My So-Called Sex Life (How to Date, #1)(19)

Axel doesn’t soften. He just nods, his lips tight as a drum.

Maybe this is a good time to practice adulting. “Hello, Max,” I say, coolly, biting back all the things I want to say to my ex.





9





SEPARATE-ISH


Hazel

I met the sharp-dressed Max more than a year ago at a book party. I’d heard about him from Axel over the years, since agents were up there on the wheel of regular conversation topics after coffee is life, how I procrastinated today, and why didn’t I come up with that brilliant idea that’s at the top of bestseller lists.

At our writing sessions, there were a lot of Max says this, and Max says that, especially since their working relationship was newer. Axel’s first agent had retired right around the time when we started writing together, so my agent, Michelle, had handled the deal for both of us for the Ten Park Avenue series. Shortly after that was inked, Axel signed on with Max for his solo projects.

But I’d never met him. There was never a need or an opportunity.

Until we went to a launch party one evening at An Open Book. Axel snagged me from the post-reading crowd and said, “All right. Let’s do this. For four years of writing together, you’ve avoided meeting Max, but that ends tonight since he’s here.”

I nudged him playfully. “Yes. I’ve been darting and dodging him all this time,” I’d said.

You didn’t often meet your friends’ agents unless you all happened to be at the same industry fete together. Stars simply hadn’t aligned till that night.

Axel draped an arm around me and steered me to the man in the suit. His back was to us while he chatted with a guy wearing a vest and a cowboy hat. Another writer, Axel whispered. The writer’s name was Vince Caine, two short syllables that immediately set off pen name bells in my head. As we waited for an opening, Axel and I made small talk about Vince’s ultra-manly moniker.

When vest-and-hat Marlboro Man and GQ agent were done, Max turned around.

And Max was all kinds of wow.

Those warm hazel eyes.

That scruffy jaw.

That delightfully arrogant grin.

Most of all, that tailored suit that hugged his thighs, his arms, his chest.

I like all sorts of styles on men, from the rough-and-tumble, leather-jacket-and-jeans look to the workout-casual, polo-wearing style, to this moneyed three-piece wardrobe. I like men; it’s easy for me to write delectable heroes because I’m a woman who enjoys the male form a lot. I just wish I could have what my heroines are having—toe-curling, sheet-grabbing sex. Maybe someday I’ll have great sex. So far, I’ve only ever had just the slightly-above-average kind. Perhaps that’ll change for me soon.

“Hazel, this is the infamous Max,” Axel had said as he’d introduced us.

Max extended a hand. “Then you must be the notorious Hazel.”

Notorious? I’d take it. Nicknames were fun in my book. “The one and only,” I said, taking my turn with the flirting baton.

Axel dusted one hand against the other. “My work here is done,” he said, then with a flicker of relief in his eyes, he walked away.

For the next several months I dated Max, fell for Max, and nearly moved in with Max. During our coffee-shop writing sessions, I told Axel little details about his agent. How sweet he was for sending me tiger lilies, how fantastic the meal was at the new vegetarian restaurant he found, how clever he was for his double word score in Words With Friends (even though I’d nabbed a triple-worder).

Axel would want to know those details, I’d figured, since he’d introduced Max and me. Besides, when Axel had started dating a woman he’d met at a bar the year before, he’d told me the honeymoon details about how taken he was with Sarah. She was sexy and sweet, everything he’d wanted.

Well, until she left him, saying she’d grown bored.

The worst fear of a creative person was being dull.

Anyway, because I’d heard all about Sarah when Axel was falling for her, I did the same about Max. I couldn’t shut up about how the man loved to give gifts. From flowers to chocolates to restaurants, Max was the ultimate winer and diner. For months, the cynical writer in me hibernated while the romantic allowed herself to be hook-line-and-sinkered.

The first night we had dinner, he ended the meal early to tend to a client call overseas then sent me truffles in the morning.

The truffles worked.

The part of me that doubts everyone, including myself, the part that knows that we are all drawn to those who can hurt us because it’s familiar, ignored all the circumstantial evidence over the months I spent with Max.

It took a photo of Max kissing another woman at a nightclub in Barcelona for me to see the truth. Max was there entertaining Axel and Vince at an international book festival. Axel was in the foreground toasting and Max was in the background kissing another woman.

I’d been fooled from the start, since the dinner and the truffles.

I kicked Max out of my life ten months ago, putting him at the tippy top of the whiteboard.

And there’s absolutely no need for me to chat with Max at the airport today. Except, for the little matter of adulting.

Max is Axel’s agent. I made a vow to behave better. No matter how sleazy Max is with love, he’s magic with books. Axel needs this guy in his life, so I grin and bear it, smiling painfully as I say, “Hello, Max. How are you?”