The Real Deal

I don’t want to move back there. And just because everyone in my family and their sister, cousin, aunt, uncle, friend, barber, butcher, and candlestick maker has met and married their significant other in Wistful doesn’t mean I will want to.

Perhaps it’s true that I haven’t necessarily had better luck in Manhattan either, but sometimes it’s really hard to tell that the sharp-dressed businessman you’re dating still lives in his parents’ basement. In Jersey. Fine, fine. We were always meeting suspiciously close to the Port Authority, and maybe that should have been the tip-off that he had zero ambition. But in my defense, Brody the Basement Dweller was a surprisingly excellent kisser, and that covers up all manner of sins.

Besides, ever since Landon the Liar, I’ve been living the dating-free life. Dating is a distraction I can’t afford right now.

Claire twists the cord on her Dyson Supersonic hair dryer, coiling it up. “Maybe you should just skip the reunion.”

I return to the barber chair. “They’re actually strangely fun. Plus, it would just be wrong to bail.”

She pats my shoulder again. “You have a conscience. They’re not totally out of style yet.”

“They will be someday.”

My phone buzzes, and a flurry of hope wells up in me. I want the madness of a game of pretend. I want to hear from Xavier’s replacement. I want the man who wrote that absolutely absurd ad to be my arm candy.

That’s because my bigger wish is to remain focused on my career, and only my career. I have a huge chance in front of me to win the body-painting contract for the next Sporting World swimsuit issue. It’s one of the most prestigious gigs in my unusual line of work, and if I get it, I can’t risk bringing anything less than my A game to the table.

No strings attached to this girl.

But my family doesn’t entirely understand my career. They can’t comprehend why I like living in the city rather than a sleepy coastal town in Connecticut. I suspect they try to set me up, thinking they can lure me back home that way. If I show up single to the reunion, I’m grist for the local matchmaking mill. Telling them I’m on a dating diet won’t fly. It’ll raise too many questions about why that might be—questions I don’t want to answer. A piece of arm candy is the easiest way for me to make it through the event unscathed, ready to zip back into Manhattan and—knock wood—land the big magazine gig.

When I slide open the screen, it’s not an email about interest rates or scavenger hunts. It’s the email I want.



From: Satisfaction Guaranteed

To: Sweet Buttercream Frosting

Re: My buffering skills are excellent.



Tell them we banged in a bathroom only if they seem insanely jealous of our fictional sex life. Wait. Better yet. Just wink, and leave the bathroom during the reunion with tousled hair. The JBF kind.

My stomach swoops at those three letters, knowing what they stand for: just been fucked. Sex isn’t even on the table. His services are platonic. But damn, his role-playing is electric and unusually alluring. I reply quickly.



From: Sweet Buttercream Frosting

To: Satisfaction Guaranteed

Re: Hope your telling-a-tall-tale skills are top notch, too



If we’re talking about nailing already, seems we should nail down our story. Meet up in person? Tomorrow? Prospect Park? My friends will be with me. One of them is roughly the size of a barge.



From: Satisfaction Guaranteed

To: Sweet Buttercream Frosting

Re: The Beauty and the Beast reference is not lost on me



Message received loud and clear. Naturally, it makes sense that you want to be sure I’m not going to whisk you away forever on my snarling leopard.



From: Sweet Buttercream Frosting

To: Satisfaction Guaranteed

Re: And I thought snarling leopard was the design of your motorcycle all this time



You do realize that sounds ridiculously dirty?



From: Satisfaction Guaranteed

To: Sweet Buttercream Frosting

Re: Yes



I do realize that.

We make a date. A strictly platonic one.…





Chapter Four

Theo

We might be the Two A.M. Club, but plenty of patrons do their diving into liquor at ten in the morning, and that’s why we open early.

The next day, before my make-sure-he’s-not-a-serial-killer meeting, I head to the bar to punch in. A few hours gets me a few dollars closer. I clean and serve and pour and mix, and when I see a familiar profile in the doorway, I nearly duck, turn around, and try to sneak the hell out of here.

But running will get me nowhere. Addison has been here before. She’ll find me because she wants something. Somebody always wants something, even when you think you’re in the clear.

Addison slinks up to the bar, smooths a hand over her gray skirt, and arranges herself neatly on a cracked red barstool. I want to cut to the chase, to ask her what she wants. But she walked in. She can lay down her cards. I learned that lesson through no fault of my own: Don’t be the first to reveal your hand. Always be the one willing to walk away.

I spin a coaster in front of her, then slap my hand on it. “What can I get you, miss?” I ask, treating her like anyone else. Don’t let on she’s a thorn in my side.

She hums. “Is your beer on tap good?”

“You can’t go wrong with a pale ale,” I tell her, and she flashes a grin that reaches her eyes. In the movies, she’d have ice blue irises and wintry blond hair slicked back and cinched tight. A black dress painted on. In real life, she’s prettier now than when I knew her before. Round face, aqua eyes, brown hair.

“Well, doesn’t that just sound delightful,” she says in a southern accent.

C’mon, life. Throw some stereotypes at me. Give her a Russian accent and a guy with a scarred eye and broken nose as her heavy. What’s the fun in this lack of caricature? But Addison’s here solo. She does her own collecting.

“What about your wine, though? Any chance it can make up for a bad taste in your mouth?”

I grab a crinkled sheet of paper and hand the rudimentary wine list to her, ignoring her last comment. “We’re not really known for wine. We have a few. Are you looking for white or red?”

She laughs. “I think you know that’s not what I’m looking for, Theo.”

Yeah, I know what she’s looking for. It has a lot of zeros attached to it. She glides her finger down the list, clucking at each vintage like it’s dog shit. Honestly, most are.

She lifts her face and stares at me, her gaze hard now, her lips a thin line. Gone is the camaraderie I knew when she was part of our crew. “I was hoping for one that’s nine years old.” She speaks tightly. “Is there any chance at all I’d find something like that in here?”

I stare right back at her. “I’m working on it. I’ll get what you want.”

She drops the list. It skids across the bar. She doesn’t even watch it flutter to the floor. I bend to pick it up. When I meet her gaze again, her eyes radiate frustration. A part of me understands this woman deeply—she feels like she was screwed over, and she wants what’s hers. “How long is this little cat-and-mouse game going to go on, Theo? It’s not that complicated. I want what you owe me. Because it’s mine. Do you think it’s unreasonable for me to want what belongs to me?”

I scrub a hand over the back of my neck. “No,” I answer truthfully. “It’s not unreasonable.”

“Of course it’s not. I have bills to pay, too. Just like you do. And wouldn’t you like to stop seeing me show up around here?”

I snort. “Hell yeah.”

She makes a rolling gesture with her hands. “Then let’s try to move this along.”

I curl my hands around the bar, lean closer to her. “I’m working on it. Like I told you last time. And a minute ago. I’ll take care of it.”

“I’m running out of patience.” She points to her watch. “You don’t want me to contact your brother, do you?”

My spine straightens. That’s precisely what I don’t want. I’m about to answer her, but her voice rises. “After all, he has what he wants in his new woman. So I should get what I want, don’t you think?”

“Addison,” I say, softening, because I get that she feels burned, “I promise you’ll get it soon.”