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  I clenched my lower muscles, possessing him too.

  “Oh shit,” he gasped, eyes widening almost with surprise. “Oh fuck…”

  “Yes!”

  “Oh God, I’m coming,” he warned.

  I felt his first rope splash inside me, and it was like an afterburner for my own climax. The fluorescent ceiling light brightened above his head and gave him a halo effect as he tilted his head back and groaned with pleasure, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. He thrust again, and again, no longer smooth strokes but rough and desperate ones, each one sending another load of his seed deep inside me. It went on, and on, and on, until neither of us could move.

  His chest heaved in time with mine as he looked down at me, an almost drunk look in his eyes.

  Before I could think of something to say, the cardboard box collapsed, sending me flying backwards to the floor. My lover was quick though, grabbing my waist and pulling me back up, his sex remaining inside of me the entire time.

  I wrapped my arms around his neck and held on. He smiled. “I was wondering if that box would support us.”

  “It held exactly as long as it needed to,” I said, kissing him on his bristly cheek.

  “So?” he asked. “Was I good enough to learn your name?”

  I put on a contemplative face. “Hmm. That’s a good question. I’ll have to think about it.”

  “Hey!” he protested. “You’re not funny.”

  “Sure I am.”

  “Okay, maybe a little.”

  He kissed me again, slow and passionately this time. A kiss for after. Then he placed me on the ground, and pulled away, and began to dress.

  “You’ve got three minutes to decide,” he said, buckling his belt around his waist. “I’ll buy you a beer?”

  “Sure,” I said. He gave me a final smile, peeked through the crack in the door to make sure the coast was clear, then disappeared.

  I wrapped my arms around myself, wishing they were his arms still around me. Bulging with muscle and veins. I was curious to learn about him: what he did for a living. Heck, even just his name.

  Do you want to?

  The voice was quiet in the back of my head, but it was there. This guy was a gorgeous hunk of masculinity, and our chemistry couldn’t have been better. I found myself already thinking about the next time we would get together.

  But that’s not what a random hookup was supposed to be.

  I’d come here tonight with one purpose: to make a mistake. And even though it wasn’t a mistake at all, the goal was a one night stand. Blowing off some steam.

  Could a relationship actually begin this way?

  Deep down, I knew it couldn’t. Oh, it might go on for a few weeks. Maybe a month or two. But it wouldn’t last. I was mature enough to recognize that, even if I didn’t want it to be true.

  I got dressed, visited the ladies room, then peeked my head around the corner. My pony-tailed hookup was hunched over the bar, a beer in his hand. A fresh beer sat on the counter next to him.

  Don’t do it, Lexa. It’s more perfect this way.

  I sent him a silent thanks and slipped out of the bar.

  2

  Lexa

  Last night was great. I woke up feeling giddy about what had happened rather than embarrassed, or worse: regretful. It was exactly what I’d needed after the worst day of my life. And I felt good about my decision to leave without prolonging things.

  But now it was time to return to the real world.

  Like any other day, I began my normal routine. I went downstairs to the spare bedroom by the garage where I kept the treadmill and jogged for 30 minutes. I didn’t consider myself a morning person, but exercise always helped me start the day. Steel cut oatmeal with honey for breakfast after that, then a shower. I stood in my walk-in closet and instinctively started looking at my work clothes, then sighed and put on jeans and a shirt instead.

  I went back down to the kitchen and stood there, not sure what to do with myself. The Bismarck Herald had hired career counselors to meet with employees today, but I knew that was going to be a zoo. And I didn’t want to go back there. I’d brought home my box of things yesterday. Going back would just extend the pain of losing my job. Like tonguing a sore spot in your mouth.

  I knew what I should do: start job searching. Doing it immediately before the market got flooded with out of work ex-newspaper employees was the smart thing to do. Try as I might, I couldn’t muster the energy. I leaned against my kitchen island and stared at my laptop on the counter, trying to will myself to open it and start looking.

  Instead, I fell into my couch and turned on the TV. Allowing myself a day or two of mourning wouldn’t hurt. I could give it the weekend, then launch into the hunt on Monday morning.

  Here’s a little known secret kept from people who work full-time: daytime television is terrible. Boring morning shows with too-friendly hosts, followed by the gag-inducing drama of soap operas. How was Days of Our Lives still popular? Did women really watch this stuff?

  At least The Price Is Right was still reliably available at 10:00am. Drew Carey wasn’t the same as Bob Barker, but the show still brought back nostalgic memories of sick days at home, curled up in my parents’ bed. I allowed the soothing sounds of Plinko to numb my brain until lunch.

  I put on a jacket and walked down the street to Salada, which was like Subway but for salads. It was my usual lunch place on work days, just four blocks from the newspaper. I didn’t see anyone I knew, for which I was grateful. I didn’t want to relive the mourning of the paper again right now.

  I carried my prepared salad back home and thought about last night. It still felt like a dream, both because of how wonderful it was and because it seemed too crazy to believe. I wasn’t the kind of girl who ambushed men at the bar and had sex with them in a storage closet.

  But man, it had been fun.

  I wondered if I should have gotten the guy’s number. Hell, or even just learn his name. Granted, one-night stands at a bar weren’t conducive to long-term relationships, but you never know. He was gorgeous, and seemed nice. He was also hot. Did I mention how good looking he was?

  As my breath puffed around my head, I decided it was better this way. A clean break after a terrible day.

  I ate my salad standing up in the kitchen, chewing slowly to prolong the meal. Because once I’d finished and thrown away the to-go container, I had nothing to do. Absolutely nothing. And I had an entire afternoon’s worth of time to kill. I hated being idle. I worked best when I was busy, or up against deadlines. That’s when I really shined.

  I sighed and fell back onto the couch. It was going to be a tough time until I found a new job.

  *

  The weekend passed just like that, and then the entire next week. I still didn’t have the energy to job hunt, so I tried to maintain my normal routine: waking up early, exercising, eating healthy. I caught up on stuff I’d wanted to do but never had the time. I went to the Dakota Zoo, which had a grizzly bear exhibit but not much else interesting. I hit up the other local museums like the North Dakota Heritage Center and the Gateway to Science, and lied to myself that I had a good time. I read all the books I’d saved in my Kindle but hadn’t gotten around to reading, then read a few more. I finally got around to reading Michael Crichton’s The Great Train Robbery, which was part fiction, part history. When I got sick of reading I visited my old stomping grounds at the Bismarck State College. Walking around campus killed some time, but too many of the buildings had been rebuilt for me to feel much nostalgia.

  Finally, after a week of moping, I started job hunting.

  The fear that had kept me from looking was justified: the market was thin. Newspapers all over the country were drying up, not just here in North Dakota. There were exactly zero jobs in Bismarck for someone with an English degree. Even when I widened the search to include Dickinson or Fargo—the latter of which would be a 3 hour commute!—I came up with nothing.

  It was soul-crushing. The reality I’d kno
wn but hadn’t wanted to face.

  My routine was tough to maintain after that. I started sleeping in. Not a lot, just a little bit later each day until the sun was up long before me. My breakfast changed from steel cut oats to bowls of cereal so coated with sugar they could give you diabetes just from a strong whiff. My morning jog on the treadmill became an every-other-day routine, and then just once a week. Fast food became the norm for lunch, and pizza or takeout for dinner.

  I was falling apart and didn’t care.

  Generally, I considered myself pretty good with finances. I wasn’t reckless with my money. I lived within my means, and saved up money on the side. But after the down payment for the condo, my nest egg wasn’t very large. I finally sat down one morning at crunched the ominous numbers: I had enough saved up to last two months. I could cancel some of the luxuries I didn’t need, like cable, but that was a band-aid on a broken leg.

  How many mortgage payments would my bank allow me to miss? Maybe I should miss a few, make a mortgage payment, miss a few more, then make another. Stretch them out to buy myself some more time. Which bills could I drag out the longest—electricity, or water? Suck thoughts became the new calculus of my life.

  I met my coworker Susan—former coworker, I guess—for lunch on a Tuesday. I had hoped to share my misery with someone equally screwed, but she greeted me with a hug and a smile.

  “I’m hanging in there,” she said after we’d ordered food. “We can get by on Robert’s salary. It’s tight, but we won’t go hungry.” She leaned in. “We’ve been talking about having a baby. This might be the right time, since I can’t find a job. You know?”

  No, Susan. I don’t know.

  “Is that your advice?” I teased. “Find a sugar daddy to marry and pop out a couple of kids?”

  “I mean, it couldn’t hurt!”

  I chuckled as if it were all that simple and picked at my salad. I’d forced myself to order it instead of something with more calories, but my stomach was used to unhealthy stuff now. How did I ever enjoy this rabbit food?

  “We did sell some of the stuff we didn’t need,” Susan said. “Robert had a lot of old computer equipment he sold on eBay, and I took my work clothes to the thrift shop.”

  “I’m not ready to give up on a career just yet,” I said.

  “You could always sell your car,” she suggested. “It’s what, two years old? You can downgrade to a junker.”

  “Maybe,” I said. I didn’t want to, but selling my Accord would get me a few more months of cash.

  “Let’s see, what else…” Susan’s eyes lit up. “What about that chess set? Isn’t that worth a lot?”

  “Absolutely not,” I quickly said. “That was my grandfather’s chess set.”

  “But it’s made with real gold…” She cut off when she realized I wouldn’t budge. “What about your condo?”

  “I’ve looked into it,” I said. “The closing costs from a sale would eat me alive. And that’s if I can even sell it. The condo was on the market for five months before I bought it, and I low-balled the seller.”

  Susan waved her fork. “What I meant was renting out a spare room or two. Put them on Airbnb or Craigslist.”

  “Isn’t Craigslist full of prostitutes and creepers?”

  “I dunno. Never used it.”

  Thanks, Susan. Real helpful.

  But as we finished lunch and said our goodbyes, I thought about it more and more. It wasn’t a bad idea. I had four bedrooms, and only used two. One, if I moved the treadmill. It was a lot of wasted space.

  I spent the afternoon researching Airbnb. There weren’t a lot of places in Bismarck available, which meant mine could stand out. And what was available went for about $100 per night. I could essentially rent out my entire place, minus my bedroom.

  I spent the afternoon cleaning my apartment and then taking photos. The garage on the first floor, and the small bedroom next to it. The second floor which held the kitchen and living room. The third floor where the other three bedrooms were—I even took photos of my room, in case someone wanted to rent the entire place. And then the rooftop deck, with the chairs and grill. I even waited until night so I could take photos of downtown Bismarck all lit up.

  With only a little reluctance, I uploaded the photos and put the condo up for rent. I opened a bottle of wine and then did the same for Craigslist, although I advertised individual rooms for rent there because that’s what everyone else did.

  I refreshed the screen every few minutes for the rest of the night, then finally went to bed.

  The first few inquiries were innocent. Some questioning text messages about the Craigslist ad: how long it would be available, what other amenities the condo had. One guy on Airbnb booked my place for a weekend next month, which made me do a celebratory karate-kick in my living room, but then he canceled the booking the next day. That felt just as bad as getting rejected on a date.

  Then the creepy inquiries started coming in.

  (Unknown): room still available?

  Me: It sure is! There are three rooms available total, so you’d have your pick.

  (Unknown): what if i want ur room

  Me: Haha, if you really wanted my room we can negotiate and I’ll sleep in one of the others

  (Unknown): i want it with u in it

  I deleted the text and blocked the number. It was one thing to be a creeper, but at least use proper capitalization and punctuation.

  (Unknown): Hello. I am inquiring about the room you have on Craigslist. Is the price negotiable?

  Me: It sure is, though I won’t go much lower than the listed price.

  (Unknown): I don’t want to go lower. I want to pay for twice as much, in exchange for you wearing only your underwear around the condo.

  Me: That’s not an option.

  (Unknown): I can pay in cash.

  There were a lot more like that. Men asking if massage service came with the condo, or offering to fix stuff for me. One man said he wasn’t interested in the room but would pay me $500 to wear a diaper for him. I wish I were joking.

  I don’t even know how they assumed I was a woman. I guess from the decor in my bedroom, though there wasn’t anything too feminine.

  Some of them were funny, like the diaper proposition, but the deluge of casual sexual harassment eventually became frustrating because there were almost no legitimate inquiries. One girl who had just graduated came by to look at the room, but said it wasn’t what she was looking for. Another guy who was in his 60s came by and measured the doorways and then determined that his telescope wouldn’t fit. When I asked him if he was really renting a place just for star-gazing, he snapped and told me to mind my own business.

  I finally removed the Craigslist ad, but kept the Airbnb up in case I got any bites. Even still, the Craigslist texts kept coming. In a fit of anger I even called one of the numbers, screamed, “No, I’m not going to suck on your toes!” and then hung up real quick.

  (Unknown): What the fuck my wife almost heard you!

  Me: Maybe you shouldn’t be propositioning women on a Saturday night, then.

  I shoved my phone in my pocket, but it immediately vibrated again. I prepared myself to say something threatening back, but it was a text from a number I knew.

  Susan Richards: Call me. Hope you’re still up.

  “What’s up?” I asked after dialing her number.

  “You still looking for work?” Susan said. “Because I’ve got a job for you.”

  3

  Lexa

  A temp.

  She got me a fricken job as a fricken temp.

  I mean, don’t get me wrong. I took it. I took it the way a pregnant woman takes the last cupcake at a baby shower. It was better than nothing, and I didn’t think I could sit around the house for another week twiddling my thumbs.

  I was starting to enjoy Days of our Lives. And that scared me more than foreclosure.

  I filled out the paperwork online, and by the next night they had me assigned to a place. For a f
ew brief moments after the email came in, I was genuinely excited. Until I read the job. You know what an English degree and seven years of journalism experience get you?

  Secretarial work.

  Oh, they officially call the position Administrative Assistant, but that’s just P.C. code for secretary. I knew it the moment I walked into the tall building with the shiny black glass windows. The entrance room was a two-story atrium with lots of natural light, a sitting area to the left, and a curved desk blocking the doors deeper into the building.

  “Welcome to Blackrock Energy!” the woman behind the front desk said. “Are you Lexa?”

  I’d spent a few minutes Googling the company last night. Blackrock Energy sprung up in 1995 to explore some of the shallow natural gas pools along the Saskatchewan border to the north. The company struggled for several years and was close to bankrupt… Until the oil boom in 2006.

  The Bakken Formation was an enormous subsurface rock formation beneath North Dakota, Montana, and Canada. Although it was discovered in the 1950s, it was impossible to recover the natural gas from the rock. The invention of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing changed all that. Suddenly it was feasible—and, more importantly, profitable—to drill for the oil, all 18 billion barrels worth. Drilling companies around the country scrambled to buy land mineral rights and move equipment to the Bakken field. Blackrock was already there.

  It was a total stroke of luck, but that’s how history worked sometimes.

  Oil was huge in the state these days, even though the boom had peaked in 2012. It was a messy indsutry, both environmentally and due to poor safety standards, but the benefits were impossible to ignore. The oil boom single-handedly gave North Dakota a budget surplus, and it was estimated that 2,000 new millionaires were created every year in the state from the mineral rights alone. North Dakota was now the second largest oil-producing state in the country, behind only Texas.