Research: Romance

sobered

I spent the next two weeks between my apartment and the office writing from morning to night. With Desi and Henry on the outs, it was rare for the three of us to be in the same room together. When those meetings did happen, they were tense and often exhausting. So, we did our best not to meet unless necessary.

Desi would take my chapters without more than three sentences of conversation, edit them at breakneck pace, and send them back. Her sobriety and silence led everyone on our floor to offer her condolences at the end of the first week. At first Desi and I couldn't figure out why they kept patting her somberly and telling her they were sorry. Then we found out... she was so unusual that they assumed someone in her family had died.

We both knew she was suffering a different kind of loss, but even having her pining for Henry mistaken as grief wasn't enough to change her mind. She kept on, stubborn as ever.

On alternate days, Henry would come to the apartment. He usually showed up with armloads of marketing agendas, emails, and announcements about the pending book release. Dropping them on the table, we would sift through them quietly, working for hours as the two of us ignored the untouched coffee cooling in our mugs. He never said anything about Desi, except for once.

We had been sitting on the couch, him reading through emails while I wrote. The TV was on, playing as background noise. After a moment, I noticed him watching the screen with strange amounts of concentration. It was an ad for the perfume Desi liked to wear.

Before the ad ended, A woman's voice came on whispering seductively, "Absolutely unforgettable."

When he turned his attention back to work, Henry caught me watching him. He cleared his throat and looked at his computer.

"It's a good ad." Henry whispered. "Truthful hook."

He fidgeted for a moment before saying, "I should track down their marketing team..." 

Then he huffed, glaring at his computer as he began to forcefully type something on the keyboard. "And hunt them for sport."

He never talked or brought it up again, and I couldn't say I desired to press him about it. In turn, he gave me the same courtesy. Afterall, Henry was observant. After the meeting, he was the first to notice the way I evaded the topic of Robin. He never commented on how often I checked my phone despite knowing there was nothing there. Robin didn't call or text unless it was to ask if we were doing a trope on the scheduled days.

Any time my phone lit up; Henry would look at me. I would stare back at him for a long time. Neither of us knew what was best, and he didn't offer any advice. After a moment, I would exhale and type back: Not today... writing.

Then Henry would watch as I totaled every minute passing on the clock. Both of us dropped our eyes when it struck 10 o'clock and there wasn't a knock on the door or the sound of footsteps approaching. Sometimes I was relieved by it, other days, not so much. 

By the middle of the third week, and the midpoint of November, I had completed the first draft of my novel and sent it out. It's the first time in two months that I have a moment to myself as the book goes under review by multiple editors and beta readers. I finally had a weekend free.

That Friday, while I was making omelets for lunch, my phone rang instead of lighting up. Henry lifted his head from the paperwork on the table and raised an eyebrow at me, "It's Robin. Again."

I stared at him, flickering my eyes down to the phone as it rang. The number of times Robin had texted and called in the last week had grown exponentially. I still had no idea what to say, so I just let it go, telling myself I would figure it out, that I would call back now that the writing was done. I never did.