Seven Days in June(76)

“She said dump truck,” corrected Cece smoothly. “I know, the music is so loud.”

The bookfluencer grimaced, offered her apologies, and floated off.

Eva crowded the girls closer to her. Audre was tucked away downstairs with a gaggle of toddlers watching Paw Patrol. This was a safe space.

“My plan was to ignore Shane,” she whispered. “But we had a day together. And it was…it was fun. Really fun. He met Audre!” She gestured for Belinda and Cece to move in closer. “We had sex all over James Baldwin’s house last night.”

Her friends gawked at her.

“Where?” asked Cece.

“Nicely done!” Belinda approved. “I’ve always wanted to get naked and rub myself all over Langston Hughes’s abode in Harlem. You know, to manifest his gifts.”

“No, no, no,” said Eva. “Shane’s renting James Baldwin’s place for the week.”

“That’s lovely,” said Cece. “Two successful authors reuniting, having their first adult sex together while surrounded by the spirit of a literary legend…”

Eva took a sip of her seltzer. “Wellll, it wasn’t the first time. That was three days ago. At a downtown art installation.”

“The hell y’all doing out here?” said Belinda, pouting and jealous. “I’m supposed to be the kinky one!”

“It sounds crazy, but the whole thing feels so natural. As kids, we were too raw; we just weren’t ready for each other. Now we are.”

Cece radiated satisfaction. Eva had admitted to a relationship with Shane. At her party. The exorbitant price tag was worth it. “So do you really think you can pick up where you left off, after fifteen years?”

Eva didn’t answer her. Because she’d stopped listening. Instead, she was beaming in the direction of the front door.

There was Shane. Exasperatingly handsome in a dark tee, dark jeans, and three-day stubble—and gazing at Eva like she hung the goddamned moon. Eva smiled even wider, if it were even possible. And then, flashing the smirk of the century, Shane stuck his finger into his cheek, in the exact spot where Eva’s dimple was flashing at him across the room. Eva winked at him, shooting him finger guns.

Belinda fell out laughing. “Y’all are the corniest dorks. I’m in violent support of this.”

“Look at everyone’s faces,” gasped Cece, delighted by the revelers’ breathless reaction to having a Mysterious Author within their midst. A members-only party wasn’t a party without a surprise guest. Thrusting her drink into Belinda’s free hand, Cece rushed off to greet her famed protégé.

She wasn’t the only one. It took only a few minutes for Shane to become swarmed by fawning peers. Between sweet glances her way, she could read on his face that he was uncomfortable. He was trapped, forced to be social when he just wanted to be with her.

It was all Eva wanted, too. She was seconds away from taking a flying leap into his arms. Instead, she stood there, radiating big love energy in Shane’s direction. And slowly, one by one, the partygoers picked up on it.

Word traveled fast.



Overheard near the terrace:

“Wow. I’ve never seen Shane Hall smile,” said a busty memoirist.

“I’ve never seen Shane Hall, period,” remarked a bespectacled New Yorker essayist.

“Who’s he making eyes at? Eva Mercy?”

“They’re dating,” said the essayist. “I saw fan pics yesterday. Black Book Twitter.”

“Stop,” exclaimed an agent. “I always assumed she was a super-femme lesbian. Aren’t vampires a lesbian thing?”

“She does have that Zo? Kravitz energy.”

“Zo? Kravitz isn’t a lesbian.”

“Neither is Eva Mercy, apparently. She’s looking at Shane like he’s a sizzling steak fajita.”



Overheard near the bar:

“I fucked Shane Hall at BookExpo America in 2007,” whispered a gazelle-like novelist. “He was so sweet!”

“Then it wasn’t him, girl,” said her agent.



Overheard near the cheese smorgasbord:

“Eva’s hella chill,” said a sneaker designer who spoke in a ’90s-slam-poetry voice. “It doesn’t sit well with my spirit, her falling for the dangerous type.”

“He’s fine as fuck, though,” said an Alvin Ailey choreographer with a multicolored manicure.

“Name me a fine man who isn’t problematic.”

“True. Pretty women are normal, but pretty men are nightmares.”

“On the low-low,” started the designer, “ever since I started dating unattractive men, I’ve been thriving.”

“Where do you find them?”

“Atlantic Center on a weeknight. Between the DMV, Applebee’s, and Home Depot? Bitch, you’ll leave with a main and a side.”



Overheard on a couch:

“I can’t believe Shane Hall’s here. He’s so intimidating,” whispered a wide-eyed young author who’d just dropped a smash debut novel, I Sing of Rainbow Children.

“We’re just as talented,” lied her friend, a celeb ghostwriter. “And we’re not hot messes.”

“Somebody said he’s sober now.”