The Beautiful Bastard series

Praise for New York Times and #1 international bestselling author Christina Lauren

“Full of expertly drawn characters who will grab your heart and never let go, humor that will have you howling, and off-the-charts, toe-curling chemistry, Dark Wild Night is absolutely unforgettable. This is contemporary romance at its best! Beautifully written and remarkably compelling—it reminded me why Christina Lauren’s books have a place of honor on my bookshelf.”

—Sarah J. Maas

Sweet    FILTHY BOY THE ROMANTIC TIMES 2014 BOOK OF

THE YEAR

“A sexy, sweet treasure of a story. I loved every word.”

—Sylvia Day, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Crossfire series

“A crazy, hilarious, and surprisingly realistic and touching adventure.... One of the freshest, funniest, and most emotionally authentic erotic romances.”

— Romantic Times Book Reviews

“No one is doing hot contemporary romance like Christina Lauren. Sweet Filthy Boy is beyond swoon-worthy.”

—Bookalicious

“Funny and adorably charming.... Tender, hot, and even heartbreaking at times, but so worth it.”

—Heroes and Heartbreakers

“Had my heart pounding from cover to cover.... A must-read! ”

—Fangirlish

“A deliciously filthy romp that you’re going to love! ”

— Martini Times Romance

“ Sweet Filthy Boy has everything necessary for a great romance read. Love, passion, heat, turmoil, and humor are all perfectly combined. Add in the stellar writing and there is nothing more I could ask for.”

— Bookish Temptations

“Christina Lauren are my go-to gals for when I’m in the mood for a laugh-out-loud, sizzling, sexy romance.”

—Flirty and Dirty Book Blog

Dirty    ROWDY THING

“Lauren has mastered writing delectable heroes and strong-willed heroines to match, and the contrast between rough-edged Finn and polished Harlow makes for a passionate romance.”

— Romantic Times Book Reviews

“Most of the time when I read contemporary romance, I find myself suffering the lead girl for the sake of the story. Maybe I just don’t identify with her, or I can’t imagine myself being friends with her. With Harlow, I don’t find myself just wanting to know her, I want to be her. She’s not afraid to say what she thinks, but she’s compassionate and thoughtful.... In a lot of ways, the most interesting female protagonist I’ve read in a long time.”

—That’s Normal

“Once again Christina Lauren have created a book boyfriend that will probably end up on every blogger’s top ten.”

— The Sub Club

“[A] smoking-hot story. I particularly appreciated... the modern tone. It felt of the moment. ”

—Dear Author

The Beautiful Bastard series

“Hot... if you like your hookups early and plentiful....”

— EW on Beautiful Stranger

“A devilishly depraved cross between a hardcore porn and a very special episode of The Office. ”

— Perez Hilton on Beautiful Bastard

“A beautiful read, an astonishing love story, a couple whose journey I understood and felt from beginning to end—this is a book I would recommend with all my heart.”

—Natasha Is a Book Junkie on Beautiful Secret

“This book, like the others in this series, sucked me in right away, and I couldn’t get enough.”

— The Autumn Review on Beautiful Player

“The perfect blend of sex, sass, and heart, Beautiful Bastard is a steamy battle of wills that will get your blood pumping! ”

— S. C. Stephens, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Thoughtless

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For Eddie, our Superman

Chapter ONE

Lola

I MENTALLY DRAW THE panels of the scene before me as we follow the receptionist down the marble hallway: the woman wears six-inch black heels, her legs go on forever, her hips shift with each step.

Her hips shift left. Her hips shift right. Her hips shift left.

My agent, Benny, leans in. “Don’t be nervous, ” he whispers. “I’m fine, ” I lie, but he just snorts in response, straightening.

“The deal is all drafted, Lola. You’re here to sign, not to impress anyone. Smile! Today is the fun part.”

I nod, trying to trick my thoughts into agreement— Look at this office! Look at these people! Bright lights! Big city! —but it’s a wasted effort. I’ve been writing and drawing Razor Fish since Iwas twelve, and every single second of the fun part, to me, has been creating it. The terrifying part is walking down a sterile hallway lined with glass-front cubicles and glossy framed movie posters to sign a seven-figure contract for the film translation.

My stomach seems lodged somewhere in my windpipe and I go back to my safe place.

Her hips shift right. Her hips shift left.

Her long legs span from the earth up to the clouds.

The receptionist stops at a door and opens it. “Here we are.”

The studio offices are almost obscenely fancy; the entire building feels like the modern equivalent of a castle. Every wall is brushed aluminum and marble; every door is glass. Each piece of furniture is either marble or black leather. Benny leads us in with confidence, crossing the room to shake hands with the executives on the other side of the table. I follow him in, but when I release the glass door it swings closed heavily, and the jarring gong of glass abruptly meeting metal echoes through the room—a sound broken only by two startled gasps coming from across the table.

Fuck.

I’ve seen enough photos of myself in stressful public situations in the past three months to know that, right now, I don’t look ruffled. I don’t duck my head and apologize; I don’t slouch or wince even though, as soon as the door slams dissonantly shut, I’m tied into a hundred thousand knots inside. Apparently, I’m just good at hiding it.

The New York Times gave Razor Fish a brilliant review, but found me “aloof” during an interview that I’d believed to be spirited and engaging. The Los Angeles Times described our phone call as “a series of long, thoughtful pauses followed by single-word answers” whereas I had told my friend Oliver that I was worried I’d talked their ear off.

When I turn to face the executives, I’m unsurprised to find they both look as polished as the architecture. Neither woman across the table says anything about my less-than-subtle entrance,

but I swear the slamming echo reverberates throughout the room the entire time I walk from the door to the table.

Benny winks and gestures for me to sit down. I find a soft leather chair, smooth my dress over my thighs, and carefully take a seat.

My hands are clammy, my heart thundering. I’m counting to twenty over and over to keep from panicking.

The panel shows the girl, chin up, with a ball of fire in her lungs.

“Lorelei, it’s wonderful to meet you face-to-face.”

I look to the woman who’s spoken and take her offered hand to shake. Her hair is blond and glossy, perfect makeup, perfect clothes, perfectly expressionless. From my early-morning creeping on IMDb, I’m fairly sure she’s Angela Marshall, the executive producer who, with her frequent collaborator Austin Adams, fought to win the rights to Razor Fish in the bidding war I didn’t even know was happening last week.

But her hair in the picture was red. My eyes shoot to the woman on her left, but she has soft brown skin, black hair, and enormous brown eyes. Definitely not Angela Marshall. The only person I’ve seen frequently in magazines and photos is Austin, but there isn’t another man besides Benny in the room.

“Please, call me Lola. It’s nice to meet you...? ” I let the question hang, because in normal situations I think this is where the names are exchanged. Instead, the handshake goes on forever, and now I don’t know where to direct my effusive gratitude. Why isn’t anyone introducing themselves? Am I expected to know every name here?

Releasing my hand, the woman finally says, “Angela Marshall.” I sense that it was some sort of test.

“So good to meet you, ” I say again. “I can’t believe...”

My thought ends there and they all watch me, waiting to hear what I’m going to say. Truthfully, I could go on for days about all the things I can’t believe.

I can’t believe Razor Fish is out in the world. I can’t believe people are buying it.

And I really can’t believe fancy people working at this enormous movie studio are making my graphic novel into a movie.

“We can’t believe any of it.” Benny comes to my rescue, but laughs awkwardly. “We’re just thrilled about how this all went down. Thrilled. ”

The woman next to Angela gives him the Oh, I’m sure you are face, because we all know Benny made out pretty great in the deal: twenty percent of a lot of money. But that realization pulls the other one with it: I made out even better than he did. My life is forever changed with this single transaction. We’re here to sign a contract, to discuss casting, to lay out the schedule.

The panel shows the girl, waking up with a start as a steel rod is shoved into her backbone.

I hold my hand out to the other woman. “Hi, sorry I didn’t get your name. I’m Lola Castle.” She introduces herself as Roya Lajani, and then looks down at some pages in front of her as she takes a breath to start whatever conversation happens in these moments. But before she can speak, the door swings open and the man I recognize as Austin Adams breezes in, letting in a blast of

ringing phones, heels clicking down the hall, and voices booming from adjacent rooms.

“Lola! ” he says to me in a warm, cheerful voice and then winces as the door crashes shut behind him. Looking to Angela, he says, “I hate that fucking door. When the hell is Julie getting it fixed? ”

Angela waves her hand in a Don’t worry about it gesture and watches as Austin ignores the seat next to her and pulls out the chair on my right. Sitting down, he studies my face, smiling widely at me.

“I’m a huge fan, ” he says without further preamble, without even introducing himself. “Honestly. I’m just in awe of you.”

“I... wow, ” I say, laughing awkwardly. “Thanks.”

“Please tell me you’re working on something new. I’m addicted to your art, your stories, everything.”

“My next graphic novel is out this fall. It’s called Junebug. ” I sense Austin leaning in excitedly and instinctively add, “I’m still working on it.” When I look back up at him, he’s just shaking his head at me in wonder.

“Is this surreal? ” His eyes turn up warmly as his smile softens. “Has it sunk in yet that you’re the mastermind behind the next huge action movie? ”

This line, in this situation—where I worry I’m going to hear a lot of empty praise—would normally make me hold my breath in order to tamp down a skeptical reaction, but despite being a big-shot producer and director, Austin already seems so genuine. He’s good-looking but totally disheveled: his reddish blond hair looks finger combed, he’s unshaven, in jeans and wearing a button-down shirt that he’s misaligned, leaving it longer at the hem on the right side than the left. The starched collar is tucked in on one side, too. He’s a very expensive mess.

“Thanks, ” I say, balling my hands together so I don’t start to fidget with my earlobe or my hair.

“I mean it, ” he adds, leaning both elbows on his thighs, still focusing only on me. I’m not sure he’s even acknowledged Benny yet. My knuckles have gone white. “I know we’re supposed to say that, but in this case it’s really true. I was obsessed from the very first page, and told Angela and Roya we had to have it.”

“We agreed, ” Roya chimes in, unnecessarily.

“Well, ” I say, struggling to find something other to say than another thank you. “That’s great. I’m glad that it seems to have grabbed a little audience.”

“Little? ” he scoffs, leaning back in his chair and glancing down at his shirt before doing a double take. “Motherfuck. I can’t even dress myself.”

I pull my lower lip into my mouth to crush the laugh that is threatening to burst from my throat. This entire situation was sending me into mute-panic territory until he walked in. I grew up shopping at Goodwill, we were on food stamps for a few years, and I still drive a 1989 Chevy. I can’t even process how this is going to change my life, and the sterile Stepford Sisters across the table only add to the foreign atmosphere of the room. But Austin seems like someone I can imagine working with.

“I know you’ve been asked this before, ” he says, “because I’ve read the interviews. But I want to hear it from you, the true inside scoop. What made you start writing this book? What really inspired you? ”

I have indeed been asked this before—so many times, in fact, that I have a standard, canned answer: I love the everyday female superhero because she gives us an opportunity to handle complicated social and political imbalances head-on, in popular culture and art. I wrote Quinn Stone as the everygirl, in the spirit of Clarisse Starling or Sarah Connor: she becomes a hero via her own bootstraps. Quinn is found by a strange, fishlike man from another time dimension. This creature, Razor, helps Quinn find the courage to fight for herself and her community, and in so

doing, he realizes he doesn’t want to leave her to go home, even when he eventually can. The idea came to me from a dream where a big, muscular man covered in scales was in my room, telling me to clean up my closet. The rest of the day I wondered what it would be like if he really did show up in my bedroom. I named him Razor Fish. I imagined my Razor wouldn’t give a crap about my messy closet; he’d tell me to get the hell up and fight for something.

But that isn’t the answer that bubbles up today.

“I was pissed-off, ” I admit. “I thought grown-ups were either assholes or fuckups.” I watch Austin’s green eyes go a little wide before he exhales, nodding subtly in understanding. “I was angry with my dad for being a mess, and my mom for being such a coward. I’m sure it’s why I dreamt of Razor Fish in the first place: he’s abrasive and doesn’t always understand Quinn, but deep down he loves her and wants her to be looked after. Drawing him and how he initially doesn’t understand her humanity but then trains her to fight, and eventually defers to her...

getting lost in their little story was the treat I gave myself when I finished dishes and homework and was alone at night.”

The room is quiet and I feel an unfamiliar need to fill the space. “I liked seeing Razor start to appreciate the ways Quinn is strong that aren’t classic. She’s scrawny, she’s quiet. She’s not built like an amazon. Her strengths are more subtle: she’s observant. She trusts herself without question. I want to make sure that’s captured. There is a lot of violence and action there, but Razor doesn’t have a revelation about her when she learns to throw a punch. He has a revelation about her when she figures out how to stand up to him.”

I glance at Benny—this is the most open I’ve ever been about my life and my book, and surprise is clear on his face.

“How old were you when your mom left? ” Austin guesses. He’s acting like there isn’t anyone else in the room with us, and it’s easy to pretend there isn’t, the way everyone has grown so still.

“Twelve. Right after my dad got back from Afghanistan.”

The room seems to be swallowed by silence after I say this, and Austin finally heaves out a sigh. “Well, that’s shit. ”

Finally, I laugh.

He leans in again, eyes insistent when he says, “I love this story, Lola. I love these characters. We’ve got a screenwriter who will knock this out of the park. Do you know Langdon McAfee? ”

I shake my head, embarrassed because the way he says it makes me feel like I should, but Austin waves away the question. “He’s great. Laid-back, smart, organized. He wants to cowrite this with you.”

I open my mouth at this unexpected revelation— me, cowriting a screenplay —and nothing but a choking noise comes out.

Austin keeps talking through my stunned reaction: “I want to talk a lot, okay? ” He’s already nodding as if prompting me. “I want this to be everything you want it to be.” Leaning in, he smiles and says, “I want you to see your dream come to life.”

“TELL ME THE details again, ” Oliver says. “I’m not sure you were speaking English the first time.” He’s right. I’ve barely caught my breath—let alone remembered how to make words—since I

tripped into his comic book store, Downtown Graffick, already babbling. Oliver looked up when I burst in, his sweet smile slowly dissolving into confusion as I spilled a thousand incoherent words

and my emotions all over the floor. I spent two hours on the drive back from L.A. on the phone with my dad, struggling to process the rest of the meeting. Not that it really helped because, here, saying it out loud in front of one of my favorite people makes it surreal all over again.

In the eight months we’ve been friends, I don’t think Oliver has ever seen me like this: stuttering and breathless and near tears because I’m so overwhelmed. I pride myself on being steady and unruffled even with my friends, and so I’m trying to get myself together, but goddamn, it is hard.

They’re

making

a movie

out of my childhood ideas.

“Okay, ” I start again, taking a huge breath and blowing it out slowly. “Last week, Benny called and said something was going on with the film option.”

“I thought he sent it out—”

“Months ago, ” I interrupt. “Right. It’s always silence before the explosion, I guess? Because on the drive from his office to their office this morning, he told me it sold in this insane bidding war....” I press my palm to my forehead. “I’m sweating. Look at me, I’m sweating.”

He does look, eyes softening as he laughs, then shakes his head a little before he blinks back down at the box he’s cutting open. “This is unbelievable, Lola. Keep talking.”

“Columbia and Touchstone won, ” I tell him. “We drove to the offices and I met some people today.”

“And? ” He looks back up at me as he pulls a stack of books out of the box. “Did they impress? ”

“I mean...” I flounder, remembering how it felt when Austin turned his attention to everyone else in the room, and the meeting dissolved into a blur of acronyms and under-the-breath instructions to make note of Langdon’s schedule for the script kickoff and see if we can get the P& L to Mitchell by noon. “Yes? There were a couple people there who were sort of quiet and stiff, but the executive producer—Austin Adams—is so genuinely nice. I was so overwhelmed that I don’t know how much I was processing.” I run both hands into my hair and tilt my head up to the ceiling. “This is all so insane. A movie. ”

“A movie, ” Oliver repeats, and when I look back at him, I see him watching me with his mysterious, warm blue eyes.

He licks his lips and I have to look away. Oliver is both my former husband and my current crush, but it will forever remain unrequited: our marriage was never really a marriage. It was that-thing-we-did-in-Vegas.

Of course, the other two couples who hooked up in Vegas—our friends Mia and Ansel, and Harlow and Finn—are happily married. But Oliver and I occasionally (especially when drunk) like to commend ourselves for being the only ones who did the shotgun Vegas wedding thing like normal people: with nothing but regret, an annulment, and a hangover. Given the emotional distance he’s always kept, I’m pretty sure he’s the one out of the two of us who really means it when he praises our choice.

“And it isn’t just oh, we like the idea, let’s buy this option and sit on it, ” I say. “They bought it and already have a director in mind. We talked about possible casting choices today. They have a big effects guy asking to be involved.”

“Unreal, ” he murmurs, leaning forward to give me his undivided attention. And if I didn’t know Oliver better, I would think he just glanced at my mouth. But I do know him better: he just looks at every part of my face when I’m speaking. He is the best listener.

“ And... I’m going to cowrite the script, ” I tell him, a little breathless, and his eyes widen. “Lola. Lola, holy hell. ”

While I launch into a replay of the entire meeting this morning, Oliver goes back to unpacking the newest shipment of comics, looking up at me occasionally wearing his absorbed, little smile. I thought that over time I might figure out what he’s thinking, how he’s reacting to something. But he’s still largely unreadable to me. The loft apartment I share with my friend London is only two blocks away from Oliver’s comic store, and even though I see him nearly every day, I still feel like I spend half the time we’re together trying to work through what he might have meant by this or that single-syllable answer or lingering smile. If I were more like Harlow, I would simply ask.

“So you’re looking forward to seeing it on the screen? ” he asks. “We haven’t talked about this because it all happened so fast. I know some artists aren’t wild about the idea of an adaptation.”

“Are you kidding? ” I ask. How can he be serious with that question? The only thing I love more than comics is movies based on comics. “It’s overwhelming but amazing.”

And then I remember that there is an email with seventeen scripts attached in my inbox, for me to read “as reference, ” and a wave of nausea sweeps through my torso. “It’s a little like building a house, though, ” I tell him. “I just want to be at the part where I can go live in it, and skip all the parts where I have to pick out fixtures and knobs.”

“Let’s just hope they don’t George Clooney your Batman, ” he says.

I give him my best eyebrow wiggle. “They can George Clooney anything of mine they want, sir.”

Not-Joe, Oliver’s sole employee and a mohawked stoner we all feel a certain pet-owner level of fondness for, steps into view from behind some shelves. “Clooney is gay. You know that, right? ”

Oliver and I both ignore this.

“In fact, ” I add, “if George Clooney is ever accepted into the Oxford English Dictionary as a verb, that activity is immediately getting added to my bucket list.”

“As in, ‘Have you ever been George Clooneyed? ’ ” Oliver asks.

“Exactly. ‘We went for a walk, and then George Clooneyed until around two. Good night.’ ” Oliver nods, putting some pens away in a drawer. “I’d probably have to add that to my bucket

list, too.”

“See, this is why we’re friends, ” I tell him. Being near him is like a dose of Xanax. I can’t help but be calmed. “You would get that George Clooney as a verb would be such a monumental thing that, gay or straight, you’d want a piece of it.”

“He’s totally gay, ” Not-Joe says, louder this time.

Oliver makes a skeptical noise, finally looking over at him. “I don’t reckon he is, though. He got married.”

“Really? ” Not-Joe asks, coming to rest his elbows on the counter. “But if he was, would you do him? ”

I raise my hand. “Yes. Absolutely.”

“I wasn’t asking you, ” Not-Joe says, waving me away.

“Who’s the front and who’s the back? ” Oliver asks. “Like, am I getting George Clooneyed by George Clooney, or am I doing the Clooneying? ”

“Oliver, ” Not-Joe says. “He’s George Fucking Clooney. He doesn’t get Clooneyed! ” “We’re turning into idiots, ” I mumble.

They both ignore me and Oliver finally shrugs. “Yeah, okay. Why not? ” “Like, actually losing IQ points, ” I interject again.

Not-Joe pretends to grab a pair of hips and thrusts back and forth. “This. You’d let him? ” Shrugging defensively, Oliver says, “Joe, I get what we’re talking about here. I also get what

the man-on-man sex would look like. What I’m saying is if I’m going to be with a guy, why not Bad Batman? ”

I wave a hand in front of his face. “We should get back to the part where my comic is going to be a movie, though.”

Oliver turns to me and relaxes and his smile is so sweet, it makes everything inside me melt. “We absolutely should. That’s bloody brilliant, Lola.” He tilts his head, his blue eyes holding mine. “I’m really fucking proud for you right now.”

I smile, and then suck my bottom lip into my mouth because when Oliver looks at me like that, I can’t even be a little cool. But it would terrify him to see me swoon over him; it’s just not what we do.

“So how are you going to celebrate? ” he asks.

I look around the store as if the answer is right in front of me. “Hang out here? I don’t know. Maybe I should do some work.”

“Nah, you’ve been traveling constantly, and even when you are home, you’re always working, ” he says.

Snorting, I tell him, “Says the guy who is in his store every waking hour.”

Oliver considers me. “They’re making your movie, Lola Love.” And the nickname makes my heart spin in my chest. “You need to do something big tonight.”

“So, like, Fred’s? ” I say. This is our usual routine. “Why pretend we’re fancy? ”

Oliver shakes his head. “Let’s go somewhere downtown so you don’t have to worry about driving.”

“But then you have to drive back to Pacific Beach, ” I argue. Not-Joe pretends to play the violin behind us.

“I don’t mind, ” Oliver says. “I don’t think Finn and Ansel are around, but I’ll round up the girls.” He scratches his stubbly jaw. “I do wish I could take you to dinner or something, but I—” “Oh, God, don’t worry.” The idea of Oliver leaving his store to take me out to dinner makes me both giddy and totally panicky. It’s not like the building would catch fire if he left here before dark, but it doesn’t mean my body doesn’t feel that instinctive panic. “I’ll just head home and

freak out alone in my room for a bit, and then get exceedingly drunk later.” His smile melts me. “Sounds good.”

“I thought you had a date tonight, ” Not-Joe says to Oliver, coming up behind him with a giant stack of books.

Oliver blanches. “No. It wasn’t—I mean, it’s not. We aren’t.”

“A date? ” I feel my eyebrows inch up as I try to ignore the growing knot in my stomach. “No, it’s not like that, ” he insists. “Just the chick across the street who works—”

“Hard Rock Allison, ” Not-Joe sings.

My heart drops—this isn’t “just the chick across the street” but someone we’ve all remarked upon once or twice for her keen interest in Oliver—but I work to give an outwardly positive reaction.

“Shut up! ” I yell, smacking Oliver’s shoulder, and adding in a dramatic French accent, “A very hot date.”

Oliver growls at me, rubbing the spot and pretending it hurt more than it did. He nods to Not-Joe. “She wanted to bring us both dinner, here in the store—”

“Yeah, so she could bang you, ” Not-Joe cuts in.

“Or maybe because she’s nice, ” Oliver says, a playful challenge in his voice. “Anyway, I’d rather go out and celebrate Lola’s movie. I’ll text Allison and let her know.”

I’m sure Hard Rock Allison is a nice woman, but right now—knowing Oliver has her cell number, knowing he can just casually text her to change some plans they made—I sort of want her to get hit by a train in the blackened-soul way that you want horrible things to happen to the new girlfriend. Allison is pretty, and outgoing, and so tiny she could fit in my messenger bag. This is the first time I’ve been faced with the prospect of Oliver dating, the first time our friendship has been faced with this, at least as far as I know. We got married and divorced in less than a day and it’s clear he was never really into me, but we’ve never discussed dates with other people before.

How should I react here?

Cool, I decide after checking myself. Happy for him.

“Definitely reschedule, ” I say, giving him the most genuine smile I can manage. “She’s cute. Take her to Bali Hai, it’s so pretty there.”

He looks up at me. “I’ve been meaning to go there for ages; you love that place. You should come along.”

“Oliver, you can’t bring me along on a date. ”

His eyes go wide behind his glasses. “It’s not. I don’t—I wouldn’t, ” he says, adding quickly, “Lola. It wouldn’t be a bloody date. ”

Okay, so he’s clearly not into Allison. The knot in my stomach uncoils, and I have to stare at the countertop with mighty concentration to keep from smiling.

After a few deep breaths, I succeed.

I look back up at him and he’s still watching me, expression as calm as the surface of a lake in a canyon.

What are you thinking? I want to ask.But definitely don’t.

“Lola, ” he starts.

I swallow, unable to keep from blinking—for just a second—down to his mouth. I love his mouth. It’s wide; his bottom lip and top lip are the same size. Full, but not feminine. I’ve drawn it a hundred times: with lips barely parted, lips pressed closed. With lips curved in his tiny smile or arced in his thoughtful frown. Lips with teeth sharply sawing across or, once, his mouth soft and open in an obscene gasp.

The count of two is all I get before I look back up at his eyes. “Yeah? ”

It’s a year before he answers and by the time he does, I’ve gone through a million possibilities for what he’ll say next.

Have you ever thought about kissing me? Reckon we could go shag in the back room? Would you ever cosplay Zatanna?

But he simply asks, “What did Harlow say when you told her about the movie? ”

I take a deep breath, shutting down the image of him leaning forward and putting his mouth right up against mine. “Oh, I was going to call her next.”

And then what I’ve just said sinks in.

Oliver’s eyebrows go to his hairline, and beside him, Not-Joe makes a high-pitched noise of panic that tells me either the cops are at the door or we’re all going to be murdered by Harlow and it’s my fault.

“Oh, shiiiiiit, why did I do that? ” I ask, covering my mouth. Harlow is always the one I tell after Dad. She would kill me if she knew I came here. “What was I thinking telling you first? ” I take a step closer and give them both my most threatening face. “You cannot tell her you knew before she did and that I’ve been here for—”

“A half an hour, ” Not-Joe interrupts helpfully.

“A half hour! ” I cry. “She will cut us into tiny pieces and bury us in the desert! ”

“Call her right the fuck now, then, ” Oliver says, pointing a finger at me. “I am not prepared to face Harlow with an ax.”

Chapter TWO

Oliver

“WHEN DID YOU know, Oliver? ”

I look up across the table and grin. “Know what, Harlow? ”

“Don’t be cute.” She glances to the side to make sure Lola is still at the bar. “When did you know that the movie was optioned and green-lit in one swoop? ”

She looks back and forth between Joe and me, waiting, but Joe bends to take an enormous bite of his burger, leaving me to answer.

“Today, ” I hedge. It’s a bullshit answer because even Lola only found out this morning. Harlow wants me to report down to the hour.

Harlow narrows her eyes at me but tucks her smart reply away when Lola returns, carrying a tray of shots. She glances over at me and gives me her secret little grin. I’m not even sure she knows she does it. It starts with her lips turning up at the corners, eyes turning down just slightly, and then she blinks slowly, like she’s just captured me in a photograph. And if she had, the image would show a man who is deeply, bloody lovesick.

There’s a scene in Amazing Spider-Man 25, when Mary Jane Watson is first introduced. Her face is obscured from both the reader and Peter Parker, and up until this point, Peter has only known her as the girl his aunt wants him to ask out on a date, “that nice Watson girl next door.”

Peter isn’t interested. If his aunt likes her, Mary Jane is not his type.

Then in issue 42 her face is revealed and Peter realizes just how amazing she is. It’s a gut-punch moment: Peter’s been an idiot.

This is as good an analogy as any to describe my relationship with Lorelei Castle. I was married to Lola for exactly thirteen and a half hours, and if I were a smarter man, maybe I would have taken the chance while I had it, instead of assuming—just because she was wearing a short dress and getting drunk in Vegas—that she wasn’t my type.

But a few hours later, we were all drunk... and impulsively all married. While our friends defiled hotel rooms—and each other—Lola and I walked for miles, talking about everything.

It’s easy to share confidences with strangers, and even easier when drunk, so by the middle of the night I felt quite intimate with her. Somewhere the Strip turned dark, hinting at the seedy underbelly the city has to offer, and Lola stopped to look up at me. The tiny diamond Marilyn piercing in her lip caught the light, and I grew mesmerized by the soft pink of her mouth, long since rubbed free of lipstick. I’d lost my buzz, was already thinking about how we’d deal with the annulments the next day, and she quietly asked if I wanted to get a room somewhere. Together.

But... I didn’t. I didn’t, because by the time she made it an option, I knew she wasn’t one-night-stand material. Lola was the kind of girl I could lose my mind for.

Only, as soon as she returned to San Diego her life exploded in a hurricane. First, her graphic novel Razor Fish was published and quickly stampeded onto every top-ten list on the comic scene. And then it went mainstream, showing up in major retailers, with the New York Times calling it “the next major action franchise.” The rights to her book have just sold to a major motion picture studio, and today she met the executives putting millions into the project.

I’m not sure she even has a millisecond of time to think about romance, but it’s fine; I think about it enough for the both of us.

“I don’t know who started the tradition that the birthday girl cuts her own cake, ” Lola says, sliding a shot glass of questionably green alcohol in front of me, “or this new version where the girl whose movie is being made buys the shots. But I’m not a fan.”

“No, ” Mia objects, “it’s that the girl who is about to run off to Hollywood buys the shots.” “As penance, ” Harlow says. “In advance.”

Everyone turns to give their best skeptical look to Harlow. Compared to the rest of us, Harlow’s entire existence is rooted in Hollywood. Raised by an actress mother and Oscar-winning cinematographer father, and married to a man who is about to be a break-out Adventure Channel star, I’m pretty sure we’re all thinking the same thing: if Hollywood entrenchment determines who is footing the bill, Harlow should be buying the shots.

As if sensing this, she waves her hand saying, “Shut up. I’ll buy the next round.”

Everyone raises their shot glass to the middle, and Harlow delivers the toast: “To the baddest badass that ever lived: Lorelei Louise Castle. Go fucking conquer, girl.”

“Hear, hear, ” I say, and Lola catches my eye, giving me her secret grin one more time.

We clink our glasses—Harlow, Mia, Joe, Lola, London, and I—and tilt back our shots before giving in to an oddly synchronized shudder.

Lola’s roommate, London, gags. “Green chartreuse.” She coughs, and her blond hair is piled in a messy bun on top of her head; it bobs precariously as she shakes her head. “Should be outlawed.”

“It’s God awful, ” I agree.

“I had the bartender make up something called Celebration, ” Lola says with a grimace, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “Sorry. I feel like I need a shower now.”

Mia coughs. “That guy must equate celebration with pain.” She steals my beer and takes a swig before turning back to Lola. I so rarely get to hang out with Mia without Ansel attached to some part of her; it’s actually quite nice to get her alone and excited to socialize. She’s sweetly delicate, in the way a little sister might be. “So let’s hear it, Miss Fancy. Tell us about this morning.”

Lola sighs, sipping her water before giving a wide-eyed, awestruck shrug. “Honestly, what is this life, you guys? ”

I lean back against the booth and listen fondly as Lola recounts much of what I’ve already heard. In truth, I imagine I could hear it a hundred times and it would never really sink in; I can’t imagine how it must feel for her.

Lola, who by her own admission spends more time talking to the people in her head than to the people all around her, is truly brilliant. As much as possible, I try to temper my reactions to her work, because I know in part it’s carried by my affection for her. And anyway, it’s not like I can blab on to her constantly about how the creator is a fucking genius, and one of the smartest, sexiest people I know. But I do emphasize however often I can to customers that the book itself is fresh and unlike anything I’ve ever read before, and yet it feels familiar.

Razor Fish makes me feel that same buzz I felt as a kid picking up my first comic from thelocal newsagent. I’d been obsessed with the strength, the battles, the power of a story told in words and color. At age eleven, I was the tallest, skinniest kid in Year Seven—our first year of high school—and aptly nicknamed Stickboy by the class bullies. Even when my mates caught up by Year Eleven, the name still stuck. But by then, I’d towered over the other boys for so long and

had begun cycling everywhere. I wasn’t skinny anymore—I was strong, and dominating in school sports. Stickboy was the name of a superhero, not a coward.

I look at Lola and marvel over how similar we are—lonely childhoods turning us into introverted yet ambitious adults—and how central comics have been to both our lives.

But while she’s still floating on the cloud of her new venture, reeling about the surreal offices, laughing about the stiff beginning to the meeting and the explosion of Austin into the room, I need the edge rubbed off a bit, and pick up my beer, taking a sip. I need to file down my senses enough to let some of this process. Truly, Lola’s life is about to change. What has up to this point been mostly a passion for her is quickly becoming a business—which will bring tensions and problems that I can relate to perhaps more than she realizes. Besides, Lola is wildly talented, but she’s still sheltered: Hollywood can make dreams happen, but it can also be harsh and ruthless. I want to push back the uneasy reflex that wants to fuss a bit over her, that worries, that thinks this is going to break her or, at the very least, dull a brilliantly creative piece of her—the part that created all of this in the first place—and I’m not sure it’s worth sacrificing for a slice of the life-dream real estate.

It makes me want to protect her, to tell her to listen to those voices inside her head, because to Lola those voices are more real to her than the majority of those in her life, and have been for much of her life since childhood. It was the same way with me. I grew up with no siblings, and absentee parents. My grandparents took custody of me when I was a kid, but I was eight and more interested in Superman and Batman than I was in what Gran had watched on tele that day or the people who came through my granddad’s shop.

Just as she’s getting to the end—to where the logistical details started to feel as though they were raining down, and it all became more blurry and jargon-filled—her phone lights up on the table and she glances down and then shoves back in the booth, eyes bolting to mine. “It’s

Austin. ”

That she looks to me right now—not Harlow, London, or Mia—makes my heart light up; a sparking flare thrown into the cavern of my chest.

“Answer it, ” I urge, nodding to the phone.

She fumbles, nearly knocking it off the table, before answering at the last minute with a rushed “Hello? ”

I don’t have the benefit of hearing the other side of the conversation so I’m not sure what makes her blush and smile before saying, “Hi, Austin. Sorry, no. I just almost didn’t get to the phone on time.”

She listens intently, and we all stare intently, getting only one side of the exchange: “I’m still a little shell-shocked, ” she tells him, “but I am okay...” She lifts her eyes to scan the table, saying, “Yes, out with some friends... just a neighborhood bar... in San Diego! ” She laughs. “That’s a crazy long drive, Austin! ”

The fuck?

I look up at Harlow, who turns to me at the same time, seems to be thinking the same thing. He’s not driving down here, is he? I glance at my watch; it’s nearly ten, and would take two hours.

“I’m excited, too, ” she’s saying, and reaches up to play with her earring. “Well, I’ve never written a script before so my goal here is just to be useful....” She giggles at his reply.

Giggles.

My eyes snap to Harlow’s again.

Lola giggles with us. She does not giggle with people she met only hours ago. Unless that person is me, in Vegas—and I fucking prefer to think that situation is unique.

“I can’t wait to hear them... no I won’t, opinions are good... I know, sorry. It’s loud here.... Okay, I will.” She nods. “I will! I promise! ” Another fucking giggle. “Okay... Okay. Bye.”

She hits end on the call and exhales, before sliding her eyes up to me. “That was Austin.”

I laugh, saying, “So I heard.” Even with an awkward, foreign object suddenly lodged in my chest I can appreciate how exciting this must be, to be so immediately comfortable with the person at the helm of the most important creative work in her life so far.

“He’s not driving down from L.A., is he? ” London asks with—if I’m not mistaken—a hint of suspicion in her voice.

I have always liked London.

“No, no, ” Lola says, grinning down at the table. “He just joked about it.” For a few moments we all just sit there, staring at her.

Harlow is the first to break. “Well, why the fuck did he call? ”

Lola looks up, surprised. “Oh. Um, he just wanted to know that I was okay after the meeting... and that he was putting together some thoughts on translating the first bit into a film.”

“ ‘The first bit’? ” I repeat.

She shakes her head in a staccato, overwhelmed gesture and a strand of her long, straight hair catches against her lipstick. I can’t help it; I reach forward to pull it away. But she does, too, and her fingers get there before mine.

I quickly drop my hand and feel the way Harlow turns to me, but I can’t look away from Lola, who is staring up at me, eyes full of silent frenzy.

“Holy shit, Oliver.”

Beside us, London picks up her phone. “I’m going to google this Austin Adams character.” I’ve always really liked her.

“ ‘The first bit’? ” I repeat to Lola, more gently.

“He was saying the studio sees three films, ” she practically squeaks. “And he has some ideas he wants to talk to me about.”

Harlow swears, Mia squeals, Joe grins widely at her, but Lola covers her face with a tiny shriek of panic.

“Holy shit! ” London yells. “This guy is hot! ” She turns her phone out for us to see. Okay, maybe I don’t like London as much as I thought I did.

Ignoring her, I remind Lola, “This is good, ” as I gently coax her arms down. Unable to help it, I add, “He wants to talk to you about it now? Do you have to go to L.A. again tomorrow? ”

She shakes her head. “I think by phone at some point? I mean, I can barely imagine cowriting one script, let alone three, ” she says, and then presses her fingertips to her lips.

“Collaboration is what this one is all about, ” I remind her. “Isn’t that what Austin told you earlier today? ” Seeing her grow more worried helps me keep my own trepidation at bay. “Maybe in the second and third films you can drive even more of the process, but this is great, right? ”

She nods urgently, soaking up my confidence, but then her shoulders slump and she gives a small, self-deprecating laugh. “I don’t know how to do this.”

I feel her hand come over mine, shaking and clammy.

“This requires more alcohol! ” Harlow says, triumphantly unfazed, and in my peripheral vision I see her getting up for more shots.

Joe reaches over, rubbing the back of Lola’s neck. “Lola, you’re a star in the middle of a pile of gravel. You’re going to reign.”

I nod, agreeing with him. “You’ve got this. No one knows this story better than you. You’re there to guide it. They are the experts on the film side.”

She exhales, forming her soft lips into a sweet O and holding on to my gaze like it’s keeping her from melting down. Does she know how I want to be her courage?

“Okay, ” she says, repeating, “Okay.”

EVENTUALLY WE MANAGE to polish off five shots each and have moved on from the insanity of Lola’s day to a raucous debate over how the world is going to end. As usual, we have Joe to thank for it, but Lola is rosy and dissolving into her adorable snickery giggles with every impassioned suggestion—zombies, electromagnetic pulse, alien invasions—and at least seems completely, happily distracted.

“I’m telling you, it’s going to be the fucking livestock, ” Joe tells us, barely missing Harlow’s wineglass when he sweeps his hand in a total-destruction gesture. “Some sort of cow or swine flu. Maybe some bird thing.”

“Rabies, ” Mia says, nodding in drunken slowness.

“No, not rabies, ” he says, shaking his head. “Something we don’t even know yet.” “You’re a ray of sunshine.” London pokes him in the shoulder and he turns to look at her. “It’s a matter of fact, ” he says. “Fucking chickens are going to be our ruination.”

Lola finger-shoots herself in the head and pretends to collapse onto me, convulsing in fake death. Her hair sweeps across my arm, my skin bare beyond the short sleeve of my T-shirt, and for the first time I don’t fight the urge to touch it. I cup my hand over her scalp and slide it down, dragging my fingers through her hair.

She tilts her head and looks up at me. “Oliver must be drunk, ” she announces in a slur, though it seems I’m the only one who hears her.

“Why’s that? ” I ask. My smile down at her is a subconscious thing; instinct in response to her proximity.

“Because you’re touching me, ” she says a little more quietly. I lean back a little to see her face better. “I touch you plenty.”

She shakes her head and it’s slow and lolling against my arm, finally thumping back against the booth. “Like a buddy. That was like a lover.”

My blood turns to mercury. If only she knew. “Was it? ” “Mm-hmm.” She looks tired, eyelids heavily demanding rest.

“Sorry then, Lola Love, ” I say, brushing her bangs to the side of her forehead.

She shakes her head dramatically, one side completely to the other. “Don’t be. You’re my hero.”

I laugh, but she sits up in a surprising burst of movement and says, “I’m serious. What would I do without you right now? ” She points to Harlow. “ She’s married.” She points to Mia. “ She’s married, too.”

Apparently having tuned in, London leans forward. “ I’m not married.”

“No, ” Lola says, giving her an enormous, drunken grin. “But you’re always surfing. Or bartending. Or busy rejecting men.”

Joe nods, and London slaps his chest playfully.

“So, Oliver is my hero, ” she says, turning back to me. “My rock. My sounding rod.” Her eyebrows come together. “Lightning rod? ”

“Sounding board, ” I whisper.

“Right.” She snaps. “That.” Lola lowers her voice and leans in close. So close my heart is a stuttering, wild thing in my throat. “Don’t you ever leave me.”

“I won’t, ” I tell her. Fuck. I couldn’t. I want to wrap her up and carry her around, protecting her from all of the insincere, greedy people she’s destined to meet.

“Don’t, ” she says, holding a weaving, threatening, drunken finger in my face.

I lean in, biting the tip, and her eyes go wide. “I won’t, ” I say around it, and fuck if I don’t want to lean in farther and nip her lips, too.

Chapter THREE

Lola

I’M A ZOMBIE before coffee, especially after a night of shots and celebration and who knows what else. I don’t even remember walking home from the bar, so I don’t fully believe my eyes when I find Oliver asleep on my couch at 7 a.m.

He’s sprawled awkwardly, so long and angled. One of his feet is flat on the floor; the other hangs over the end of the couch. His shirt rides up to his ribs, exposing a flat stomach cut down the middle with a dark line of hair. Limp-legged, arms askew, and with his neck at an angle that will be sore when he wakes...

He’s really here, and he looks amazing.

It isn’t the first time he’s crashed at my place; the loft is only a few blocks from the store so we gave Oliver a key in case he ever needed to let one of us in, fix a leaky faucet, or make a quick sandwich on a break. In the eight months I’ve known him, he’s slept here twice: One night he worked so late before the store’s grand opening he could barely walk to our place, let alone drive home. He was gone before I was awake. Another night we’d gone out after the store closed, and had too many drinks for any of us to operate a moving vehicle. But that time, it had been the whole tangle of us, with random bodies crashing on any available soft surface.

London is already up and gone—surfing, most likely—and I’ve never had the joy of waking up and finding him here, alone. Admittedly, I’m being supercreepy, staring at him while he’s still asleep—and I’ll make every effort to feel bad about it later—but right now I just love seeing him first thing in the morning. Absolutely relish it.

I know it’s only a matter of time before Oliver’s stress about opening the store lessens and he can focus on other areas of his life... like dating. Like Hard Rock Allison. Heaven knows he has enough girls hanging out at the store hoping the hot owner will notice them. I don’t like the idea, but I know eventually it’s going to happen. The obliterating distraction of career has been true for me, too¸ and all of the travel recently has allowed me to keep my head in the sand about how much I genuinely like him. It’s allowed me to be happy taking whatever I can get.

But in the past few weeks, even with things feeling more insane than ever, I’ve emerged from the fog. I’ve had to admit to myself that I want him. And last night we were more flirtatious than we’ve ever been. The memory trips a fluttery, anxious beat in my chest.

When we met in Vegas, he was good-looking and interesting and had the sexiest accent I’d ever heard, but I didn’t know him. He didn’t want me? No big deal. But spending time with him —nearly all of my free time, if I’m being honest—and having him be such a fixture in my life has made the minor gnaw of desire grow into this painful kind of ache. Now, I know him, but I don’t know his heart. Not that way. And lately... I want to. I want to tell him, Just give me a week. A week of you, and your lips and your laugh in my bed. Just one week and then I think I’ll be okay.

It’s a lie, of course. Even having never kissed him—beyond the quick, soft kiss at our sham-of-a-wedding—I know I would be worse off if I had him for a week and then lost him. My heart would be warped afterward, like a wool sweater loaned to a body too big and growing misshapen until it doesn’t fit quite right anymore. Who knows, maybe I came to Oliver misshapen to begin

with. But unlike every boyfriend I’ve had—a couple of weeks here, a month there—Oliver never seems to poke at the tender spots, needing to know every detail. Instead he’s collected my details as they’ve been offered.

Maybe it’s why he’s still so close to me; I haven’t yet had the chance to ruin it by clamming up exactly when intimacy is needed.

Our first night, while our best friends were breaking headboards in Vegas hotel rooms with their libidos, Oliver and I walked up and down the Strip talking about work. About writing and illustrating, about the portrayal of women in comics, about the books we were currently reading. We talked about Razor Fish, and about his store—vaguely; I didn’t even know early on that he would be moving to San Diego.

It was so easy being with him, like a tiny taste of something delicious I want to keep eating until I explode. Somewhere at the tail end of the chaos on the Strip, I’d grown brave enough to stop him mid-step, and, with a tentative hand on his arm, turn him to face me.

“Our rooms are probably being used, ” I started, staring at his chin, before forcing my eyes to his.

He smiled, and it was the first time I realized how perfect his teeth are—white and even, with uniquely sharp canines that made him nearly wolfish—how smooth his lips are, how blue his eyes are behind his glasses. “Probably.”

“But we could...” I trailed off, blinking to the side.

He waited, watching me, eyes never betraying that he knew exactly what I was going to say.

I looked back up at his face, finding my bravery: “We could get a room for the night, if you wanted. Together.”

His expression remained exactly the same—Oliver’s amazing poker face held that gentle smile, that nonjudgmental, soft gaze—and he very politely declined.

I was mortified, but eventually got over it, and we’ve never spoken about it since.

Later, when I discovered he’d moved here and we had these people in common, and this passion for comics in common, too, we saw each other all the time and the awkwardness of that rejection dissolved. In its place came sort of a perfect friendship. Oliver doesn’t judge, he doesn’t mock, he doesn’t push. He doesn’t mind my quiet moods, where all I want to do is bend over a scrap of paper and draw. He doesn’t mind when I get worked up over something and babble for an entire hour. He’s honest in this completely easy way when I show him new story ideas. He plays weird music for me and makes me sit and listen because, even if I hate it, he wants me to understand why he likes it. He can talk about everything from Veronica Mars to Gen ¹³ to NPR to car repair, or he can just as easily not talk at all, which I sort of love, too. He listens, he’s funny, he’s kind. He’s entirely his own self, and that easy confidence is only part of what makes him nearly irresistible. The fact that he’s tall, gorgeous, and has the most perfect smile doesn’t hurt, either.

Two months after our marriage and annulment, I brought him over to meet my dad, Greg. That night, sometime over barbecued chicken and a bag of chips with salsa—and while I was off in the backyard trying to capture the sunset with oils—Oliver heard the rest of my story.

Dad came home from his third tour in Afghanistan when I was twelve, and he was a complete mess: he went from being a celebrated triage nurse to being an honorably discharged veteran, unable to sleep and hiding OxyContin in the kitchen. Mom couldn’t even take a month of it before she left in the middle of the night without anything as formal as a goodbye. To either of us.

I tried to pick up Dad’s pieces, Dad tried to pick up my pieces, and we muddled through for a few years until we realized we each had to carry our own pieces. It wasn’t good, but it got better, and my relationship with my father is one of the most cherished things I’ll ever have. I tell him nearly every thought I have, no matter how small. It’s what allows me to keep them mostly inside the rest of the time. I’d rather lose the sun than him.

I never knew exactly what Dad said to Oliver, but after that night, instead of ever asking about it, Oliver just folded it into the Lola Canon and let it be. Little details would come out in conversation—the shorthand that so far I’ve only ever had with Harlow and Mia—showing me that he knew more than I’d ever told him.

Mia and Harlow had been in my life when it all happened, so I’d never had to download it all in one sitting. But if there was ever anyone else I wanted to know me that well, it was Oliver. After a few beers almost a month ago, I’d finally asked him, “So how much of my origin story did my dad tell you? ”

He’d stilled mid-sip with his beer bottle touching his lips, and then slowly set it down. “He told me his version. From when you were small, until now.”

“Do you want to hear mine? ”

Oliver turned to me, and he nodded. “ ’Course I do. Someday. Whenever and however it comes out.”

I’d almost kissed him that night, nearly been brave enough. Because when I told him that I wanted to hear his story, too, he’d looked so grateful, so full of what on my face would mean love, that it was the first and only time I’d thought maybe he was in just as deep as I was. And I had to ruin it by lookin