The woman was hot on paper but in 3D, she took my breath away. She was wearing a blue dress that wrapped at her waist and she had this aura, this air of just being better than everyone around her. She looked like she had walked right off the pages of a magazine. I had met some celebrities and it was true that they didn’t look human. Having money and fame just seemed to give you this otherworldly glow that the commoners couldn’t replicate. Artemis James was no commoner. The maitre d' introduced her.
Toby stood up and I followed his lead.
“Artemis James? So nice to meet you. I'm Toby Anderson, this is my partner Easton Schultz.” We shook hands. She smiled politely.
“It's a pleasure to meet you both. Please call me Missy. Everyone does.” British accent. So fucking hot. Just kill me now, why don't you. We all sat.
“I think it's easy to see why we needed to have a meeting with you,” Toby said, motioning at me. I rolled my eyes. Missy looked over at me, briefly taking in my outfit.
“Well, I don't want to make any assumptions. That's why I'm here. To get a real impression of what the issues are.” The two of them kept talking but I wasn't really paying attention. She was absolutely stunning. I was staring at her and I felt like maybe she could feel it, but I couldn't stop. She was the kind of beautiful that made you stop and look twice. Her gray eyes were bright and intelligent. Her hair looked like it would feel like silk through my fingers. It might have been the dress, but it draped and fell over her curves in a way that was making me hard and making it hard to look away.
“How do you feel about the process, Easton?”
“What? I don't really care; I mean I don't really feel like I need a makeover.” She smiled and laughed a little. It felt like she kicked me in my chest, all the air left my body. “But I'm open to the process I mean. You came all the way here. Wouldn't want to waste your time or anything.”
I could see Toby smirking from my peripheral vision but I ignored him. He was totally eating this up.
“I'm glad that you are going into this with an open mind. If I can say, just at a glance, having met you for a few minutes, I can see several things which can do with changing.” I blinked. That knocked about two points off her total attractiveness for me.
“What's wrong with what I looked like?” I glanced down at my clothes and answered my own question. The shirt that I was wearing might have been as old as I was or older since I had gotten it at a thrift shop. There was a little hole in it in the shoulder and there were definitely some stains that never came out. The sweats were pretty nice though, they were like eighty dollars.
“Well, we are at a five-star restaurant and you came in here wearing a t-shirt with no sleeves and athletic shoes. I know that many brands make luxury athletic wear, but that's not what you're wearing. And that's not what anyone expects you to wear either. Image, whether we like it or not, is everything.”
“I told him we were coming somewhere nice and this is what he decided to wear,” Toby said, snitching on me. I shot him a dark look. Not that long ago, we were in the same boat. He dressed just like me if not worse. We started getting money and attention and he gave himself a makeover. I thought it was a waste of time and roasted him for wearing suits all of a sudden when I was used to seeing him in t shirts and basketball shorts. Turns out he had had the right idea all along.
“You know what would make this easier? If we just wore fatigues every day like when we were serving.
“You hated wearing fatigues,” Toby said. I glared at him again.
“Why would you want to go back to wearing what was essentially a uniform every day?”
“All the greats did it. Steve Jobs?” I said like he was an obscure, little known personality from a faraway country.
“Your wardrobe isn’t just something you present to other people. It’s a reflection of who you are and what you’re about,” she said. I looked from her to Toby. They were on the same side and I was starting to feel like I was losing.
“So, what do you suggest?” I asked her.
“Before we get to what you like and what you want to project, we could start cleaning up the canvas.” Toby laughed.
“The hell does that mean?”
“Well, to start with, the beard. A little shadow can be stylish but there is a fine line between that and unkempt.”
“Unkempt?” I said. Who the fuck used words like unkempt?
“And a haircut never hurt anybody either,” she said. My hair was a little on the long side. It would be brushing my shoulders in a couple of weeks, but I didn’t know what that had to do with anything. I was good at what I did. My work ethic was unmatched. Our products were the best in the market. What else did anyone want from me?
“I’ve been telling him,” Toby said. My temper sparked. Artemis James was hot for a while before she opened her mouth. Now, her and her sexy ass British accent could fuck off. I wasn’t interested. Not in being with her and definitely not in getting a makeover.
“I didn’t know it would be quite so bad,” she said.
“Then leave.”
4
Artemis
So, this was Easton Schultz.