The Yes Factor - Erin Spencer
Prologue
BEX
My palms are sweating as I grip the steering wheel and pull into a parking spot. I’ve finally found the courage to park after two drive-by’s of the café where Sean and I are supposed to have our first…let’s call it meeting. Picking up my phone, I scroll through photos he’s texted me. My face blushes as I come across his latest dick pic, one of many that I scroll past, trying to find a clear photo of his face. His dick pics are impressive, but now’s not the time for a lengthy perusal. Near the beginning of our text thread is a photo that looks like a realtor’s headshot—did I ever even ask what he does for a living? Looking from my phone to the café patio, I search for a man who resembles the photo. The man I’ve been texting/sexting for nearly two months, but haven’t met in person. Yet.
It started like it usually does.
A swipe. A match. A message.
The typical back and forth that turns into late-night banter. Loneliness masked in lust. The desire for love downplayed to not seem desperate.
That must be him. At least he looks somewhat similar to the photo. He’s sitting alone in the café waiting for me, just as we’d planned, but my mind begins to whirl with doubts. Why would this go anywhere? He knows nothing about me, really—only made-up sexual fantasies and embellished truths. Not that I downright lied. But let’s just say I omitted a few mundane facts of my reality. Now, about to meet him in real life for an actual, in-person meeting, what will we even talk about? Trying to find love on an app, in Los Angeles, as a single mom, inching toward forty. Who do I think I am? How can sexting a few times a week translate into a real relationship? It was doomed from the first dick pic.
Feeling utterly defeated, I reach for my phone and start typing a text.
Sorry for the last-minute cancelation, but I can’t make it.
I quickly delete it. Too cold and impersonal after all the late-night NC-17 details we’ve shared with each other over the past few weeks.
What about, I hate to cancel on you last-minute, but I’ve realized that after all this sexting, maybe we’re better off letting the fantasy just be a fantasy. I wish you all the best.
I re-read the text and it just seems kind of cruel. Maybe honesty isn’t the best policy, after all. Fuck it.
Sorry for the last-minute cancelation, but I have a family emergency. Rain check?
And send. The text bounces into the ether. Too late for second thoughts. I slouch in the driver’s seat, taking a moment to wallow in my self-inflicted defeat, as I watch Sean check his phone then gather his things to leave. Simple as that. No harm. No foul. Regret starts to weigh on me. Maybe I should have met him after all.
Annoyed, I flip down the car visor and look at myself in the mirror. What are you doing, Bex? I answer my own question with a shake of my head. Another failed attempt at a connection, over before it even begins.
Liv
“Ethan?” Emma says.
My husband is staring out the window, the rush of a busy London street below, with a bored look on his face as Emma calls out his name.
“Ethan?” she says again. “How does it make you feel when you hear what Liv just said?”
Waiting for Ethan to answer, I stare at Emma’s long, curly hair, the kind that looks like it takes a lot of discipline and hard work to control. I wonder if she washes it every day. I wonder if she fights with her partner.
“Sorry, what?” Ethan snaps out of it as if he realizes he’s in this room, on this sofa, looking out that window for the first time in his life. Instead of the fourth time, at a cost of £100 an hour. “Oh, um.” He clears his throat and shakes his arm so that his Patek Philippe watch moves around his wrist so he can see the watch face. I know this move and what it means.
“I was just thinking,” he says.
“Yes?” Emma nods encouragingly from her throne-like chair opposite the sofa, urging him on with an open look.
“I was just thinking. I need to leave early. I’m sorry. I completely forgot I had a deposition today,” Ethan says, not at all sorry. He gets up and slowly makes his way to the door, stopping to turn to us before