The Yes Factor Read online

  THE YES FACTOR

  Erin Spencer

  Emma Sable

  Copyright © 2020 by Erin Spencer and Emma Sable

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover design/illustrator: Farjana Yasmin

  Copy editor: Marla Esposito at Proofing With Style

  Format: Jayne Frost

  To D.C.L—

  You are a treasure. A heart as big as yours deserves all the love in the world.

  —Erin Spencer

  To every Liv and Bex out there—

  may you always find happiness in friendship and in love.

  —Emma Sable

  Liv just wants her best friend Bex to find love.

  Bex just wants to stay in bed with Outlander.

  With 40 just around the corner, divorced single mom Bex is too busy being a chauffeur for her teenage daughter to bother swiping for dates.

  Her best friend Liv, who is married to the supposedly perfect man, swoops in from London on a mission to get Bex out of her own bed and in to someone else’s. Liv pushes Bex into a week-long whirlwind of dates, awkward kisses and missed connections.

  What could possibly go wrong when Bex agrees to Liv’s harebrained scheme of saying Yes to every possible suitor? And why is Liv so intent on fixing Bex’s love life, or lack thereof?

  Just what do you find out when all of your no’s turn into The Yes Factor?

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. Left or Right

  2. Triple Shot

  3. The Weeper

  4. Hollywood Rococo NoNo

  5. Treasure Hunt

  6. Churro-mance in the Making

  7. Sunday Kind of Stupid

  8. Break Up, Make Up

  9. Grin and Bear it

  10. Downward (Hot)Dog

  11. Who Wants to Date a Millionaire?

  12. Encore Couture

  13. Glamour & State

  14. Detox/Retox

  15. Dubai, Darling

  16. Keep On Keepin’ On

  17. Ebbs and Flows

  18. Hello. Buh Bye

  19. Cruising Altitude

  20. Treasure Found

  21. High Dive

  Authors Note

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  Prologue

  BEX

  My palms are sweating as I grip the steering wheel and pull into a parking spot. I’ve finally found the courage to park after two drive-by’s of the café where Sean and I are supposed to have our first…let’s call it meeting. Picking up my phone, I scroll through photos he’s texted me. My face blushes as I come across his latest dick pic, one of many that I scroll past, trying to find a clear photo of his face. His dick pics are impressive, but now’s not the time for a lengthy perusal. Near the beginning of our text thread is a photo that looks like a realtor’s headshot—did I ever even ask what he does for a living? Looking from my phone to the café patio, I search for a man who resembles the photo. The man I’ve been texting/sexting for nearly two months, but haven’t met in person. Yet.

  It started like it usually does.

  A swipe. A match. A message.

  The typical back and forth that turns into late-night banter. Loneliness masked in lust. The desire for love downplayed to not seem desperate.

  That must be him. At least he looks somewhat similar to the photo. He’s sitting alone in the café waiting for me, just as we’d planned, but my mind begins to whirl with doubts. Why would this go anywhere? He knows nothing about me, really—only made-up sexual fantasies and embellished truths. Not that I downright lied. But let’s just say I omitted a few mundane facts of my reality. Now, about to meet him in real life for an actual, in-person meeting, what will we even talk about? Trying to find love on an app, in Los Angeles, as a single mom, inching toward forty. Who do I think I am? How can sexting a few times a week translate into a real relationship? It was doomed from the first dick pic.

  Feeling utterly defeated, I reach for my phone and start typing a text.

  Sorry for the last-minute cancelation, but I can’t make it.

  I quickly delete it. Too cold and impersonal after all the late-night NC-17 details we’ve shared with each other over the past few weeks.

  What about, I hate to cancel on you last-minute, but I’ve realized that after all this sexting, maybe we’re better off letting the fantasy just be a fantasy. I wish you all the best.

  I re-read the text and it just seems kind of cruel. Maybe honesty isn’t the best policy, after all. Fuck it.

  Sorry for the last-minute cancelation, but I have a family emergency. Rain check?

  And send. The text bounces into the ether. Too late for second thoughts. I slouch in the driver’s seat, taking a moment to wallow in my self-inflicted defeat, as I watch Sean check his phone then gather his things to leave. Simple as that. No harm. No foul. Regret starts to weigh on me. Maybe I should have met him after all.

  Annoyed, I flip down the car visor and look at myself in the mirror. What are you doing, Bex? I answer my own question with a shake of my head. Another failed attempt at a connection, over before it even begins.

  Liv

  “Ethan?” Emma says.

  My husband is staring out the window, the rush of a busy London street below, with a bored look on his face as Emma calls out his name.

  “Ethan?” she says again. “How does it make you feel when you hear what Liv just said?”

  Waiting for Ethan to answer, I stare at Emma’s long, curly hair, the kind that looks like it takes a lot of discipline and hard work to control. I wonder if she washes it every day. I wonder if she fights with her partner.

  “Sorry, what?” Ethan snaps out of it as if he realizes he’s in this room, on this sofa, looking out that window for the first time in his life. Instead of the fourth time, at a cost of £100 an hour. “Oh, um.” He clears his throat and shakes his arm so that his Patek Philippe watch moves around his wrist so he can see the watch face. I know this move and what it means.

  “I was just thinking,” he says.

  “Yes?” Emma nods encouragingly from her throne-like chair opposite the sofa, urging him on with an open look.

  “I was just thinking. I need to leave early. I’m sorry. I completely forgot I had a deposition today,” Ethan says, not at all sorry. He gets up and slowly makes his way to the door, stopping to turn to us before he leaves. “Thank you, Emma. Lovely to see you again. Bye, Liv. I’ll see you tonight at the gala.”

  And just like that, he’s gone.

  I turn to Emma and throw my hands in the air. “Do you see? I mean, seriously. I don’t know how much longer I can take this.”

  Emma just nods at me, silently.

  “Can we talk? Since I’m here?” I hate the pleading note in my voice.

  “Liv, you know the rules.”

  “But, we’re not even halfway through the session.” My stomach is churning with a mix of exasperation and desperation.

  “Liv, I can’t do sessions with either of you separately. It’d be a breach of my ethics and a breach of our trust—you, me, and Ethan. You remember the patient covenant you each signed.”

  “Ha!” I laugh out loud. “Trust…”

  I grab my bag and throw my scarf around my neck as I try to get up from the sofa, which is like quicksand pulling me in. How many sad, angry, depressed, anxious butts have sat on this sofa? It must be my new heels that are throwing me off balance. After a good rocking motion, I finally rise to my feet but lose my balance and almost fall into Emma’s
lap, catching a scent of her crisp, grassy perfume. She’s so perfectly put together and composed it irritates me during our sessions.

  “Are you okay, Liv? I think it’s best if you leave now and we can regroup next week.”

  “No, I’m not okay. You need a new sofa. And I am leaving.” I huff out of the room.

  This isn’t me. I hate being angry. I’m not supposed to be like this—bitchy to other people, like a child throwing a tantrum. Ethan makes me like this. I had to practically kidnap him, brainwash him, and bodily drag him to therapy. The first session was fairly easy—who we are, what we do, our history as a timeline of places and events. Ethan loves beginnings. He’s always charming in beginnings, and with a run of his hand through his thick, salt and pepper, wavy hair, he ingratiates himself to everyone. And everyone seems to fall under his spell. By now, I know all of his moves, but I was just as dazzled by him during our beginning, too. That’s why he’s a good lawyer, I suppose. But this particular session with Emma, when things are starting to get real, when we’re finally scratching below the surface of who we are together as a couple, whether there’s even a together for us, he bails. Considering everything that’s happened over the years, I shouldn’t be surprised, but it still hurts.

  I stumble out into the crowded hustle and bustle of Tottenham Court Road on a blustery London day. It’s always such a jarring juxtaposition—the quiet, soft hues, and minimalist decor of Emma’s office, her well-watered plants, and just interesting enough paintings on the wall, then hitting the frenetic pace of the pavement outside. The car horns, the jostling with other pedestrians. London still manages to overwhelm me all these years later.

  How did it come to this? I think to myself for the millionth time.

  I reach into my bag to get my phone and see there’s a text from Ethan. In spite of myself, my heart leaps for a nanosecond. Maybe it’s an apology.

  Don’t forget it’s black tie tonight.

  Nope, I should have known better. I almost let out a scream in the middle of the street when I think about the boredom and small talk that awaits me tonight.

  Bex

  “Mom! Is that you? What are you doing home? I thought you weren’t gonna be back until three?” Maddie yells from her bedroom.

  “Yeah, it’s me. I decided not to go to Zumba after all. You ready to go?” My dating life is such a disaster that I can’t bring myself to tell Maddie anything about it. So my date with Sean was a Zumba class to Maddie. I look at it as protecting her from becoming jaded about love before she even has her first kiss. At least I don’t think she’s had her first kiss yet. In any case, thirteen is way too young to know about the black hole of dating apps.

  “We don’t have to be at the drop off until four. Mom, chill,” I hear her whine.

  “No harm in getting there early. You never know about traffic. If we have time to spare, we can just stop along the way for a milkshake.” Here’s hoping the lure of a treat will bend her to my will like it did when she was little.

  She huffs from the bedroom, followed by a series of bangs and groans as she descends the stairs, her luggage dinging the walls which are in need of a fresh coat of paint.

  “Jeez, Mom. What’s the rush? You got a date later on or something?” She scoffs.

  I hesitate a moment too long, which pings Maddie’s radar. Oops.

  “Oh God. You do have a date, don’t you?”

  “No, of course not,” I say quickly. “Now, let’s get going. You got everything?”

  Maddie gives me a suspicious look, then begrudgingly turns and heads out the front door, hauling her bags to the car in the driveway.

  It’s tragic that my own daughter thinks it’s an impossibility that I would have an actual date. But, sadly, she’s not off base. It’s been years since I’ve had a real date. At least, not with anyone that I’d ever bring home. I’m glad to have bailed on Sean, even if it was rude to do so at the last second, because I know what would’ve happened anyway. After all the weeks of texting, we’d realize there is absolutely no chemistry between us in person, and after a stilted conversation about which shows we’re currently bingeing, we’d give each other an awkward but friendly hug and go our separate ways. The digital buildup leading to a lackluster IRL encounter. This has happened to me so many times before, I don’t know why I’d even agreed to meet him.

  Heading out the door, I pause in the entryway and turn to take a look at myself in the mirror and see nothing. No matter how long it’s been since the divorce, I still look at that spot on the wall, forgetting that the mirror is gone. It was Patrick’s family heirloom and I fell in love with it the first time I went to his house to meet his parents. His mother gave it to us as a wedding present and I’ve never found another mirror that I like well enough to replace it, at least not one that I can afford.

  “Mom! Waiting on you!” Maddie calls out as she slams the trunk shut.

  I have to laugh a little. She sounds just like me when I was her age. My best friend, Liv, and I would be waiting in the car while Mom finished her tenth Salem Light 100 for the day. “Only an addict rushes through their cigarette,” she used to say. I don’t know what she thought she was, but smoking a pack a day, no matter how elegantly and leisurely done, sure seemed like an addict to me.

  I do a fast walk-run out to the car and hop in.

  “All right, let’s do this. Here we go! Camp’s gonna be great, I just know it.” I squeeze Maddie’s knee.

  “When are you gonna get the AC fixed? It’s like a sauna in here.” Maddie fiddles with the air-conditioning vents.

  “Summer is more than half over, hun. We don’t need it.” I roll down the windows as we back out of the driveway then turn on the vents, a futile effort to get more air circulating, even if it is the smoggy, summer heat of LA. My dad offered to pay for the AC to be fixed but I’d said no out of pride. I’m too old to still be a daddy’s girl but I’m seriously having second thoughts.

  Neither Maddie nor I are being talkative. I tell myself it’s the heat as she taps away on her phone. She probably won’t even want to go to camp next summer. Most of her school friends are staying home and we had more than a few arguments about her not wanting to go this year.

  We pull up to the meeting point and find a shady place to park. The usual circle of Botox’d and boob jobbed alpha moms has already congregated to say goodbye to their daughters. Maddie’s been going to the same camp since she was eight years old and I see these moms year after year. They seem to be getting younger, or at least more frozen, while I’m looking more and more haggard. I can’t keep up with their diamond rings, laser peels, and balayage. And frankly, even if I had the money or time, I wouldn’t want to.

  “Bex, long time no see! After the bus leaves, we’re all going for cocktails. Want to join us?” Samantha says in a way that I know is just her being fake nice.

  “My mom has a date!” Maddie blurts to my mortification.

  “I don’t have a date,” I protest, but I’m quickly drowned out.

  “Oh, really? Do tell!” Samantha says, more loudly than she needs to.

  I wave Samantha off like it’s nothing. Because it is. Unless a date with Ben & Jerry’s counts.

  “You’re going like that?” Samantha looks me up and down. “I just went shopping and got the cutest bracelets. They’re in my car, you can borrow them. Just to add a pop of color, you know?” She scrutinizes my jeans and black one pocket tee. “Do you want me to go get ’em?”

  “Oh, no, really, but thanks. I don’t have a date tonight, or any night. I’m solidly single.” The note of depression in my tone is undeniable. I try to recover with a little too much enthusiasm. “I’m focusing on my career!”

  With a look of dramatic sympathy, Samantha says, “Oh, Bex, you should really be getting out there!” She pulls her phone out of her purse and begins scrolling quickly. “I have just the man for you. He’s Hal’s new financial adviser, recently divorced, a little pudgy but great hair, and he…”

  And so it
begins. I zone out as she rambles on, detailing Hal’s stats and specs.

  This is perhaps the worst thing about being single—married people who always try to set me up with some recently divorced guy. As if just by virtue of being divorced, we’ll automatically be the right fit for each other. My married friends are always so insistent that I have to meet “so and so” and then when I do finally meet him, it’s apparent we have nothing in common other than our mutual friends.

  “That’s nice of you, Samantha, thank you so much, but honestly, I’m just doing me right now. Maybe down the road, okay?”

  “Okay, sweetie. If you say so.” She smiles at me with a look of pity and gives me a little pat on the shoulder. Then she saunters over toward the bus to help her daughter load her suitcase.

  Maddie seems to have woken up from her sulky mood of the car ride and bounds over to a few friends who are waving to her from the bus. I grab her bags that she’s left beside me and do a waddling walk over to the bus, weighed down by whatever it is she’s packed.

  “Maddie, honey, here, your bags.” I stand a few feet away from the giggling circle of Maddie and her friends.

  “Mom,” she walks over to me, “don’t call me honey, please.”

  I lean over to give her a quick kiss and a hug.

  “Ew, Mom, stop. I’m just going away for two weeks.” She wriggles out of my arms.

  Teenagers.

  “Now listen, Maddie. I put a little, blue cosmetic bag in your duffel with some supplies, in case you need them,” I whisper in her ear, knowing she’s been worried about starting her period while away from home.