One
The first rule, and only rule, of getting over your ex is not to answer your ex's messages. This can be done in many different ways, depending on the person.
One, change his contact to read: DO NOT ANSWER.
Two, block his number.
Three, glue a horrible weave to your scalp, so you look and act like a completely different person.
Four, restart your life as the owner of a mom-and-pop shop in rural Indiana and call it a day. That's one I'm particularly partial to.
All of those are good and valid options. Do what you need to do-no judgment.
And yet, somehow I found a way to break this simple rule. Not just break it, burst it wide open. Shatter it, if you will.
Because it's one thing to open a text and answer it, but it's another to decide to follow through with your ex's request.
Look up Bad Idea on Google, and our helpful search engine will bring up, Did you mean: Kian Andrews's choices whenever they involve Hudson Rivers?
My phone in my pocket vibrates once. My heart skips a beat. Maybe Hudson will cancel. Or maybe he'll realize the past three months apart have been a mistake and he's going to confess he's still madly in love with me? Maybe . . .
Nope, just Divya.
DIVYA EVANS: Let the record show this is a horrible idea.
"Of course you'd say that," I mutter, forgetting she can't, you know, hear me. And she may be right, but that's not the point.
When I got the text from Hudson a week ago, asking me to meet him at the Watering Hole, Divya was not amused. She scrunched her nose, like she tasted something rancid in the air, which wasn't entirely off.
Because to her, that's exactly what my relationship with Hudson was: rancid. Which, sure, everyone says that about their ex because it makes them feel better.
KIAN ANDREWS: You've said that-multiple times.
DIVYA EVANS: And yet, you still refuse to listen. Remind me, who is getting their law degree from Harvard?
KIAN ANDREWS: Wow . . . we went . . . 12 hours without you bringing up your Harvard degree. That's a new record!
DIVYA EVANS: But seriously, K. This is a bad idea. Closure is not as good as you think it is.
As a lawyer-in-training, she should understand why I need to meet with Hudson: to process what happened, to close that chapter of my life, and to seal it shut with a glue made of truth. The memory of us breaking up is an open wound that never healed. It was a volatile separation, ending with me blocking him on every social media account possible and drinking myself into a stupor that made the two weeks after the breakup a blur.
Maybe that's why Divya's a prosecutor and not a defense attorney.
Another vibration, another text.
DIVYA EVANS: I'm only a few blocks away if you need me.
KIAN ANDREWS: What are the chances of that happening?
Pretty high, if I'm being honest. Divya has always been my rock, no matter what. Whether keeping me from embarrassing myself when I started crying in the club two weeks after my breakup, making sure I got my worthless self out of bed so I didn't lose my partial scholarship, or even finding some men with absolute dump-truck asses to help me get over my head-over-heels obsession with Hudson, Divya has been that ride-or-die friend for me.
So it's reasonable to assume that when I'm about to go through another major, traumatizing Hudson experience, Divya Evans is the big guns I have on speed dial. What's that expression? Behind every great gay guy, there's a badass woman?
Again, my phone pings. I pull it out of my pocket without looking, expecting another (well-deserved) quippy barb from Divya. But instead, an e-mail stares back at me.
FROM: JOBS@SPOTLIGHT.COM
TO: KIAN.ANDREWS@NORTHEASTERN.EDU
SUBJECT: RE: Investigative Journalism Fellowship Application | Andrews, Kian
I stare at the screen for so long, the colorful background of one of the many lighthouses on the North Carolina coast. I want to savor this moment. Hold on to it, keep it in its box, and put it on the top shelf somewhere out of the way. When I'm a famous journalist, with sources sliding into my DMs, begging me to write Pulitzer-winning stories, and I'm giving a guest lecture at Northeastern, they'll ask me, How did you get started in this competitive, cutthroat business?
And I'll say, I got my first job at Spotlight. Will Spotlight be around twelve years from now? Probably not. News websites cannibalize themselves like bacteria. But it's the hottest place to work in journalism right now. Getting an Investigative Journalism Fellowship here would change my life. It's like . . . do not pass Go; instead, get Park Place on your second turn.
I tap the screen, bringing it back to life. Still, the e-mail alert taunts me. Maybe it's an interview request? Maybe my pitch on the lack of education programs in Appalachia and how it's setting students back several grade levels that I spent all last week making really did impress them, and they are going to offer me a position sight unseen. That's not unreasonable. It happens to white guys all the time. And I have good-no, fucking great credentials.
Like Divya says, they would be lucky to have me.
But at the same time, as my journalism professor said, Journalists are a dime a dozen. Why should they pick you over anyone else?
Which takes us back to Divya Evans, and her exact words: You're a goddamn star, Kian Andrews.
I wish I had the same level of confidence as her. I do a good job faking it when I'm around her, at least I think I do. But now? Alone in this cafŽ? Doing something stupid like waiting for the boy who broke my heart-who is now seven minutes late-and staring at the e-mail that could change my career? That confident facade is pushed far back into the closet; a place I haven't been since middle school.
And I promised I'd never go back there again.
Without overthinking it, I tap on the screen one more time, and then enter my passcode before I can change my mind. One more tap, and the e-mail fills the screen.
Dear Mr. Andrews,
Thank you for your application for the Investigative Journalism Fellowship at Spotlight's Boston branch. At this time, we've decided-
"Shit."
There's no need to read any more. I could do a CTRL-F in my inbox, search for "we've decided," and bring up more than a dozen results. This is no different, despite how badly I want it to be different.
I'm halfway through a text to Divya, informing her about the rejection from Spotlight, which will undoubtedly result in her replying with drinks on me tonight, when a baritone clearing of a throat behind me causes my fingers to stop. The deep voice cuts through the low sensual tones of the Esperanza Spalding cover artist serenading us in the Watering Hole, even if it is as out of place as a Black guy in Boston-aka Me.
But the voice is unmistakable. Even after a year of avoiding everything related to Hudson, the way he speaks effortlessly from the depths of his diaphragm still sends shivers down my spine. And the way his boyish grin plays off his chiseled jaw makes me want to melt.
"Kian?"
I do my best to turn slowly. Eagerness isn't a good look on anyone, especially around your ex when you're trying to act like you've moved on and are living your best single twentysomething life.
But my God does he look nice.
No, not nice.
Hot.
"Hey," he says while smirking. "Thanks for coming."
There it is. That smile. The same lopsided grin that he gave me when we were paired together in freshman English to come up with a presentation of The Bell Jar. That smile he gave before our first kiss, after almost two years of mutual pining and "will they/won't they"s.
That Southern drawl. The same one that he would make more prominent when we lay in bed on Sunday morning because he knew what it did to me.
Put them together with a dash of traditionally accepted masculine features, a heaping of generational wealth, and you've got Hudson Rivers.
I can already feel the weightlessness taking over. That sickening feeling that's akin to carbon monoxide poisoning. That's what Hudson is: a toxin that makes my best judgment and practical senses go haywire. He's dangerous. He's a mistake. He's going to hurt me.
But he's so damn beautiful. And I miss him. I miss him so fucking much.
"Sure, no problem." Act relaxed. Act like you don't care. "I wasn't doing anything anyway. I mean I was in town. I mean I was in the area. I mean I was in the area because I live around here and I wasn't doing anything." Besides neurotically refreshing my e-mail for a response from Spotlight and obviously looking like an idiot who can't put together a decent sentence to save my life.
Divya and I went over this, like a witness being prepped for a dangerous cross-examination, multiple times. I have to hold my ground. I have to stay aloof. I have to stay in control. Thirty seconds in, and I'm doing the exact opposite of that.
Hudson just keeps that soft charming grin on his face. It's like he knows my brain is short-circuiting, because he does. He's seen me spiral like this before; multiple times in college when I had too many assignments due and I didn't know where to start. And all those times he let me just talk myself out of the hole I created, smiling at me, maybe rubbing his thumbs over my knuckles in a soft, circular soothing motion.
There's none of those touches this time, though, and that smile, once cute and teasing, now seems like it's twisted into one of mockery. Even if I know that's not true, it's what my head, and my heart, thinks. Funny how, when you break up with someone, everything you loved about them turns into everything you hate.
"I don't have much time, though," I add to recover some dignity and take some power back. "So, whatever you want, let's get this over with, yeah?"
"Course, darlin'."
I twitch, like his word is the trigger of a shock collar. He sits, frozen, as though he whispered some command that put a spotlight on him, and shakes his head.
"Sorry. Habit."
"You call a lot of boys that now?" That was uncalled for.
"That's not what I meant, and you know it, K."
"Kian," I remind him. "K is reserved for boyfriends, and you, Hudson, are no longer my boyfriend."
There. I did it. Advantage Kian. The ball's back in my court. I've taken control of the narrative. Hudson, the smooth-talking Georgian, is not the one who has the power anymore. I . . .
"That's exactly why I called you, actually." Hudson avoids my gaze, fiddling with the sugar packet I ripped open and threw on the counter. He folds it into a nondescript shape, unfolds it, and refolds it again, like some poor man's origami experiment.
I know that tick. He fiddles with things when he's nervous-truly, actually worried. It's just so rare that I see it. It's . . . about as common as finding a bad picture of BeyoncŽ.
Is it possible the great Hudson Rivers is more nervous than me?
"Screw it." He tosses the crumpled paper on the counter. "Nothing good comes from beatin' around the bush."
"I'm pretty sure I'm the one who t-"
"I called you here because I want you to be my boyfriend."
And at that moment, I've never been so happy to be Black. Not only because Black don't crack, but because the way the blood rushes to my cheeks would make me look like an overly ripe tomato.
And there is nothing sexy about tomatoes.
Two
There are two perfect descriptors that come to mind for most people when they mention Hudson Rivers: whiskey and a steel-string guitar.
Whiskey because his voice is as smooth as the alcohol his family famously distills and markets.
And a guitar because, not only is he great at playing it, but there's a soft, alluring twang to his voice that makes the Sirens in the Odyssey sound like piss-poor contestants on The X Factor.
Does Hudson know he has this effect on people? Absolutely.
Does he use it to his advantage? One hundred percent. I've seen it in action.
Do any of us care? Fuck no.
Because who runs the world? Not girls, but boys with stellar jawlines. And Hudson Rivers has exactly that.
And money-that helps too.
I mean, come on, what normal person can pull off a black Henley, with dark jeans, a backward cap, and chunky boots, in a Boston September, and make the fashion look actually good? But he makes it look effortless, and I hate him for that. But I also love him for that. Or maybe it's my horniness talking. I guess it could be all three.
If I'm being honest, all those descriptors work for Hudson. On other men they would be nauseating, but Hudson carries the crown well. He's mastered the balance between confident and arrogant like it's his major. He knows he's attractive but doesn't talk about it. I've always told him he looks like Jesse Williams, if he were ten years younger. I still stand by that incredibly accurate statement. Sure, he hates taking selfies, which makes it hard to show a side-by-side photo, and his Instagram is, at most, the occasional picture of someplace he's traveled, or a sunset, or something else mundane (as of sixteen hours ago, according to his account, he finally finished The Water Dancer after a year of false starts-good for him). But that doesn't mean I'm wrong! Consider all that, along with the fact he doesn't talk about his family's wealth or influence unless it actually relates to the conversation, and on paper, Hudson Rivers is a good person. Hell, in real life, he's a great person.
You know, besides dumping me at this exact coffee shop-at the exact table we've been sitting at awkwardly for the past ten minutes.
"You look good," he finally says, taking a sip of his Americano.
I let out a quiet scoff that I think goes unnoticed.
I, on the other hand, have changed significantly. Not by choice, mind you. If romantic comedies have taught me anything, it's that after a big breakup, you need a big change. And do not make that big change cutting your own hair in the mirror, because that never turns out well.
Copyright © 2022 by Kosoko Jackson. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
