A Merry Little Meet Cute

by Julie Murphy

Once the camera started rolling, I nudged One Hundred Percent That Horse into a gallop and acted the hell out of a smoldering duke, riding his way smolderingly to his manor house.

Totally picturing Jonathan Bailey rn

That’s what it always came down to. It was all I ever wanted in any relationship—for the person I was seeing to not only be with me at night when things were fun and sweaty and full of delight, but to be there in the harsh light of day when there was no hiding from reality. I wish I could go back in time and tell little Bee that the dark was nothing to be scared of and that the hardest things in life usually happened in broad daylight.

“I like you,” I whispered, taking her coffee from her and setting it on the table next to mine. “I like you so much that it scares me. And when I think about leaving and never seeing you again, it makes me feel like something’s being yanked out of me. Something important, something that I need to breathe and eat and live. I want more than memories with you, Bee. I want moments upon moments.”

My heart

Can you please, for the love of cheesy tots and Natty Light, call them back?

“I don’t know what to do with this information, and my legs feel like Jell-O.”

“The point isn’t how far we can push ourselves,” I said. “The point is being okay. Being able to live with space and room in our lives so we can be okay.”

Because that’s what love was—more than a word, more than a mountain of the best and noblest intentions in the world. It was saying I’ll be here with you when it feels like nothing else is certain. It was saying Let the storm come, because I’ll never stop holding your hand.

“Now, wait a damn minute. You’re all looking at this from the wrong angle. We’re not Hope Channel pawns if we finish this thing. It’s the Hope Channel that’s the pawn, because if we wrap this movie and by some divine intervention it’s released next Christmas, then we’re proving to people all over the world that sex isn’t dirty or wrong and just because you’re a woman who enjoys sex—and even gets paid for it—doesn’t mean you can’t live out your own warm and fuzzy happily ever after. The fight isn’t won by giving up—oooh!

If I’d learned anything from the last few days, it was that living and dying by the court of public opinion was not sustainable.