’t say anything, but I know she’s listening, so I continue. “What does your life look like five years from now? Even if it’s not me, do you have someone? Where are you living? You’re making good money, Carey, and you don’t even have an apartment to yourself, let alone own your own home—why would you? You’d never be there.”

“This is shitty, James! I’m only twenty-six! I’m still figuring things out.”

“I’m not trying to be shitty!” I turn in a circle, growing frustrated. “But how long can you use your age as a buffer against making a grown-up decision? I care about you. Not just because we had sex, but because I like you, and we’re in this fucked-up situation together. A lot of people are making a shit-ton of money from the Tripps, but this situation isn’t the best thing for any of us.”

She exhales slowly, but doesn’t say anything.

“Carey. Say something.”

“I do want my own house, okay? I want a house with land where I can have a dog and chickens and go for walks outside and get lost like I used to. And I want to actually be there, to have time to make it my own and not somebody else’s.”

I stop pacing, surprised by this kind of honesty. “These are all good things to want.”

We sit in silence for five, ten seconds. “Carey?”

“I’m thinking.”

Another moment of silence passes through the line. The wind picks up; a horn honks somewhere in the distance.

“And I do want a relationship.”

I don’t know what to say to this. The moment feels too delicate for me to try to make a pitch for this, for us.

“But it’s good for you if they stay together,” she says, finally, and I want to hit myself now for not trying to sway her to give me a chance. “You need this job.” She doesn’t say it with an edge or bitterness; she’s just using my résumé woes to argue her case for the status quo.

“Even if that’s true, is it worth both of us being miserable? I’m not sure. I want you to have those things, Carey, and I think we’re both resourceful enough to find something else. For you, something that gives you credit for all of your work. For me, something that helps me build my résumé back up.”

Before she has a chance to respond to this, my phone vibrates against my ear. I pull it back to see the name on the screen.

My pulse is a stampede. “Carey, Ted is calling me.”

“Ted Cox?”

The producer for Home Sweet Home. Why on earth is he calling me?

“Yeah. I should probably take this?” Did we fuck something up? Have Melissa and Rusty run naked and screaming into the street while Carey and I were negotiating our personal shit on the phone? “I’ll meet you back at the hotel in a bit.”

We disconnect, and I switch over to Ted’s call. My voice sounds high and tight. “Ted. Hi.”

“James. How are things going?” He must be in a crowded room because a few nearby voices come through nearly as clearly as his.

I go for vague, but honest: “About as well as could be expected.”

Ted lets out a quiet laugh that I barely catch over the hum of background noise. “The response to the announcement was astounding.” He pauses, lowering his voice. “I really need to make sure we stay on track here, James.”

Pacing, I hold back the words I really want to let out—Sounds like a conversation you should be having with Melissa and Rusty—and give him a noncommittal hum instead. He barrels on, “There’s some buzz that things aren’t great between the Tripps—a Blind Gossip post, a handful of vague tweets from bigger names—and so I think this tour needs to be more of a lovefest than it’s been so far.”

I … don’t even know how to respond to that. Is this guy for real? Keeping them from tearing into each other in public is challenge enough, and now he wants us to encourage them to canoodle?

“Let’s get a few moments of them being tender,” he continues, “maybe holding hands, or embracing where they think no one can see them.”

I want to laugh trying to imagine what he’s describing. My eyes are squeezed shut, my palm to my forehead when I let out a tight “We can try.”

His answering silence tells me that this isn’t quite enough of an assurance. I hear a door open and close, and then the background noise disappears. “Listen, I realize this has been a frustrating gig for you,” Ted says.

“And for Carey.”

He ignores this. “I also realize you were hired to do more of the actual engineering on projects, and I am in a position to make you lead engineer and get you an executive producing credit on season two.”

A car blasts past me, startling me from my momentary stupor. He’s got my attention.

“We’d just need to make sure we get to season two,” he says when I’ve been quiet a beat too long.

“I understand what’s at stake here,” I tell him.

He waits for me to say more.

I want to tell him about Carey, about how she’s been creating designs for Melissa for years, about how she’s the real mastermind behind all of this, and in truth if Carey and I were given freedom to run with the platform, we could do what the Tripps have been letting the world think they’re doing for the last decade. They could continue to be the face—but we could do what we both love to do: the work behind the scenes.

“Carey and I will do everything in our power to get them to show some more tender moments at these events,” I tell him. “But I want the engineering role and producer promise in writing.”

He goes quiet, and then my phone buzzes against my ear. I peek at it and see a text message has arrived from Ted, with a photo attached.

“I just wrote it down on a napkin, okay?” he says. “ ‘James to be hired as lead engineer and EP on season two.’ ”

Even if he’s being cheeky, relief flushes heat through my veins, making me bold: “I also think if we can get more recognition for Carey—”

“Carey?” he repeats. “The one with the hands?”

The roaring in my ears feels like a semitruck passing too close.

The one with the hands.

The heat of confidence dissipates immediately, and I stumble past words for a few shocked seconds. “She has a movement disorder, yeah, but she’s brilliant. She’s actually the one—”

“We can look into getting her a producer credit, too.” He pauses, then adds thoughtfully, “Actually, it would look great for the crew lineup to have her listed as a producer. Being inclusive, and whatnot. Makes the whole operation look like a solid family business—she’s been Melly’s secretary for years.”

His words feel like a punch to my chest. “Right, but she’s more than Melly’s—”

“Look, James, I’ve got to get into a meeting, but are we good? I can trust you to handle this?”

His question hangs in the silence that follows. It sounds easy, but I know better. And it feels shitty to be getting this opportunity when Carey has taken more flak and sacrificed more than anyone. A producer credit isn’t enough—she deserves a lead designer credit.

But I can’t negotiate from the bottom, and maybe if I get some leverage, I can use it to pull Carey up with me. I don’t know what to say, other than “Yes. You can trust me.”

“Good.”

He disconnects the call and I weave a little on my feet as my own words to Carey come echoing back to me: A lot of people are making a shit-ton of money from the Tripps, but this situation isn’t the best thing for any of us.

It’s still not clear whether it’s the best thing for her, except now, staying with the Tripps is very clearly the best thing for me.