I walk through the doors of the design floor of Garderobe Magazine, sucking my green shake through a red straw, mindlessly scrolling through my phone and looking over photos of the items I cataloged for a future op—something titled Double-O-Femme. All the while, I’m listing in my head the pieces I’ve been working on that could have been perfect if only I had the guts to pitch my designs.
I’m so engrossed that it takes me a few seconds to register the untypical silence, and when I look up, I realize the lobby is jam-packed with over half the magazine’s staff staring at me. Which is saying something, considering we have almost one-hundred employees usually spread over three floors.
“Uh, hi?” Some of the girls who I occasionally have lunch with break into wide grins, kind of on the naughty side, and I find myself taking hurried steps back when they lunge at me with excited squeals as if we’re besties sharing a secret.
No one in this entire establishment is a friend, not a real one. Even the girl squad I lunch with are remnants of when Trista was around to magnetize the masses. Not that I blame them. Before, I only went where and when Jason would approve, which meant most nights out were with his friends, for his amusement.
I was trying to save up for my business, and he wasgenerousenough to let me put a big chunk of my salary aside, which meant almost everything from rent to beer was at his expense. Something he liked to remind me of frequently, more so when I complained about how I can’t seem to befriend anyone in LA because I keep turning down offers to socialize outside of work.
If Trista hadn’t been as stubborn with becoming my friend as she is with, well, everything else in her life, I would have been in a sorry state right now. Probably still with Jason, though I think I’d rather be living under a bridge than with that jackass. And now? Well, now no one’s bothering to ask me anymore.
The girly squad finally manages to tackle me. “You have to tell us everything!” Hattie from marketing squeaks in ecstasy, her dense black curls weaved with strings in various shades of blue and up in space buns.She always has the best hairdos.
“Uh…” I try to enquire what they mean but asking me questions doesn’t translate to waiting for an answer, apparently, as they keep up a rapid speed of inquiries from all around me.
“Is he as hot without clothes as he is with them?”What? Who? Jason?“Do the drapes match the curtains? I’ve always wondered that about redheads.”Oh, so this is about Michael.“Is he a good kisser? Oh, I bet he is!”I bet he is, too.“How big is he?”Girl, you have no idea. “What’s it like, being just a Plain Jane after all the models he’s been with?”Screw you, Bitch!Wait, that was mean.I should probably stop this before I end up saying something like that out loud.
“We aren’t together. He’s staying in the spare room until his business in LA is done, and then he’s going back to his life on the East Coast.” I think of the other questions, figuring I can dangle at least a little bit of info in their starved faces, something not too juicy or invasive that they can find in any tabloid or image search. “I saw him shirtless once, and yes, he is definitely hot.”
“Is that so?” Michael’s deep voice rumbles from behind me, sounding thoroughly amused, and while the fangirl squad collectively screech and blush, I just roll my eyes, turning to face him with a raised eyebrow.
“As if you don’t know that you look good.” I scan him over a bittoothoroughly, sucking in my left cheek to avoid laughing at the heat creeping up his neck. “That was a long meeting.”
“Yeah.” Michael does that thing where he stretches his hands way over his head, causing all the muscles in his arms and chest to flex and bulge. And judging by the glint in his eyes when he’s finished displaying all his impressive assets, he knows exactly what he’s doing.
“Seriously?”
His wide grin suggests I hit the mark with that assumption. “What? You were the one looking; I was just giving you a better view.”
“Yeah, but I’m immune.” He snorts. “You know what I mean.” I wave him off. “But this lot…” I turn around to indicate the squad. “One of them might go and swoon to death, and you wouldn’t want that on your hands.”
Michael leans to the right to look around me. The mass of red faces looking back at him with wide-eyed awe have his features screwing in an attempt not to laugh, then he shakes it off, composes himself, walks forward, and flashes his best grin.Not immune, definitely not immune.
“Hi, ladies. I’m Michael Edwards.” He does a little wave, and I swear one of the girls just eeped. “I’m Lauren’s interim roommate, and she can answer at least three more of your questions. She’s a bit of a peeping Tom.”
All eyes turn to me as I gape with disbelief at Michael. “You crawled naked into my bed at one in the morning and then just stood there with that… that…” I can’t seem to find a better way to say giant sausage as I wave in the general direction of his loins. “In my face. Was I supposed to not look?”
“Oh, you were supposed to look,” Hattie calls from somewhere inside the squad, which has transformed into a blob of about fifteen random people at this point, mostly women, but I spot some men in there as well, all murmuring their approval. “In fact, it was your God-given right.”
I grin with victory at Michael. “See?” Then I turn to the squad. “And yes, Hattie, the drapes do match the curtains.”
“Lauren!” Michael turns so furiously red that I feel kind of bad for a second. But just a tiny bit, cause he’s the one who walked into my workplace and started this inappropriate exchange of information when I tried to keep both our privacies.
“She earned that info, Mikey, fair and square.”
Then Michael does this thing, where his tongue darts out and presses the corner of his upper lip as his gaze turns down, then he tilts his head up, with his foot moving in a restless bounce as if he’s working really hard to hold himself back from saying something even worse than he’s already said. An equally amused and naughty smile stretches over his full lips before mischief-filled eyes turn back to me.
“You’re going to pay for that one.” He tries to sound ominous, but that twitch at the corner of his mouth indicates he’s finding this all too funny, and despite the momentary mortification, he has no intention of backing down.Well, neither do I, buddy.
“Forty bucks?”
“No, from now until I get back to Boston, you are my plus one to all business events, from dinners to galas.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad.”
“I wasn’t done.” Michael takes a step forward, and I am not loving the serious, no-nonsense look that takes over his soft brown eyes. My lady parts are digging it, though, as the suddenly sodden state of my panties indicates. “You have to wear one ofyourdesigns for each event.”
It takes my brain a few seconds to process. “What?”