Page 2 of The Friends and Rivals Collection

IT’S BECOMING A HABIT

Axel

A long time ago, in a decade far, far away, I’d been terrified to walk to the front of my eleventh grade English class and present a speech on the dangers of wealth in The Great Gatsby.

Speaking in front of a few dozen high schoolers who mostly didn’t give a shit was horrifying.

My stepfather told me to picture everyone in the class naked. My brain did some extra credit. I didn’t just undress everyone as I opined on Fitzgerald’s depictions of the moneyed class. I imagined everyone in my class fucking.

A writer’s habit was born.

Ever since then, I’ve mentally written character bios for almost everyone I’ve met, detailing traits all the way down to their bedroom preferences.

Assigning habits—like if they talk during The Godfather, how many cardboard wrappers they could possibly need on a cup of coffee, and whether they like it doggie style or being tied up and taken—has become the way I keep everything in perspective.

The hostess? She only drinks soy chai lattes, and she brings her own cup to the artisan fair-trade coffee shop. She doesn’t have a favorite position because sex is boring in the same way everything is boring to her.

Poor gal.

The bartender over there with the goatee? The ring says he’s married but the way he stares at the hostess says he jerks it to her when the wife’s asleep. That is, after he reads lit fic in hardback.

Then there’s the redhead I’d recognize from several football fields away.

Too bad I don’t have the luxury of yards and yards.

Instead, she’s seated mere feet from me at the last table at the edge of the dining room.

The woman with the long, lush hair, the dangerous green eyes, the pouty lips, and the sharpest mouth I’ve ever met.

Fuck her bio. I refuse to write one for Hazel Valentine.

Ever.

She’d better not be the other party at my dinner. I came here to research how to hire a hitman for my next book, not to share a meal with a woman who hates me.

But as the hostess walks me to the last table, the inevitable becomes my Friday night, and my brain concocts a bio in spite of my better judgment.

Hazel Valentine:

Emotional wounds — we’re going to need a bigger boat for hers since someone clearly has daddy and boyfriend issues.

Coffee — ideally via an IV drip. At all times of the day.

Sex preferences—nope. Stop. Just stop. Don’t go there.

As I near, Hazel looks up from her phone. For a moment she seems flustered but then she schools her expression. There’s simply flint in her gaze.

The hostess waves to the table without speaking. I thank her and pull out a chair as she walks away, dismissing us already.

Hazel stares at me unflinchingly, as if challenging me to leave.

Won’t happen, sweetheart.

I park myself, sliding into the chair across from the redhead, then smile without showing any teeth. I fold my hands and meet Hazel’s steely gaze. “Let me guess. You’re here to test oh-so-cute opening chapters for your next book,” I say.

She tilts her head, smiling slyly. “And you must be researching how your next bad guy will off someone, hoping it will make your latest book more…scintillating.”

Well, maybe she will give me some inspiration on how to hire a hitman after all.