until this morning that my routine had changed slightly over the past couple of weeks. Instead of getting up and into the shower, I reached for my phone and checked my email. I’d been so focused on keeping a handle on last night’s event, I’d needed to check my messages the second my eyes were open to make sure there were no fires to put out. More often than not, I had something from Devin—either one he’d sent before he’d gone to bed the night before or one from early that morning. Not a crisis or a fire, just one more in our ongoing thread of emails about logistics.
This morning, as I lounged in bed and scrolled through my email, I had plenty of messages, but none were from Devin. I wasn’t surprised that he hadn’t sent me anything else—the event was over and he’d thanked me and the team profusely for it—but I was kind of surprised by how much it disappointed me not to find a new email from him.
I showered. I made my coffee. I made some breakfast. As I ate, my thoughts kept drifting to my email inbox and the new message that hadn’t been there. Was it weird that I wanted to keep our conversation going? Probably. Then again, after the way my heart had gone wild the moment I’d laid eyes on him…maybe not.
But how to keep that line of communication open? I was the opposite of smooth with people I knew. Someone I didn’t know and really wanted to know? Oh fuck. I’d come to the conclusion that those romantic comedy scenes with awkward dudes who have no idea what to say or do, and who only manage to fuck things up until they’re complete disasters? I was the living breathing personification of every one of those scenes. Combined.
Sweat trickled down the back of my neck, and I batted it away. All right, this was stupid. I was not going to work myself up to sweating and hyperventilating over sending a stupid email to a guy. I’d faced down my ridiculous fear of putting together an event for fans by putting together an event for one fan, and damn it, I could send an email to an attractive man and see if I got one back.
I put down my fork and picked up my phone. Before I could talk myself out of it, I wrote, How is Dallas enjoying her souvenirs? If there’s anything else she’d like, let me know. I can hook her up.
It wasn’t the smoothest thing in the world, but it did give me an excuse to make contact, so I hit Send and hoped for the best.
Then I kept eating and…also hoped for the best because goddammit, did I really send him that email? Dallas had been thrilled with everything we’d signed for her. She and her dad had barely been able to carry it all. Come on. I couldn’t think of anything even slightly smoother than that? Well, at least now I didn’t have to worry about how to keep this line of communication open, because I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to—
A soft ping turned my head, and the push notification on my phone almost made me choke on my eggs.
He’d responded.
I dropped my fork, grabbed the phone, and quickly opened my inbox, stomach roiling with certainty that he was going to say something like Really, dude?
To my surprise, he’d written: Oh, she is loving everything. Her stepdad is jealous as hell.
I laughed into the silence of my kitchen. I hope he’s not mad. I can probably find something for him too.
In seconds, he replied, You don’t have to do that. You’ve already done a ton, and he and Dallas’s mom are thrilled too. How did you get the entire team to play along? Not that they seemed like they needed any arm-twisting.
Nah, not at all. They love doing stuff like this. Tell them it’s something for kids, and they’re all over it.
The emails kept going. With the logistics of last night out of the way, we just started chatting. After an hour or so, I told him I was logging off to go for a run, but would be back online in another hour.
When I came back, he’d responded, I wish I could go for a run. It’s gorgeous out. Then he’d followed that with, Damn it, I really want to go for a run. Do you have any idea how hard it is to