Hilariously Ever After

by Penny Reid

  I do my best to impersonate a seasoned professional who is fully engaged in the discussion, but deep down, I'm still reliving that kiss, reeling from the way it tore through my body.

  I tell myself the kiss was a good thing, that I’m expertly reeling her in. The good-cop charm thing is working, right?

  Yeah. Working on me.

  I want to explore every part of her. I want to taste her skin, to hear her come with my name on her lips. Fuck her down to her toes.

  Know everything about her.

  I keep going back over our conversation, wishing I’d learned more about what happened back where she came from.

  What happened in that town? How did she survive so young and on her own with a kid in a place like New York? How did she think up the Etsy thing? It was hugely resourceful.

  Her Etsy bio suggests she also designs high-end human jewelry. Our PI thinks that’s part of what brought her to the city. Dreams of a fashion career.

  After lunch, Brett and I head out to the site of an Olympic-sized ice arena and hotel complex in south Brooklyn that’s an important joint venture with our Canadian partners.

  Brett and I still like to walk the sites when we can.

  It’ll be a good thing to do. A walk through a massive construction site will center me, get my brain off pink tongue tips and soft sighs.

  It goes well for a bit. We talk over plans for making up a rain delay and go over some plumbing issues.

  Then I see the griffin on the side of the truck of one of the concrete contractors. I snap a picture of it, imagining texting it to Vicky. Imagining her face when she sees it, wondering where she is.

  Is she making dog collars? Where does she make them? Does she listen to music while she works? I want in on her dreams, her keeper bookshelf, her playlists, her comfort TV show, her hated foods. I want in on her.

  I turn off the phone and shove it in my pocket.

  Kaleb shows up with the Canadians. We put on the blue Locke hard hats and head on in.

  Brett’s side of the family was never interested in the Locke business—it was my dad and my grandfather who ran it.

  But Brett got bitten by the building bug early, so he spent a lot of time with my dad and grandfather and me out on the sites when we were boys.

  After things got busy, it was Renaldo we’d tag along with. Renaldo was the master builder, overseeing the superintendents who oversaw the projects.

  We spent a lot of summers with hammers in our hands under the watchful eye of Renaldo.

  While we’re out on the site, the partners ask about the Smuckers stunt—that’s the way they put it.

  I catch Brett’s eye. “It’s been everything we could’ve imagined,” I say. “A unique way to honor Bernadette’s memory.”

  “We’re having a ceremony where Smuckers endows a shelter,” Brett says. “We’ll normalize things after that.”

  They look over at me and I smile. “But Smuckers is in complete agreement with us as far as a project like this goes.”

  “Two paws up,” Kaleb adds, and everybody laughs.

  Kaleb and the partners take off. Brett and I hit the falafel stand a few blocks down. “I can’t believe it’s working this well,” he says. “The Smuckers thing. It’s brilliant. As long as you can keep her under control.”

  “It’s brilliant as long as nobody talks,” I say, avoiding the keeping-her-under-control part.

  Again I’m back there. I thought I’d die when she broke off the kiss.

  But with Vicky, I actually am interested.

  How did I get back to Vicky?

  I update Brett on my efforts to reach out to everybody who was at the will reading, reminding them to keep the real story about Smuckers and my mom to themselves. “One drunken conversation with the wrong person and we’re seriously hosed.”

  Brett turns to me. I know he’s thinking of my father even before he says it. “He’d roll around in his grave.”

  Meaning, if he knew what Mom did.

  “He’d kick right out of his coffin,” I growl.

  We get our falafels and eat them side-by-side, leaning against the car, watching the workers. It never gets old. In some ways, Brett and I are still those boys who can’t get enough of diggers and cranes.

  When I finish my falafel, I fish out my phone. I just need to send the picture and be done with it.

  “Who are you sending a Morrison truck to?”

  “Vicky. She has a griffin thing.”

  He lays into his second falafel without comment.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “She’s handled.”

  “Did I say anything?” he says.

  “You were specifically silent,” I say. “So, yeah.”

  He snorts.

  I pause, thumbs poised, unsure what to say along with the griffin pic. I type Thanks for the trees. Then I change it to Here’s to griffins and mad forestry expertise, then I delete it.

  I type Friend of yours? Then erase it. Then, Thinking about bow ties. Then I change it to This guy is asking where TF my bow tie is.

  Delete.

  This is all very disturbing, because I happen to be a master of texting the just-right thing to a woman, no matter what the circumstance, from pre-hookup banter to post-hookup emojis.

  I don’t know what to text to Vicky. How can I not know?

  But I do know. I really want to say, I loved kissing you. I forgot what it was like to kiss somebody because it felt like the only thing in the world worth doing. I forgot what it was like to sit and make things with somebody who gives a shit how curlicues line up. I wish you were here.

  “Soooooo,” Brett says. “How is operation good cop going? Operation hot cop?”

  I bristle at the name. “Just concentrate on your part.”

  More specific silence.

  I look up. “What?”

  He nods at my phone. “Cat got your thumbs?”

  “If I’m going to do a thing, I’m going to do it right.”

  “Okay, Uncle Andy,” he jokes, meaning my dad.

  “It’s under control,” I growl.

  He falls silent, not loving the growl. Then, “You sure?”

  I stare at the image. It’s a cartoon version, but fierce, protective. “She has a griffin thing. From when she first got to town.” I turn to him. “Did that PI ever say anything about any kind of bullying incident in her past?”

  “No. Though bullying doesn’t always get reported. Her background is a little sparse. Her internet footprint is small for somebody her age.”

  “Something big happened back in Prescott,” I say. “Somebody really did a number on her. Turned a lot of the town against her, it sounds like.”

  “I can ask the PI about it.”

  “Do it,” I say. “Somebody went after her, and I want to know who. I want to know what happened and I want to know who.”

  I can feel his eyes on me. “Is this part of operation good cop?”

  “Just get me the details.” I type Someone says hi and send it off.

  Chapter 17

  Vicky

  Two days after the kiss, April calls to inform me that Smuckers and I are scheduled to come to a groundbreaking ceremony for a brain disorders research facility on Staten Island.

  I put on my favorite outfit, a maroon pencil skirt with a dusky gray sweater. I pause over the pearly buttons, remembering the way his fingers worked them, trembling just a little, as if he really wanted me. It was the hottest thing I’d ever experienced.

  The hottest thing I’d ever experienced was a man undoing my sweater as if he wanted me.

  I sink to the bed. Despair and resentment twist through me, bright and sharp. Smuckers watches me alertly from his nest of blankets.

  It seemed so real for a while, but he’s one of the best. One word from him and buildings shoot up to the sky and women fall to their knees. There’s a reason for that.

  What am I doing?

  Wearing that exact same sweater style for him ag
ain, that’s what.

  I flop back on the bed and scroll to Henry’s griffin text, like I have a dozen times before. Like that’s proof he was thinking about me.

  He was really thinking about his company, wasn’t he? He tried a few underhanded things and now he’s going with seduction.

  He wants the company back, and why not? It should’ve been his. He deserves it back. He’s not like Denny.

  I put the phone to my chest and stare at the water-stained ceiling.

  And I make a decision. This thing has to end.

  Carly wanders in and shakes her head at my outfit. “That’s what you’re wearing?”

  “I have something to tell you,” I say. “I'm signing the company over to Henry.”

  “Ex-cuuuuuse?” she says, outraged and dramatic.

  “It’s not mine. It’s not right.”

  “It belongs to poor Smuckers.”

  “Come on,” I say. “It’s Henry’s birthright. I’m going to have Smuckers sign it over.”

  “But…all the money!”

  “It’s not ours.”

  “He tried to trick you,” Carly says. “He tried to bully you. He had you detained!”

  “And now all that ends.”

  “So a rich, entitled asshole who thinks he can get his way all the time gets his way?”

  The memory of the kiss washes over me. I would’ve given him anything. It’s dangerous. How far would he have gone? Seducing me out of sheer duty? “Decision made,” I say.

  Carly narrows her eyes. “Hooooold on. This is a pretty major financial decision.”

  I smile bitterly. “A multi-billion-dollar decision.”

  “Well, are you forgetting something, perhaps? A certain cooling off period that we promised each other to honor?”

  “This is different.”

  “How? It’s a major financial decision. It affects us both—that’s our pact.”

  I sit up. Shit. “I can’t—”

  “We keep our word to each other,” she says. “Right?”

  Nobody has a nose for hypocrisy quite like a teen. I look over at the calendar. Twenty-one days. “I have to at least tell him. He’s…” trying to seduce it out of me. “He’s in misery.”

  “Oh, no, no, no, no, noooo!” Carly can see she’s got me and she’s enjoying it. “Making a commitment is a promise. If you’re good for your word, saying you’ll do a thing is like doing a thing. Same as,” she adds. “We keep our word, us two. And Henry and the rest of the Worldwide Cocks, what with their do-the-right-thing bullshit and then they try to trick you? Please—”

  “Okay, okay.” I hold up a hand. “But I’m giving it back.”

  “If you so decide after your cooling off period, then yes.”

  I look at her standing there, all on fire. “I don’t know if I hate you or love you more right now.”

  She grins. “And you cannot verbally commit to it. No I’m giving you your company back but I have to humor my sister.”

  I toss a balled-up sock at her.

  “Bird,” she says.

  When April told me a car was coming, I assumed it would be my own personal limo, as is the Locke Worldwide way, but when I step out onto the sidewalk with Smuckers in his fave riding purse, it’s Henry standing there, holding the door open.

  He pulls off his aviator glasses. My soul lights up like a switchboard.

  “Good morning,” he says. His brown suit fits perfectly over his broad shoulders as if to say, Oh, all of the places you will not go! But really, really want to!

  “Hi,” I say, like I’m not awash in the Henry Locke magic. I slide into the limo, positioning Smuckers on the cock blocker side of me.

  He sits next to me and hands over a java chip Frappuccino. Because of course he remembered. It’s part of the seducer’s job.

  “Thank you.” I sip. “So. A groundbreaking ceremony.”

  “It’s one of the things you two’ll be doing now.” He pulls a small blue vest from a bag. It has the Locke Worldwide logo embroidered on the side of it.

  “Oh my god.” I put the cup in the holder and hold it up. “I don’t know about this.”

  “Come on,” Henry says. “A little team spirit.”

  “Poor Smuckers. He’s officially on team Cock Worldwide.”

  Henry narrows his eyes. “What was that?”

  “Cock Worldwide?” I study his eyes, get lost there for a second. “What? Are you honestly telling me you’ve never heard that?”

  He gives me this look, like he thinks I’m joking. “Cock Worldwide. That’s not a…thing.”

  “You don’t know?”

  He looks uncertain. “Nobody calls us that.”

  I snort. “Yeah, nobody except everybody who stands on the ground looking up at the giant cranes. I get that the logo is supposed to look like a building between two bushes, but seriously? And just…the giant cranes? Erecting massive buildings?”

  He looks at me, genuinely surprised. It comes to me that nobody wanted to tell him because they’re too busy worshipping him.

  “People wouldn’t call us that,” he says.

  “It’s cute that you don’t even know.”

  “I think somebody has an overactive imagination.”

  “Oh, meaning me?” I say. “You think it’s only me who calls it that?”

  “Yeah, I do. Which reveals the direction of your thoughts.”

  “So arrogant,” I say, as if his nearness isn’t a tickle. As if my skin isn’t pure shivery nerve endings when I get around him. “I’m not the one covering the city with massive phallic symbols emblazoned with my name. It’s the direction of your thoughts we should be concerned about.”

  “Like a Rorschach ink-blot test,” he teases. “Some people see cranes, the progress of a city, but you see something quite different.”

  “Oh, pull-ease.” I snatch the vest from his hands and get Smuckers out of the purse. “You ready to be on team Cock Worldwide, buddy?” I put the vest on him. It fits perfectly.

  “People wouldn’t call us that.”

  “Think what you want. The world is your golden crib.”

  Henry reaches over and runs his finger over the cursive L in Locke, a move that brings his arm and hand dangerously close to my lap.

  “The loop on that L looks like a C. You have to at least admit that.”

  “Well…Cock Worldwide, huh.” He seems to ponder. “If the name fits…”

  “Oh my god!” I grab his hand. I'm just laughing now. “You are so bad!”

  He grins at me, and there’s a whoosh where the whole world stops. And I think he’s going to kiss me. I know he’s going to kiss me. And I want it.

  God, how I want it.

  I let go and sit back, cross my arms, take a shallow breath.

  “What’s going on?” he asks.

  “Your fake seduction plan. You think I’m that stupid or just that desperate?”

  “Look at me.” Then, voice strained, “Vicky.”

  I don’t look at him.

  “I would never think you’re stupid or desperate. They’re the last things I’d think of you.”

  “I know what you’re doing. And just…I want you to understand that you don’t have to do it.” This is as close as I can come to telling him I'm giving back the company without breaking the pact.

  I don’t have much, but I have my word.

  He slides the back of his fingers across my cheek. My blood rushes hot through my veins. I shut my eyes.

  Hard skin brushes soft, featherlight. Smooth and slow. His touch is so gentle, I think my heart might crack.

  His voice, when it comes, is a whisper. “Kiss me, Vicky.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Kiss me.” His voice is low and urgent. “Be with me.”

  My heart stutters.

  He skims down below my jawline now, sliding against my skin with the back of one finger, slow, slow and scorchingly tender.

  “You want to.”

  “You are so…” I pause, breathless.


  His finger travels downward, putting pressure on the top button, popping it. He finds more skin to slide down, pausing at the center of my chest, a whisper of a presence above my pounding heart.

  “You are so…” I try again.

  I don’t have it in me to think up a playful insult. Heat swells heavy between my legs.

  He leans in. Lips to my ear. His face is a soft rustle on my hair.

  My breath comes faster.

  “You’re going to kiss me,” he says. “Maybe not today, but you’ll come to me. I can wait.”

  “Such an operator,” I say, gaze falling to his hand at my chest.

  He moves down, unbuttons another button. “You like watching my hands, don’t you?” He undoes another button.

  “Are you just undoing my buttons now? Yes,” I say.

  “And you’re into it.”

  “And the arrogance just doesn’t quit, folks.” I’m going for light quip here, but my voice is rough with desire.

  “You like my hands, I think.” He undoes another button, revealing the top of my camisole. “You’re going to like them even better when they’re between your legs.”

  Dark lust arrows through me. “Oh my god,” I say, as though I think it’s funny. It’s not.

  “I’ll get you off, baby. I’ll take such good care of you. I’ll take you slow and deep. I’ll print every inch of your skin. Nothing—nothing about it will be fake.”

  “So entitled,” I breathe, finally mustering up the strength to shove away his hand.

  He pins me with his gaze. “I’ll wait. I can bide my time.”

  “Well, you’re going to have to wind your watch to infinity.”

  A baffled light appears in his eyes. Like a baffled light of wonder. That’s probably fake, too. Fake fake fake. I’m not interested in his fake seduction.

  I pull out my phone. “So what is this groundbreaking thing?”

  He takes a ragged breath. Like he’s so overwhelmed he can’t talk for a bit.

  I roll my eyes. “Seriously?” But inside, where he can’t see, I’m shaking with need for him.

  In a rough voice, he tells me about the facility, and how getting a reputation in high-tech research could lead to some important jobs.

  Chapter 18