Streams and Schemes

by Rebecca Kinkade

“Don’t touch her. If you put your hands on her one more time, I’ll rip them off and then sue you for getting blood on my suit. Am I fucking clear?”

Rules have never been important to me. I do what I want, however I want, and I don’t give a shit if it’s unconventional. But there’s one rule I hold to, a singular rule I created and have never broken: Never date a lawyer.

This is the greatest night of my life. …And apparently, it’s also the last one. But impending death aside, this is easily the greatest night of my life because it’s finally happening. She’s finally here.

his voice is electric. There’s a crackly vocal fry beneath his words that’s so sexy, it has to be brujería because nobody else’s voice has ever made my heart race.

After frantically texting Cora and Essie several iterations of Bitch, I’m about to ruin my life and offer my pussy to my new neighbor as a welcome-to-the-neighborhood gift, I googled him. Google delivered, and Lander and I were dead in the water like an inflatable pool swan at the end of a bachelorette weekend in Cabo. Despite the literally endless list of professions available to a tall as hell, distressingly attractive, well-educated guy, he had to be a lawyer.

It might take some maneuvering, but I’m a lawyer—one on the verge of a career-changing milestone. I maneuver shit for a living, and I’m very good at what I do. So, game on. It’s time to make partner and get the girl.

Damn. If I had known getting this girl would require Spanish fluency and regular cardio, I would have started training months ago.

I knew you were a camgirl. I knew, I watched, and I’m willing to bet I’m your best customer.”

Women bleed every month and literally grow babies in our bodies. There’s no reason we can’t fight like Kodiak bears and fuck like Valkyries.

I’m shamelessly persistent. If it takes a little scheming to get her, I’m down to scheme. It’s either that, or I’ll have to smash through the drywall separating us like the Kool-Aid man.

I realize Lander has won. He came here to annihilate my fortress’s defenses and he did so spectacularly. His banner men are practically scaling my castle walls at this point.

I’m never, ever going to get over this woman. She may break my heart, disappear from my life, and fundamentally destroy me, but I’ll never forget seeing her naked in real life for the first time.

There’s something about a woman five years younger than me calling me a good boy that has me torn between finding enough rope to wrangle the moon for her or using that same rope to bind her and prove I’m neither good nor a boy.

As the door closes behind her, I can’t help but release a stunned chuckle and the words I held back earlier: “I have no doubt in my mind that I’m going to fall madly in love with you.”

“How are you?” “Depends. Are you still opposed to dating me? Because if your answer is yes, then my answer to your question is: Not good, Valeria. I’m not good at all.”

“This is your life. Don’t let anyone tell you how to live it.”

His fists are balled and he’s standing darkly on the other side of my bedroom and watching me put on my earrings with the calm of Mount Vesuvius deciding Pompeii has finally gotten on its last nerves.

the woman in this mirror is deep and layered, capable of pain and anger and so much more than housework and deference. She’s capable of fighting.

“Valeria Fuentes, you were never just a beautiful girl to me. You were a confident, independent, elusive woman who made her own plans and lived by her own rules. Let me be abundantly fucking clear: I want all of you, including this.”

Euphoria has a way of swallowing everything awful and leaving glitter in its place.

Charades get competitive—as in bloody. Dalton literally tackles Everett to the ground, drunkenly bellowing, “How did you not know it was Single Ladies? I was doing the motherfucking Single Ladies dance!” while Everett shouts back, “You dance like a hippo! Everyone thought it was Fantasia!” I laugh so hard that I pee a little.

I should have been his legacy. He should have been there for my lacrosse games. He should have seen me graduate from high school and college and fucking law school. Hell, he should have had the decency to remember to wave at me when he walked in the door.

Blood doesn’t mean anything. Blood has given me nothing but grief and insurmountable expectations. The realest and most unwavering love I’ve ever experienced is from the people in this room. There’s not a drop of shared blood between us, but fuck if this isn’t a family.

I think my life so far has been building up to my relationship with Valeria. Every awful thing I endured, every hardship I weathered, was the universe’s way of telling me I’d be rewarded one day. Get the bad shit over with, Lander, because once you meet that girl, it’s going to be so fucking good.

If people spent less time trying to live forever and more time fucking each other in the freakiest ways possible, I imagine we’d all be happier.

We’re sick for each other and so disgustingly happy, and I never thought I could have this with a man—a connection so intimate and trusting, so unbelievably all-consuming. For a long time, the thought of ever giving myself fully to a man felt destructive. Now, it feels like home.

Once, our last act on Earth was to steal fifteen minutes with each other. Now, we have all the time in the world. And stopping, starting, going—it’s all the same to us. Because this is forever.

“Fun?” Everett questions, nearly sputtering. “This is the first time the incumbent DC congresswoman isn’t running for reelection in three decades. Lander, this is a matter of political unrest, not fun.” “The fact that you don’t smoke weed is so off-brand,” Cora chimes in, surveying Everett up and down. “Nobody loves plants more than you, and nobody needs it more than you.”

Careers, legacies, expectations: In the scheme of things, all of us will spend the last twenty minutes of our lives thinking about who we loved the most. As far as I’m concerned, if loving someone is the best way to spend your last twenty minutes, there’s no better way to spend a lifetime.

If you take anything away from this book, remember: Your family is your choice; blood is just a starting point.