Monday, September 30, 2013

New -- get a TEXT MESSAGE when I have a New Release

Don't miss my new releases! Text JKentBooks to 77948 and get a text message on release dates!

Friday, September 27, 2013

The plot thickens -- excerpt from Random Acts of Trust

Another excerpt from Random Acts of Trust. Amy is still at the bar, watching the band, and she's just met Darla. She leaves to go to the restroom:

Amy

Oh, no -- did Sam just see me? He seemed to be craning his neck, looking out into the crowd as I slipped away. Maybe he knew I was here. How would he? I hadn’t seen him in more than four years. That was intentional, for avoiding Sam had become like a second job to me, something I had to choreograph well in order to function. Most of my senior year of high school it had been the opposite. I’d found ways to run into him. Not going to the same high school meant that that took some creativity. I knew where he worked at the mall, so I just happened to need to shop nearby.

He was in the marching band and so was I, so when our teams fought each other, I made sure to wander over to his section, and then blessedly, debate season had started. So, the idea that I needed to avoid running into Sam had been a hard jolt; adapting had been one of the most difficult things I’d ever done in my life. Going off to college had been a blessed relief. Now here we both were, back in Boston, all grown up – and my, oh my, was he all grown up. And here I was, slipping away, wondering whether to avoid him again.

The bar's bathroom was about as scuzzy as I’d expected, and the face that looked back at me from the mirror was, of course, exactly what I expected. Sometimes I found myself looking into the mirror and actually thinking that I would see something different, as if the layers that were inside me would somehow show themselves by giving me a different appearance. The Amy that always stared back seemed too plain for the person who lived inside. Long, brown hair, with just enough wave to give it shape. Big, brown eyes that seemed a little too fearful for the strong person I knew was smothered under some of those layers. My nose wasn’t big or small. My skin wasn’t clear or a mess.

And then there was my body. I liked to think that I was just a head. Literally. A head that walked around attached to this thing that I required in order to function in daily life. My body didn’t really matter to me, until it did. Some people like to use the word voluptuous. My mother called me curvy, while my grandma called me chunky. No one was mean about it, but it was there, as if having extra curves on my hips or a thicker than acceptable waist, and breasts that filled a cup and then some, were a quiet damning. An indictment of a body that didn’t fit in with modern society.
Brent [Note from Julia: Amy's ex] hadn’t seemed to care too much about my weight, though I would catch him ogling other women, most of them a good twenty pounds lighter than me. The paradox was that the same body that I pretended to ignore was the one that I explored so tentatively, and at other times aggressively, in trying to understand the core of myself. What I wanted were someone else’s hands to do that work, someone else’s obsession to be zeroed in on me, a man’s desire to be at the center of finding Amy’s sensual self. Instead, there was only me and my books, and essays, and readings, and the occasional prop, ordered discretely from Amazon. None of those, not even Brent, came close to being a substitute for the richness that I knew was out there in the world.
Couldn’t I find that one person who would come to treasure me? Who would view me not just as a mind, as a bodiless head wandering around, or not just as a headless body, there to be fucked and thrown away, – but as the whole package? What I wanted most wasn’t Sam, although, as I settled back at my table I found myself searching the crowd and the stage for him. It wasn’t Sam that I wanted, and it wasn’t the idea of Sam that I wanted, it was the reality of a partner who would go the distance with me. Someone I could give up the entire world for, so that we could go deep and burrow into each other – mind, body, soul, and everything. I knew it was possible...it had to be, right? If I could think it, it could be real.

As I looked up and found Sam on stage, getting ready for the next song, and wondered if he could be the one, I saw Darla walk over to him. No, past him. She reached for Trevor, who reached back with a familiar embrace, and then a kiss that...whoa, practically set the stage on fire. Jeez, the two of them needed to get a room.

I finished my drink, the watery taste of melted ice cubes and alcohol familiar, like the words “the end” on the final page of a book, and then, out of the corner of my eye, Darla stepped away from Trevor as a hand slid up her back, under her shirt. The hand was attached to Joe? Who then proceeded to...oh, my God. If they showed any more tongue I would think I was at a butcher shop. Who on earth was she actually with? The kiss with Joe went on and on until my own face started to flush, and the creeping red from my chest stretched up, and down.
I felt like a voyeur, as if I weren’t supposed to be watching this, but what are you supposed to do when they’re onstage in front of a crowd? Trevor’s hand splayed across Darla’s ass, an ass about the size of my own. There I went comparing again – does any woman not? I admired whatever was going on in a sickly kind of way, my stomach twisting in knots. Was it possible? Were the two of them...no, the three of them...?
And then Sam approached her. My whole body turned to melted chocolate, and then tensed up to granite, revolving in a cycle that left me weak.
Then very, very angry as Darla reached out for Sam.
Oh, no, she didn't.

Her Billionaires: Boxed Set now on ARe and Kobo!

You can now get Her Billionaires: Boxed Set, all 4 books, for just $.99 on sale at:

All Romance eBooks

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Stay tuned as the book goes live on more stores!

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Her Billionaires: Boxed Set is just $.99 now! All 4 books in one complete collection!

Her Billionaires: Boxed Set has all 4 books from the bestselling series for just $.99 -- a special sale price (regular price $5.99) on Amazon right now!
FROM NEW YORK TIMES AND USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR JULIA KENT -- all FOUR episodes of the bestselling series in ONE boxed set!

COULD SHE REALLY FIND THE RIGHT GUY ON THE INTERNET?

"Hot, luscious woman who can suck a golf ball through forty feet of garden hose seeks rippling-ab'd firefighter who has a tongue that thrums like a hummingbird and enjoys painting my toenails and eating Ben & Jerry's out of the carton while watching Orange is the New Black."

Curvy business analyst Laura Michaels stared at the online dating site's registration screen and frowned. That's what she really wanted to write. By the time her best friend, Josie, edited and clicked "Send," her personals ad was more fantasy than reality.

OR WOULD SHE GET MORE THAN SHE BARGAINED FOR?

When two different guys -- Dylan Stanwyck and Mike Pine -- replied within two days, she seemed doubly blessed. After a first date with model-turned-firefighter Dylan that ended in bed -- and with a huge misunderstanding -- Laura came home from her Walk of Shame to an invitation for a hike with ski instructor Mike. The Great Outdoors became the setting for so much more...

Caught between two men -- literally -- who turned out to be roommates and secret billionaires, Laura makes a startling discovery about her own capacity for passion.

And, maybe, long-term love in an unconventional romance with two men that pushes every boundary.

Including her own.

This 122,000 word/450 page boxed set includes all four parts of the Her Billionaires series (Her First Billionaire, Her Second Billionaire, Her Two Billionaires, Her Two Billionaires and a Baby).
Grab it now for just $.99 before the sale ends, and spread the word!

And if you're an iTunes reader, Apple actually got it up in time! Buy it on Apple here.

Stay tuned for another post for Nook, Kobo, and other bookstore links!

All the best,
Julia

Saturday, September 21, 2013

A little more Amy, a little more Darla, from Random Acts of Trust

Now that I finished my surprise novella about Laura, Mike, Dylan, Josie and Alex (coming to you soon!), it's back to Random Acts of Trust, as I wrap up the main climax and get on with finishing.

Here's a moment from the book when Darla and Amy meet:

Amy
They’re great, aren’t they?” This voluptuous, blonde woman about my age sat down next to me and she took up two thirds of the table with her personality. With eyes the color of the ocean and curly, frizzy hair that looked like it had last been styled in 1987, she didn’t exactly fit in with the college crowd on the Fenway. Then again, I looked around at the way everyone else was dressed and styled in this dive bar, and realized that I didn’t exactly fit it, either.
Yeah, they’re really good,” I said, not sure what was going on. She kind of looked like a lot of the women out in Northampton. Was I being hit on? She slammed a beer bottle down on the table from a microbrewery nearby. Good taste in beer, I thought. I took a sip of my Amaretto Sour. It was getting close to the bottom and this was the point where I cut myself off. Two drinks, no more. I wasn’t going to let alcohol or drugs take over my life. My mom needed at least one kid who didn’t have that demon.
You seem like you know them. Hi, I’m Darla,” she said, holding out her hand.
"Amy." I shook it, wishing instantly that I’d extended a firmer grip to her, a reminder of my debate days when I practically squeezed the life out of my male opponents before the debate even began, as if it were a contest to show manliness through brute strength. Over the years I’d had that drummed out of me, so many wet, limp fish handshakes from professors and bosses that I had just gone with the flow.

She wiped her hand on her hip, or was it her ass? It was kind of hard to tell, as her skin blended together like mine, her body bigger but shaped in a different way.

How long have you been following them?” she asked, leaning with her elbows on the table, shooting the stage an adoring look aimed at no one in particular. She was wearing some sort of a cotton shirt underneath a flannel, and it was like 1991 called and asked her to audition for a part as an extra in a Pearl Jam music video.

Not that my outfit was much better. I was wearing a cami with one of those ragged edged jackets that you could get at J. Jill, except I got mine at the Salvation Army for $3.99. In my mind I guessed that if I looked under the table and caught a glimpse of her shoes I’d see Chuck Taylors, and I leaned back as I thought about how to answer her, and - yep, I was right, Chuck Taylors. What an odd combination.

I have watched them grow,” I said, slowly, choosing my words carefully.

She peered at me with narrowed eyes, an intelligence washing over her face, making me realize that I’d underestimated her. She took a swig of her beer and then looked back as the band reassembled, getting ready for the next set. “I’ve only been watchin’ ‘em for about a year,” she said, quietly, “so you’ve got me beat.”

Oh, if only you knew, I thought. “Are you a fan?” I asked.

I’m...” She paused, and got a funny look on her face, like there was a correct way to answer that question, and it was on the tip of her tongue, but she wasn’t sure whether to choose a lesser option. “Yeah.” Darla nodded. “I’m a fan.”

What was she going to say? I wondered. Whatever it was, I wanted to hear it. That was probably more interesting than the banal, politely expected response. Darla didn’t strike me as the banal, polite type, so maybe there was something about me that made her say that.

What’s your favorite song?” she asked me.

I Wasted My Only Answered Prayer,” we said in unison, and then laughed.

She kind of did that backhanded, playful smack thing that a good friend does. It reminded me of Erin, my best friend. You can still call someone your best friend even if they live 3,000 miles away, right? Because Erin had just left for orientation for a PhD program at Berkeley. Not Berklee College of Music here in Boston. No, the other Berkeley. UC Berkeley. She was going into History, Women’s History, no less, and had gotten in with full funding.

I was getting my master’s in Library Science here in Boston at a college you know all too well for that. Library Science was safe, contained, simple, orderly - everything that Sam wasn’t. Everything that Darla clearly wasn’t, as she stood, shoved two fingers into her mouth and whistled the kind of wolf whistle that had eluded me my entire life. She did it with such grace, and it was so simple that I wanted to ask her to teach me how. Two drinks in me and I was loose enough to give it a try.
How do you do that?” I asked.
Do what?”
I motioned at my mouth. “That whole...thing...you did. You know.” I moved my hand around, trying to come up with the idea.
She mimicked me, joking. “You mean give a guy a blowjob?”
No! I don’t mean that,” I said, my cheeks burning.
Then what the heck is this?” She waved her hands around wildly.
This,” I said, waving mine around, “is two Amaretto Sours in me in an hour.”
An arched eyebrow answered me. “Maybe you need three.”
I laughed, my eyes staring at Sam as he walked across the stage, the way his legs ate the floor. I was talking to her, but my attention was elsewhere.
She picked up on it damn fast. “Which one’s your favorite?” she said.
There was a look in her eyes that told me there was a right answer, and at least one very wrong one. I went for safe because I always go for safe, right? That’s what I do. That’s why I was sitting here in the back of a dark bar, staring at Sam, talking to a complete stranger about someone I didn’t have the guts to walk up to and say ‘hi.’
“They all are.” I grinned back as ferociously as I could.
Liar.”
But I’m a good one, aren’t I?”
That got her laughing. “I've known too many good liars in my life,” she said, “I could use a few people who tell the truth.” The first chords of a song reverberated through the building and Darla sprinted away. “Come backstage when it’s over,” she shouted. “I’ll make sure you can get in.”
A new song, one I’d never heard before started to trickle out from the instruments onstage. The melody and harmony intertwined like tendrils from a vine growing with little buds, eager to reach the sun and bloom. I could feel my heart slamming against my chest and then a flood of warmth, then heat, then fire as Trevor opened his mouth and everyone came together in perfect harmony.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!

THANK YOU READERS! You helped make the New Adult Romance Boxed Set a NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER, which means I'm a New York Times Bestselling Author. Can you hear the screams of joy wherever you are?

And stay tuned -- I have new releases coming in September, October, November and December!

Contest is over, and THANK YOU!

My latest contest is over, and the winners have been notified by email, so thank you for joining! Look for future contests -- these are really fun to run!

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Maliciously Obedient on sale for $.99! Plus a contest!

Maliciously Obedient has soared into the top 100 on Amazon, top 20 on Nook, top 100 on iTunes and is on sale this week for just $.99 (regular price $3.99) -- grab it now and tell your friends!

Amazon
B&N
Kobo
iTunes
Smashwords
All Romance eBooks
Bookstrand

But that's not all!

(Boy, that sounded corny...)

My contest is still going on, so enter to win one of $150 in Amazon gift cards and one of five print copies of my new Billionaires collection!

And, finally, the New Adult Romance Boxed Set is STILL in the top 10 on Amazon and STILL only $.99 (Amazon's keeping it there temporarily, and we can't control when the price changes...). LAST CALL at $.99 for FIVE full-length NA books!

Kindle





Friday, September 6, 2013

TOP 10 on AMAZON! Thank you, readers!

The New Adult Romance Boxed Set is not only a two-week-in-a-row USA Today Bestseller, but now readers have skyrocketed it into the top 10 on Amazon's Kindle bookstore!

It's currently #7, in fact!

We are aiming for the New York Times Bestseller List and boy does this help.

Two more days at $.99, so if you haven't grabbed it yet, or you know someone who might like 5 complete, hot romance novels for just $.99 total, share and spread the word. Click below to choose your favorite eBook retailer!

Kindle

Nook

Kobo

All Romance eBooks

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Smashwords



Meanwhile, I'm working hard on Random Acts of Trust, just wrapped up a new novella, and got an AWESOME idea for yet another novella that returns to the world of Mike, Dylan, Laura, Josie and Alex. What happens when Josie and Alex babysit six-month-old Jillian so Laura and the daddies can get some alone time? And when Laura discovers the alpha side of the two amazing men she's got wrapped around her finger, maybe it's HER fingers that get tied up....

No details, and no promises of a release date, but plenty of fun and hot, hot, HOTTIE HOT HOT and loving bedroom escapades...

 And also -- a reminder about my contest, which is still going on! Please enter!

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Meet Sam from Random Acts of Trust

So as promised, here's another excerpt from the book. It's a bit out of order (though the same night as the earlier excerpt from Amy). There's a...spoiler...that I don't want to share, so I had to skip a few scenes and lines, which means you don't get to see Sam's very first scene in the book until it's published.

:)

Sam

“What the hell kind of state doesn’t have Happy Hour?” Darla asked, incredulous.
I was watching her talk to Trevor, the way her fingers reached out and touched his arm with a kind of possession that no woman had ever shown me. She would go on these rants now that she was living here, somewhere in Cambridge with an aunt who ran a dating service where Darla had a job. It must be a day job, because she was at every practice and every gig now, acting like a band manager and mother hen, though if you called her that she insisted she wasn't Mavis.
You wouldn’t know that she had her own apartment; she’d been spending so much time at Trevor and Joe’s that they’d bought her a toothbrush. She treasured it like it was an engagement ring, or something. Then again, in a way, it kind of was. Not that I could say anything - I was crashing on their couch for free, so I was just happy to have a few cushions to myself and not have to worry about where I’d live the next day.
None of the bars have Happy Hour? What do you mean?” Trevor said.
In Ohio we have Happy Hour most nights at the bars. You walk in and they’ve got free or super-cheap food, like wings and mozzarella sticks and all kinds of things that you can munch on,” she said. “And then they try to get you to buy one drink, get one free or buy one drink, get one half off – you name it. But here...” She rolled her eyes and threw up her hands. “Nothin’. And why do the bars close at one o’clock?”
Trevor shrugged. “Beats me. I know alcohol can’t be served after two.”
Yeah!” Darla interjected. “So why one o’clock? What’s up with being so uptight?”
I laughed. “Maybe it’s the Catholicism in this state.”
She turned to look at me, crinkled her forehead, and asked, “What the hell does the Pope have against a mozzarella stick or a basket of wings? ”
Darla,” Trevor said, pulling her in, their hips touching, his hands all over her ample ass. “You go march right over to the bar owner and give him a piece of your mind. Change the world. Free the mozz sticks.”
The poor schmuck who owns this place doesn’t control any of that. It’s the voters,” she insisted. 
 “Run for governor. Vote for Darla!” Trevor shouted.
Why would I do that?” she asked. “It’s so much easier to just sit here and bitch about it.”
Joe walked over and opened his mouth and then Liam marched over, interrupting, and said, “Something is wrong with one of the synthesizers, guys, and we need to fix it.”

Liam was taller than any of us. When we were younger he looked like a wiry praying mantis, but now he had that long, built look of a guy too tall for the society he was in. He towered over Trevor, and that wasn’t an easy accomplishment. This summer, though, he’d taken to lifting and had filled out a lot bit. It was good to see that if you took your own destiny in hand you could make major changes and shape your life – or at least your body – the way you wanted.

Joe looked relieved. The easy way the three of them hung out together, a touch here, a look there, a wink, a kiss - made me...something. I don’t know what to call it. It’s not jealousy because, frankly, I didn’t want Darla. She was nice and all, but she wasn’t my type.

Whatever my type was, it leaned more toward the studious. The quiet girl who surprised you when you got to know her. A rebel, wild child on the inside, yet a tightly analytical type on the outside – that was what I liked.
I liked people who fooled the world, who made you think and expect one thing, and then who delivered something so different it made the foundation of your entire philosophical system quake.

Only one person in my life had come close to that, and I hadn’t seen her in four and a half years.

I tried to be that kind of person. It wasn’t easy in a world that told us we were supposed to be happy, to project happiness at all times as a sign of confidence, assurance, and of contentment. What the message really taught was that we were supposed to live lies. Lives of lies.
Most of my childhood and teen years were spent lying non-stop about the kind of family I lived in, and I drew a line in the sand because I wasn’t going to lie about the kind of man I wanted to be, about the kind of man I would shape myself to become.

Drums don’t lie. Drumbeats and measures and music are exactly what you see on paper. They lay everything out in stark relief, page after page after page. The beats, the microbeats, the macrobeats, all of it are a kind of language that tells you - note after note, tap after tap - exactly what you need to do to get to the end of the song.

How you interpret the emotional landscape within those beats is entirely up to you. You can go heavy and deep, or you can go shallow and wild. You can paint your own clean canvas. If only life were that simple and uncomplicated.

As I looked up and studied Trevor, and Joe, and Darla, I saw a complication of their choosing and no piece of music, no set of lyrics or measures or notes laid out in a blueprint, could capture what they had improvised. Only they’d done it in three-three time.

 And also -- a reminder about my contest, which is still going on! Please enter!

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

TWO WEEKS IN A ROW! USA Today Bestselling New Adult Boxed Set -- sale ends Saturday!

Readers made the New Adult Romance Boxed Set a USA Today Bestseller two weeks in a row! Last week we were #110, and this week we're #65!

Grab it before the price goes up on Saturday! Just $.99 now at:

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Nook

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Bookstrand

Smashwords

Sunday, September 1, 2013

Meet Amy from Random Acts of Trust

Here come the excerpts!

Amy

Drummers are mysterious creatures who seek the erratic microbeats of authentic life that are layered between the macrobeats of society. Sam's hands were always tapping. Did they move in his sleep? Were his dreams filled with the nuanced undertone of beated movement? What did those hands seek?

With his hands in constant motion, how could I let him know my body should be the one place where those fingers could be still?

His hands moved like a poem, the left one tapping out a line, the right one pausing at the perfect moment to communicate emotion. Hot and sweaty on stage, the band moved as one organism. Trevor sang lead vocals. Hot, tall, muscled, and taking the crowd to a new layer of existence - and everyone willingly followed. Joe stood quiet in the background, playing bass, providing the undercurrent of emotion that allowed Trevor to fan the flames inside all of us. Liam played guitar like a man strumming a woman’s body. He seemed to make love to the instrument in a way that I could admire from afar, but that never quite caught the essence of me.

Oh no - that was all in Sam’s fingers, in his forearms, his muscled shoulders, the obliques that twisted to play each part of his drum set as if it were my body. In a way, it was. Standing here in the crowd, far in the back, at a quiet table - as if there were such a thing as a quiet table at any set played by Random Acts of Crazy.

I found myself immersed in the fever of their song. Maybe I was deluding myself, and maybe it wasn’t the song. Delusion has a way of becoming part of life when you least expect it, or maybe when you most need it. I could sit here and pretend that Sam was just a guy on stage playing his drum set, fulfilling his part in the puzzle pieces that made up the whole of each song that they played so expertly. I could even imagine that I just came here because I was looking for something fun to do after moving into my new apartment and getting ready to start grad school.

My imagination knew few bounds when it came to the taut rope that pulled me in two directions: one, to the carefully calibrated side of me that organized and categorized and protected and planned to make sure that no uncertain variables could sway me from being centered and grounded; and then there was the other side, the one where my imagination ran wild.

That was the side pulled tight in the tug of war by Sam’s fingers.

You want another one, honey?” the cocktail waitress shouted over the fray of the end chords of Random Acts of Crazy’s famous song “I Wasted My Only Answered Prayer.”
   
I nodded. Taking risks wasn’t part of my nature, but what the hell – a second Amaretto Sour wasn’t going to kill anyone, was it? Drinking was new to me. I’d only been legal for the past year, turning twenty-one late, after all my friends, with this damn August birthday. So, a year of drinking under my belt, at least legally, meant that it was still a novelty. Besides, I could walk home.

Alone, of course. My boyfriend these days was molded pink plastic, with stamina that lasted as long as two energized double-D batteries.

I wasn’t exactly the kind of woman guys picked up and took home. That's not quite true – it’s more that I wouldn’t let myself be that kind of woman. Not that guys didn’t try. Although, for the past two years I’d either been dating my now ex-boyfriend, Brent, or I had just carefully cultivated an outer shell that screamed Don't even try.

The last time I let someone in he shut me down. Cold. And didn't speak to me for four and a half years.

Right now my eyes caressed him, watching how he gripped the drum sticks, wondering if he remembered me. I was a masochist. I knew it.

Indulging in this moment of watching him, even as he'd so thoroughly rejected me, was probably the groundwork for a good twenty or so therapy sessions in ten years.

It was worth it.

The crowd roared as the song ended, and there pranced Trevor, just like he’d been years ago when the band started out, except that he was larger than life and had the women in the crowd eating out of his hand. A fine, masculine specimen onstage with jeans that were tight in all the right places. All the guys had changed so much since high school, since I’d seen them at their debut, way back when we were in high school. It made me feel old to think that that was now way back. Four and a half years felt like an eternity.

It was, actually, a lifetime.

Sam raked one of those beautiful hands through his auburn hair, and while I couldn’t see his eyes because of the bright lights onstage, and the shadows that added to the mystique of the set, I knew that those green-and-amber-flecked irises were still the same. He stood and the change in him made me gasp, scaring the waitress who had come by with my drink.

You OK, hon?” she asked, bending down, making eye contact. Short, brown hair. Tight, wrinkled lips, like a smoker's. Kind, ocean-green eyes. She was as skinny as I was lush, and about my mother's age.

I looked back at the stage, but Sam had turned away, was now guzzling from a bottle of water as Joe spoke animatedly to him. My God. What had been a lean, gawkish kind of high schooler body had filled out into a broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted form, the kind you find on fire fighters or tree specialists. Tall and powerful and muscled, yet he carried himself without aggression. As he turned, the waistband of his jeans slipped just enough to show a flash of skin between the bottom of his shirt and the denim, my eyes eating the grooved lines of his carved flesh.
Words. I was supposed to have words. The waitress looked at me expectantly. “I’m fine, I just...they’re just so good.”

You mean they’re just so hot,” she said in a conspirator’s voice, nudging me gently with her elbow. “You’re not the first one in this room to think about taking one of them home, hon,” she said, her heels click-clacking off as she delivered more drinks.

I laughed politely because that’s what you do, right? When someone makes a suggestion that taps into your inner world of fantasies and hopes and dreams, and says something that isn’t quite appropriate for public, casual talk.

And yet every word she said was true.