Page 30 of The Dirty Version

He was on the wicker sofa with her a moment later, under an umbrella of fading beach light and rustling fronds.

He wasted no time, his enthusiasm tipping Tash laughingly horizontal.

“They loved Episode Five. Like, loved it—Reggie, Doolittle, everyone.” Caleb pressed their foreheads together.

“The story team came back with zero notes. That never happens. They thought our intercourse was flawless.”

Tash smiled into the close-up of his triumph. “That’s great news.”

“It is great news.” He levered them both up from the couch, raising their joint fists overhead in victory; before wrapping Tash’s arms around his waist. “However, it accelerates the schedule. Preproduction needs Astrid in LA now. It means I have to miss your podcast taping.”

“You’re going back to California?” Tash’s gut lurched involuntarily.

“What? No.” He cocked his head at her in confusion. “I have to head to the hotel. I have calls all day tomorrow.” He took a literal rewind as he stared at her expression. “Sorry. I got excited. Let’s do that again.”

Tash’s reflexes loosened as he manhandled her back onto the outdoor sofa, repositioning her face and penning her with his forearms.

He took off his glasses and set them on the coffee table.

“Hi.” He pantomimed a starting over. “I’m finished downstairs.

Braverman really liked our sex. The production schedule moved up, and tomorrow I have to be on calls.

” Regret shadowed Caleb’s unshaven jawline.

“I’m bummed to miss your podcast taping. ”

“It’s okay.” Tash dismissed it easily, simply relieved he could stay. She’d have to process that, and all its implications—what would happen once one of them exited their bubble of fiction.

Caleb wasn’t finished. “Lastly, now Astrid can’t come to the party Sweetwater is throwing for Ram’s Big Gun anniversary. She wants you to have her ticket and her VIP pass.”

Tash didn’t try to hide her doubt. The only thing Astrid Dalton probably wanted to give her was a giant fuck-you—despite Caleb’s insistence they’d “had a talk” and “cleared things up.” Tash had seen that unrequited little-sister heartbreak with her own eyes.

She wrinkled skepticism at Caleb’s grin. “Don’t you think that ticket should go to someone who doesn’t get hives when Braverman’s around?” She counteroffered: “You should take it.”

“Natasha,” Caleb reprimanded, nose-to-nose, “I have a ticket. I want you to take Astrid’s. So you can be my date.”

“Oh.” The swooping in her stomach flitted to Caleb in red-carpet formalwear. Then to “date,” then to worry about the studio’s impression. “Is that smart?”

He shrugged. “What, for writing buddies to attend a celebration of their director’s work?

It could be a show of unity. Preproduction is so busy, no one from The Colony will be there anyway, aside from Ram.

” He feigned more indifference. “Plus, we’re in the homestretch—pretty soon, we won’t be colleagues anymore. ”

Hope joined her uncertainty. “You’ve thought about this.”

“I’ve thought about it.” Caleb’s eyes went earnest. “I cleared it with Stacy.”

“You cleared it with Stacy.” Tash parroted the revelation, the disclosure fizzing in her chest.

He floated over her with set-back shoulders, seemingly ready to make his case. “She’s my business partner. I had to come clean—I hope that’s okay with you. She’ll keep it confidential.”

“It’s okay.” Tash lifted her mouth to meet his concern. “When’s the party?”

At this, Caleb fully braced: “Thursday night.”

Tash gasped in outrage, palms pushing him away, as Caleb laughed and pinned her struggle. “ This Thursday? As in, two days from now? Rafferty, that is not how you ask a girl out! What if I don’t have the right dress?”

He gleamingly resisted. “Come on—I read your best friend’s paper on female costume semiotics. You have the right dress.”

She paused her skirmish. “You really read that?”

From where he’d dropped his face onto her stomach, Caleb peeked up bashfully.

“Not the whole thing. It got pretty complex.” His mirth slid up her body.

“But just listen—the party’s at an estate in Coral Gables.

A car will come to pick you up. I have to go back to my hotel tonight, and I won’t see you until then.

” His blue became a pining premonition. “Two days could be a long time.”

Tash stilled. She let his words sit like an unopened present, the gifting itself enough, and too new for a tearing open. She kissed him on the balcony until the tree canopy went dark.

Back inside, she made them dinner with the only things left in her fridge, toasting bread and scrambling eggs while Caleb collected his belongings.

She piped Leo’s podcast through her speakers as she foraged for knives and forks and plates, pointing her spatula sarcastically at a convoluted bit of Leo’s critique. “See what you’ll be missing?”

Caleb came to sit on a bar stool across the countertop expanse. “Remind me why you’re going on this podcast?”

Tash herself might have been no longer sure. She heaped eggs onto a square of buttered toast, sliding him the plate, rummaging for salt and pepper. “It’s good press.”

Neutrally: “And are you doing press at the moment?”

“No. But there’s been publicity around the adaptation. Which the studio’s been handling. I don’t get to be involved.” Because Braverman had boxed her out. “Leo’s podcast came directly to me. It’s an opportunity to talk about my work in my own words.”

Caleb took a thoughtful bite and chewed. “Fair enough. Although it sounds a little niche. Like, I’ve never heard of this journal—not that I’m your benchmark.”

“It is niche.” She couldn’t refute it. Leo’s journal was esoteric, elitist, illuminati, self-referential, smug, and Tash had been clutching her fraught thread of connection to it ever since she’d received the panel invitation.

Despite the way she’d parted with the journal’s founder, Leo’s opinion still carried ivory-tower weight. “Which makes it interesting.”

“Okay.” Caleb accepted her explanation without a trace of judgment, returning to his toast and eggs.

“And...” Tash sighed, because trust , and because she was sharing Caleb’s plate and fork.

“I hate who I was when I knew him—I was inexperienced and intellectually uncouth. Our relationship was the definition of a power imbalance. He manipulated me, and I dropped out of school when we broke up. This is my chance to redeem that Tash. To show us all who I’ve become. ”

Caleb stared at her intently, picking up her napkin, wiping his mouth. “That’s a lot of pressure to put on a podcast appearance.”

“I know.” Tomorrow she’d feel like a boxer getting ready for the ring.

“Janelle will be there, right? Tell her I say hi.”

Tash used the opportunity to change the subject, elbows sweetly on the counter. “Out of curiosity, do you have any male friends?”

He went with the pivot, blinking into her gibe. “Sure. I have buddies from basketball. And I’m in a poker game with my dad and his dudes.”

“But all the closest people in your life are women?” She came around the kitchen island to confirm. “Except for your father?”

Caleb clamped his knees on either side of her cutoffs. “Is there something wrong with that?”

“Of course not.” She looped her wrists around his neck.

“Why? Do you have male friends?”

Tash scowled playfully. “Are you kidding? Men are the worst. Have you not read my book?”

* * *

Caleb slung his messenger bag on a half hour later, the strap across clothes he’d been in and out of for days.

Before he left, he organized a parting gift, insisting on setting Tash up to meditate with Stacy. He moved throw pillows from Tash’s living room couch onto the floor, opening her laptop on the coffee table. He switched off the extra lights.

He kissed Tash by the duplex’s front door.

“She’ll ring your screen in five minutes.” He performed reluctant motions of decamping, tangling Tash by the hallway mirror. “She’s great. It’ll clear your head for tomorrow. I asked for the same technique she does with actors.”

Tash’s fingers burrowed into his back pockets. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Okay, I’ll go.”

But he was still there when her computer trilled with an incoming videoconference.

“I’m leaving.” He promised this to a live feed from a mat room in a Burbank warehouse, before he made buoyant introductions. “Stacy Mancini, this is Natasha Grover, the author of The Colony .”

“I know who Tash Grover is, Caleb—she’s the only reason I took this call.” Stacy winked. Her head was shaved, her muscle tee showing off ripped biceps. “Tash, I’ve heard a lot about you. I think we spoke on the phone.”

“I remember.” Tash suddenly realized the importance of this interaction, and that she was desperate for Stacy to like her. She beamed warmth at the other half of Caleb’s boutique consultancy. “It’s nice to officially meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet you, too.” Stacy’s vitality buzzed through the cross-country pixels. “I’ve been following the additions you two are blocking—no comments on Episode Five? That’s unheard of. Doolittle probably shat himself.”

Tash’s automatic bias toward this woman ballooned.

She surveilled the high shelf lined with flickering pillar candles running the length of wall behind Stacy’s head, dance-studio-style mirrors reflecting polished flooring, stacks of crash pads, industrial concrete.

Tash absorbed every detail, tucking away another Caleb puzzle piece.

Deep male grunts and vinyl thwacking began to echo from the warehouse end of the call.

“What’s that noise, Stace?” Caleb backtracked from yet another half-hearted attempt to leave.

Stacy smiled dryly. “It’s the combat class I had to kick out. They’re sparring in our hall. Tash, you’ll have to forgive us.” Ostensibly, her glare was meant for Caleb. “Someone did not give me a lot of time to prepare.”

Caleb raised his chin at her affectionately. “Pros don’t need time.”