From: Earl Grey <earlgrey50@hotmail.com>
Subject: Have a Nice Life
Date: June 6 8:39 AM
To: Anna Steal <annasteal@hotmail.com>
Dear Miss Steal—
It’s been a week since you left me, and I still cannot get over the heartache. You saw me at my most sadistic and most embarrassing, and, as I predicted, I’m one shame too screwed up for you. If we can’t be together, what do I have to live for? A lifetime of buying anything and everything I want with my vast fortune? None of it matters. The only thing I want is you.
Oh, and the latest Apple products. So I guess I want two things in life: you, and the latest Apple products.
And a Guns N’ Roses reunion album. So, that’s three things: you, the latest Apple products, and a Guns N’ Roses reunion album.
No, take off the one about Guns N’ Roses. Their last few records together were just okay, and Axl and Slash’s solo projects have been Crap City, where the hooks are gone and the licks are shitty. I think that was just nostalgia talking. So, the only things I want in life are you and the latest Apple products.
Earl Grey
CEO, The Earl Grey Corporation
I tap out a response to him:
From: Anna Steal <annasteal@hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: Have a Nice Life
Date: June 6 9:56 PM
To: Earl Grey <earlgrey50@hotmail.com>
Mr. Grey—
I touched myself today for the first time. I thought of you. I thought of us . . .
It’s a crazy world we live in. This world is fifty times more screwed up than you will ever be. Don’t do anything stupid. If we’re meant to be together, it will happen. If it’s not meant to be, then can either of us blame the other?
Anna
P.S. I’m preggers.
Immediately after I tap “send,” there’s a knock at the window. I set the iPad down, cross the room, and throw open the curtains. Instead of Earl Grey, it’s Jin.
“Can I come in?” he says, his voice muffled through the glass. He’s wearing tight cutoff jean shorts and seems to have lost his shirt. His muscles ripple in the moonlight. Oh my.
Chapter Twenty-eight
I OPEN THE GLASS WINDOW, but that still leaves the screen. Jin waits at my window ledge patiently, standing on a ladder that he’s leaned up against our house so he can reach my second-floor window. Unfortunately, no matter how hard I try to open it, the screen is stuck.
“Can you use the door?” I ask him.
He mutters something under his breath and backs down the ladder. Thirty seconds later, I hear him coming up the steps inside the house. I unlock the bedroom door and greet him with an awkward hug.
“Hey, you,” I say.
“Hey, you too,” Jin says.
We sit down on the bed at arm’s length from each other. I don’t want him to get the wrong idea—my relationship with Earl Grey might be on shaky ground, but it doesn’t mean my sperm bank is accepting donations.
“I heard you were back in town,” Jin says.
“You heard correctly,” I say.
“I saw the accident on the news. Kathleen and I thought you were dead for sure.”
“I’m not,” I say.
“Obvs,” Jin says.
“So you did hear about the crash, then. I was beginning to wonder . . .”
“You were beginning to wonder? Why? Because we didn’t visit you when you were in the hospital? I tried to, believe me. The security was so tight there because of that celebrity doctor treating you that they were only letting in immediate family to see you.”
And Earl Grey, my inner guidette whispers. “How are things going with your bronies?”
“I wasn’t sure how they would react after I succumbed to my anger at Eclipse and fought with your boyfriend, but they’ve been incredibly cool and supportive. I’ve learned that every brony struggles with feelings like anger. It’s incredibly helpful to talk through those feelings with my bronies.”
“And your forum moderator job at PonyExpression .net?”
“It’s all good. It’s the best job I’ve ever had—and since I have a million dollars now, I don’t have to worry about getting some boring ‛real’ job. I’ve even got a small Australian vanity press interested in publishing my pony fan fiction.” “That’s fantastic, Jin. I always believed in you,” I say. “How are your testicles?”
“The one I have left is fine,” he says.
The tone of his voice makes it sound like a sore subject, so I quickly change the topic. “How is Kathleen?”
“After she drove us into the Pacific Ocean, she decided to clean herself up. She knew she had a problem for a long time, but that accident was what finally drove her over the edge. So to speak. I dropped her off at an inpatient treatment center. She’ll stay there until she’s thirty days sober and then move to a halfway house, but so far so good.”
“Is she still a B?” I ask.
“Of course. She’s still Kathleen,” Jin says, grinning. “She’d like for you to visit her, though. She wants to know if you’re still planning to move to Seattle with her, or what your plans are. Do you even know?”
“The future is kind of up in the air,” I say. “I applied for a job in Seattle, but who knows if I’ll get it.”
“You’re living her dream, you know,” he says. “Dating a boardroom hottie, hanging out in Seattle . . .”
I shake my head. “She shouldn’t take it so personally.”
“Are you still seeing him?”
“Who?”
“C’mon, Anna. How long have we been friends? Four years? You can tell me anything.”
“I’m not sure if Earl Grey and I are still together or not,” I say. “Things are complicated.”
Jin shakes his head. “Why can’t love be easy?”
“Because nothing good ever comes easily,” I say.
Jin puts a hand on my knee. “I come easily.”
I try to imagine what life would be like if I took him up on his offer. We’ve always been close friends. If we took things to the “next level,” how
