Fast & Loose by Elizabeth Bevarly (the giving tree read aloud .txt) 📕

was that he was such a stark contrast to Orlando, brawny where the actor was slender, masculinely striking where the actor was almost androgynously beautiful, his features square and blunt where the actor’s were lean and smooth. Her second thought was that she must have done something really bad to piss off her karma, because she couldn’t seem to escape the man. He was everywhere that she was.

“Not again,” she groaned as she grabbed the remote from the sofa where Bree had dropped it. She aimed it at the TV to change the channel, but Eddie snatched it out of her hands.

“Oh, no you don’t,” he said as he stuffed it down into the cushions on the other side of himself where she couldn’t reach it. “With all the bad stuff they’ve been reporting lately, you are not going to change the channels when there’s finally something worth watching on the news.”

Lulu gaped at him. “You can’t be serious. You think Cole Early on TV—again—is good? He’s all they show anymore. I’m getting sick of him.”

Eddie made a rude sound of disbelief. “If seeing Cole Early on TV every night is being sick, then take me to the terminal ward now, because I don’t ever want to get better.”

Lulu shook her head. “You can’t possibly think that guy is attractive.”

Now Eddie was the one to gape. “Darling, I know you have rather, ah…unconventional taste in men, but have you gone blind?”

Lulu decided to ignore the last part of Eddie’s question and focus on the first comment instead. “What do you mean unconventional? I don’t have unconventional taste in men. All I ask is that they be smart, funny, gentle, vegetarian, and that they smell good. And also be good with animals and small children. And bake bread. And grow things. And be handy around the house.”

Eddie ticked off a few more requirements on his fingers as he voiced them aloud. “And be boring and dependable and predictable and safe. And also boring. Did I mention they had to be boring?”

Lulu narrowed her eyes at him. “You say ‘safe’ like it’s a bad thing,” she said, ignoring the boring part, too. Since—okay, okay—the guys she dated, when she dated, were a little, well, boring. “There’s nothing wrong with being safe. A lot of women would be wise to look for safe men.”

“Oh, let’s leave your more neurotic friends out of this,” Eddie said, turning to look pointedly at Bree.

“Hey!” Bree objected. “I’m not—”

“A lot of women would be wise to look for safe men,” he interjected. “But not you, Lulu. You’re the most cautious person I know. You need a little danger to balance out your overabundance of prudence.”

“Prudence?” she echoed distastefully. “I’m not prudent.”

“Darling, your parents should have named you Prudence. Prudence Modesty Flannery. No, Prudence Modesty Chastity Flan—”

“Chastity? Now wait just one—”

But Eddie was on a roll. Laughing, he concluded, “Prudence Modesty Chastity Temperance Flannery. That takes care of any amount of fun you might have otherwise.”

The barb, even delivered as lightly as Eddie had delivered it, hit home. “I’m fun,” Lulu argued. But even she thought the objection sounded halfhearted.

Eddie only sighed. With a gentle, rueful smile, he patted her hand and said softly, “You have your moments, Lulu. And you have the potential for more. But for some reason, you choose to always play it safe.”

Lulu knew perfectly what that reason was, even if she’d never voiced it to anyone. She chose to always play it safe because she had to always play it safe. There was something deep inside her that she had to keep a constant rein on, something she had to make sure never broke loose in polite society. It was something impulsive and impetuous, something untamed and unpredictable, something extreme and exhilarating. Something powerful enough to take her over completely if she wasn’t careful to keep it contained. She only allowed herself to tap into it when she was safely cloistered in her studio, creating her art. Because whenever that part of her was unlocked and allowed to roam free, it consumed her entirely.

When Lulu was creating her art, she lost herself to it. Completely and utterly, with a totality that had once scared the hell out of her. These days, she understood it enough to not fear it so much, but she was still plenty wary of it. There were times when she was working that hours passed without her even realizing it. There had been days when she went without eating because she was so deeply immersed in her art, it almost drowned her. Once or twice, she’d spent the night at her studio without intending to, having never even noticed the passage of daylight into darkness into dawn. At times like those, she simply ceased to be herself and became someone—something—else, a creature whose only function, whose only need, was to feel, and to express, and to create. No way was Lulu going to risk that creature coming out for anything other than her glass. God only knew what that part of her might do or say if she didn’t lock it back in its cage when she was away from her art.

She told Eddie none of this, however. Hell, she’d never even told Bree. Only other artists could understand that part of Lulu. And a lot of times, she didn’t think many of them could even relate.

“You never take chances,” Eddie continued, bringing her back to the conversation at hand. “And sometimes, to get the really great prizes, Lulu, you have to throw caution to the wind. You have to close your eyes and throw your arms wide, and run blindly forward and trust that what you fall into will be exactly what you need. You’re not the sort of person to do that. You could be. But you’re not.” Before she had a chance to react to what he said—not that she had any idea how to react to that—he looked at the TV and frowned. “And now