I stuffed a donut chunk into my mouth and shook my head.

He half shrugged. “Then I can’t answer your question.”

“That’s not how conversations work,” I told him. “They’re not just even trades.”

“That’s exactly what they are,” he said. “At least, when you’re not into foot jobs.”

I covered my face with my hands, embarrassed, even as I said, “You were extremely rude to me, by the way.”

He was silent for a minute. I flinched as his rough fingers caught my wrists and tugged my hands away from my face. His teasing smile had faded, and his brow was creased, his gaze inky-dark and serious. “I know. I’m sorry. It was a bad day.”

My stomach flipped right side up again. I hadn’t expected an apology. I’d certainly never gotten an apology for that happily ever after comment. “You were hosting a raging party,” I said, recovering. “I’d love to see what a good day looks like for you.”

The corner of his mouth twitched uncertainly. “If you removed the party, you’d be a lot closer. Anyway, will you forgive me? I’ve been told I make a bad first impression.”

I crossed my arms, and, emboldened by the wine or his apology, I said, “That wasn’t my first impression.”

Something inscrutable passed across his face, vanishing before I could place it. “What was your question?” he said. “If I answer it, will you forgive me?”

“Not how forgiveness works either,” I said. When he began to rub his forehead, I added, “But yes.”

“Fine. One question,” he said.

I leaned across the table. “You thought they were doing your book, didn’t you?”

His brows knit together. “‘They’?”

“Spies and Liquified Pies,” I said.

He pretended to be aghast. “Do you perhaps mean Red, White Russians, and Blue Book Club? Because that nickname you just gave it is an affront to literature salons everywhere, not to mention Freedom and America.”

I felt the smile break out across my face. I sat back, satisfied. “You totally did. You thought they were reading The Revelatories.”

“First of all,” Gus said, “I’ve lived here five years and Pete’s never invited me to that book club, so yeah, it seemed like a fairly reasonable assumption at the time. Secondly”—he snatched a glazed cake donut from the box—“you might want to be careful, January Andrews. You just revealed you know the title of my book. Who knows what other secrets are on the verge of spilling out of you?”

“How do you know I didn’t just Google it?” I countered. “Maybe I’d never heard of it before.”

“How do you know that your Googling me wouldn’t be even more amusing to me?” Gus said.

“How do you know I wasn’t Googling you out of suspicion you had a criminal background?”

Gus replied, “How do you know I won’t keep answering your questions with other questions until we both die?”

“How do you know I’ll care?”

Gus shook his head, smiling, and took another bite. “Wow, this is terrible.”

“The donuts or this conversation?” I asked.

“This conversation, definitely. The donuts are good. I Googled you too, by the way. You should consider getting a rarer name.”

“I’ll pass that suggestion along to the higher-ups, but I can’t make any promises,” I said. “There’s all kinds of red tape and bureaucratic bullshit to go through.”

“Southern Comfort sounds pretty sexy,” he said. “You have a thing for Southern boys? No teeth and overalls really rev your engine?”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m led to believe you’ve never been to the South and possibly couldn’t locate ‘south’ on a compass. Besides, why does everyone try to make women’s writing semiautobiographical? Do people generally assume your lonely, white, male—”

“Coldly horny,” Gus inserted.

“—coldly horny protagonists are you?”

He nodded thoughtfully, his dark eyes intent on me. “Good question. Do you assume I’m coldly horny?”

“Definitely.”

This seemed to amuse him and his crooked mouth.

I glanced out the window. “If Pete wasn’t planning on using either of our books, how did she just forget to tell us what the book club’s pick was? I mean, if she just wanted us to join, you’d think she’d give us a chance to actually read the book.”

“This wasn’t an accident,” Gus said. “It was an intentional manipulation of the truth. She knows there’s no way I would’ve come tonight if I’d known what was really happening.”

I snorted. “And what was the end goal of this nefarious plan? To become an eccentric side character in the next Augustus Everett novel?”

“What exactly do you have against my books, which you have allegedly not read?” he asked.

“What do you have against my books,” I said, “which you have certainly not read?”

“What makes you so sure?”

“The pirate reference.” I dug in to a strawberry frosted covered in sprinkles. “That’s not the kind of romance I write. In fact, my books aren’t even shelved as romance, technically. They’re shelved as women’s fiction.”

Gus slumped against the booth and stretched his lean olive arms over his head, rolling his wrists to make them crack. “I don’t understand why there’d need to be a full genre that’s just books for women.”

I scoffed. Here it was, that always-ready anger rising like it had been waiting for an excuse. “Yeah, well, you’re not the only one who doesn’t understand it,” I said. “I know how to tell a story, Gus, and I know how to string a sentence together. If you swapped out all my Jessicas for Johns, do you know what you’d get? Fiction. Just fiction. Ready and willing to be read by anyone, but somehow by being a woman who writes about women, I’ve eliminated half the Earth’s population from my potential readers, and you know what? I don’t feel ashamed of that. I feel pissed. That people like you will assume my books couldn’t possibly be worth your time, while meanwhile you could shart on live TV and the New York Times would praise your bold display of humanity.”

Gus was staring at me seriously, head cocked, rigid line between his eyebrows.

“Now can you take me home?” I said. “I’m feeling nice and sober.”

8

The Bet

GUS SLID OUT of the booth, and I followed, gathering the donut box and my cup of sizzling shit. It had stopped raining, but now heavy fog hung in clumps. Without another word, we got into the car and drove away from DONUTS, the word glowing teal in the rearview mirror.

“It’s the happy endings,” Gus said suddenly as he pulled onto the main drag.

“What?” My stomach clenched. They all live happily ever after. Again.

Gus cleared his throat. “It’s not that I don’t take romance seriously as a genre. And I like reading about women. But I have a hard time with happy endings.” His eyes cautiously flashed my way, then went back to the road.

“A hard time?” I repeated, as if that would make the words make sense to me. “You have a hard time … reading happy endings?”

He rubbed at the curve of his bicep, an anxious tic I didn’t remember. “I guess.”

“Why?” I asked, more confused than offended now.

“Life is pretty much a series of good and bad moments right up until the moment you die,” he said stiffly. “Which is arguably a bad one. Love doesn’t change that. I have a hard time suspending my disbelief. Besides, can you think of a single real-life romance that actually ended like Bridget fucking Jones?”