I was standing in line at the car rental counter when I saw the tweet. I only saw it because I had subscribed to the hashtag #authnoncon to see what people were saying about the Author’s Non-Conference I had flown in for.

@rachelregentwriting THIS IS BULLSHIT! #authnoncon

I was bored so I clicked the account to see her tweets. It helped that the profile pic had a woman in green garters and panties. The profile said, “Rachel Regent, #erotica writer” and had a link to an Amazon page for downloading her stories. The tweets scrolled down the page.

“Trying to get a car but bank has frozen my card, trying to get to #authnoncon!”

“Everything that can go wrong is today! #FML”

More followed in that vein but it was the last one that made me pause. I knew that feeling, that the universe itself was against you. Before I knew what I was doing I was hitting the direct message button and wrote, “don’t know if you’re at the local airport but if you need a ride I can help out.” After hitting send I found it was my turn at the counter so I ignored my phone while taking care of the reservation. Taking the keys and getting instructions on where to get the car I stepped away from the counter. I looked at Twitter to see a reply. It just said, “Maybe. I’m at STL. Who are you?”

“Ben, like it says in profile. At STL too. About to head out, if you want a ride I need to know.”

The reply was quick, “Love to share your cab if you don’t mind.”

I looked around. About thirty feet away I saw a woman with black luggage leaning against the wall and looking at her phone. Her hair was dirty blonde and shoulder length. She had that same lean build as the woman from the Twitter account and though Twitter had only shown a little of her face, what was there seemed right. She was of average height with narrow hips and her clothes were comfortable jeans and a button-up shirt. She had an alert face and intelligent eyes that looked up and scanned the room. As her eyes got to me I nodded. She looked back down at her phone.

“Is that you with the beard and long sleeve flannel?” Popped up on my phone.

“Yep.” I hit enter but was already walking forward. She was still looking at her phone when I put my hand out. “Ben.”

“Uh, Regina.” She took it hesitantly but smiled. She wasn’t short but at 6’2” I was taller. She looked in her early twenties which would make me about twice her age. She also looked like she wanted to take a step back but was already against a wall. I could stand to lose some weight but have a lot of muscle too and felt like I was towering over her. I took a step back to be polite and maybe not so intimidating.

“I’m not grabbing a cab, I have a car rental though.” Her smile disappeared. She was just looking at me. I figured the ball was in her court but she didn’t seem to know what to say so I added, “Look, it’s nearly five and I didn’t have lunch. It’s a forty-minute drive to the hotel and I want to eat something so I gotta get moving. If you want a ride you’re welcome to come but you’ll end up eating with me too. If not that’s fine but I want to move out.”

She looked. “Uh,” she finally said, “I’m not ungrateful or anything but I don’t know you...”

I shrugged. “Hey, I get it. It’s cool, I’ll see you around the con.” I started to turn.

“NO! No, no.” I stopped and she continued. “I could really use the lift. My bank is being a dick. Someone stole my card info and I changed phone numbers so they can’t text me for verification and it’s all just a mess and I’m tired so I do, like really, appreciate your offer but I don’t know you either.” She was turning a little pink but it looked as much from pride as frustration. I was liking the set of her eyes.

I nodded. “Ah, and you don’t want to get rape/murder/body dumped on your way to the hotel.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Look,” I pulled out my driver’s license and held it up to my face. “Snap a pic. Send it to a friend. If I rape, murder and rape you again the police will at least know how to find me.”

She was taking the photo. “Rape again after the murder? Wouldn’t that be necrophilia?” She said it while looking down, already sending it to someone.

I gave a half-hearted grin. “If I’m going to end up arrested I might as well cross off a bucket list item while I’m at it.” She looked at me. “I’m joking.” She still looked at me. “Look, bad humor is something you’ll have to put with as a consequence of a free ride. No necrophilia though, I promise.” She put her phone away. “I assume you aren’t really Regina Regent though?”

“Amy.” She pulled her luggage onto its wheels. “You want my ID?”

“Nah.” I started walking towards the automatic doors that led to the parking garage.

“A girl can’t beat you up?” She asked it from behind me.

“It isn’t that. I just figure I shouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t ready to deal with whoever you are. Besides, I once had a roomful of gangsters talk about cutting me up, not much has really felt quite so dangerous since.”

“For real?” Her voice came over my shoulder.

We arrived at the rental car. I fumbled with the unfamiliar keyfob and opened the trunk. “Tell you what, I know my way out of the airport but don’t know the city well. Let’s find somewhere to eat and I’ll tell you about it.”

I took her luggage and stacked it with mine in the trunk.

“Well, I don’t mind sitting with you while you eat but until I get this ... thing resolved...” she waved her hand in the air. “Maybe I could bum a beer off you though.” She grinned in an almost flirtatious fashion.

“You like steak?”

“I’ve never turned down a big slab of meat.”

I snorted. “Then you can bum a steak off me. I’ll write it off as networking. That’s what I’m here for after all.”

“You sure?” She didn’t look sure.

“Might be my only chance to get some meat into a pretty girl this weekend.”

It was her turn to snort. We slid into the car. It was a generic economy car and I wished I’d gotten the upgrade for legroom but it got us to the steak house. I’d called ahead and a table was ready by the time we got there. We sat and both had a beer in our hands within minutes of arriving.

Amy was zooming in on the picture of my ID on her phone. “Potměšil. What kind of name is that? Polish?”

“Czech. ‘He sewed in the dark.’ I don’t know how far back the name goes. My grandfather was American born and raised so sometime before that I guess.”

She had her phone on the table. “I Googled it, nothing. What’s your pen name?”

I sipped the lager. “I don’t have one.”

“Unpublished?”

“I usually do three a year.”

“Stories?”

“Books.”

She raised an eyebrow but the waiter dropped off our salads. She added dressing to her’s from the little serving cup. “I don’t get it. Oh! Are you an agent or publisher?”

I laughed. “No, I’m a ghostwriter. Mostly not-so-auto biographies.”

“Anything I’ve heard of?”

“You know the rapper QBiz?”

“No shit? His book was huge last year! I heard him on NPR talking about how therapeutic writing it was.”

I cringed. “Yeah, I did too. I recorded ten one-hour-long interviews with him to capture his voice and ideas and then added to it with research and meetings. That’s how I ended up with those gangsters.”

“Oh yeah, you said you’d tell me about that. Scary?”

“At first. Once I realized they were just fucking with me we actually had a pretty cool time. The only thing that shit rapper wrote were some lyrics I added into the book.”

“Is writing your full-time job?”

“Yeah. I get hired by the publisher and then get a percentage of sales. I usually make more on the flat fee than the percentages but occasionally one blows up. You?”

She sipped some more. “Me? I’m jealous. You have publishers come to you. I’m trying to get an agent or publisher interested.”

“I still have to sell myself. Networking is big.”

“You sound successful though.”

“I make a living. It’s not what I set out to do.”

“What did Ben ... whatever your last name is, want to be?”

“A writer but science fiction. I wanted to write things with big ideas likeAsimovv or Clarke. Turned out I had big ideas but no plots.”

“Well, at least you’re getting paid. I’m still building a name.”

“We all gotta start somewhere. Didn’t Herman Melville work as a night watchman at a bridge or something so that he could write while at work?”

Our steaks arrived. “I wonder if they still need night guards at morgues. I could keep an eye out for necrophiliacs like you.” She grinned.

“I don’t think I’m a necrophiliac. I mean you have to do it at least once to know if you like it, right? I still have that cherry.”

She laughed. “Let’s keep that one. I’m going to need another beer if we’re going to keep discussing kinks.”

I smiled. “Don’t want to get to your’s?”

“You have far too much of an advantage over me in that,” she said.

“How?”

“You can read my stories.”

“And they represent you?”

“Yeah, I don’t write it if it doesn’t turn me on.”

“So, it’s erotica, like,” I waved a hand around not sure what to say, “not bodice ripper stuff?”

She looked thoughtful and smiled as she speared a piece of steak. “I like to leave my seat wet while writing.”

I found myself catching my voice in my throat. “Wow, that’s an image.” I waved the waitress over and ordered additional beers.

We ate leisurely, after that wandering into books we’ve read, things we wanted to do at the un-conference, networking we hoped to do. We even traded phone numbers so we could catch up without relying on Twitter if we wanted to.

Eventually, even good food must end and the restaurant clearly wanted to flip the table so we left. We debated radio music choices, her wanting pop and I classic rock. We choose a local jazz station as neutral ground. I mostly remembered the route having stayed here before and only had to backtrack once.

At the desk, I had her go first. Five minutes later she was arguing on the phone with someone and I was at the desk asking if they had any double queens available instead of the single king I requested. They did.

So, while Amy’s call continued I finished the paperwork, walked over to her luggage, pulled out the handle, gave it to her, and motioned for her to follow me. She did, shooting me looks but still on the phone. We were in the elevator when her call ended.

She growled. “Cocksucker! Says I have to talk to a case agent in fraud but they don’t open until tomorrow.”

I held up a room card for her. “Four-o-four.”

“You think I’m your problem to solve!?” She looked pissed. I’ve had enough women pissed at me to not be impressed.

“Two beds. You want a place to crash until business hours tomorrow? I’m doing you a solid, don’t growl at me.”

“You don’t know me.” We left the elevator.

“We’ve broken bread. I’ve known people less than that I’ve shared rooms with on a business trip.”

“I’m supposed to trust you? Are you gay?”

I laughed. “Not even a little. You’re welcome to walk across the room in a towel if you want to give me a thrill.”

“Keep your hands to yourself.”

“I’ll stay on my bed except when I need the bathroom, I promise.”

“And no shared bathroom time!”

“I promise.” I opened the door to the room and we both entered.

“Maybe,” she said. I laughed. She glared. It was a decent glare but again, I’d been the receiving end plenty. “What are you laughing at,” she asked.

“You. I can give you the key fob and you can sleep in the car if you want but that bed would be way comfier.” I pointed at one of the beds. She looked at me and started biting her lower lip. “If I wanted to attack you I could do that now,” I pointed out. It was that exact second it seemed to dawn on her that she had entered the room with me. I took a breath. “You can accept that your bed is surrounded by a force field or take the car. I want a nightcap. Do you like whiskey?”