Kiss Talent Agency Boxed Set (Books 1-6)

by Virna DePaul

  I know this: I will never have a flame with William. I will forever be an unlit match. But with Lee … He is my friction. It may hurt and it may be uncomfortable, but the result is a fire. And I want fire.

  “Thanks again for a great night, William,” I repeat, gently removing his hand from my waist. I give it a little squeeze. “I’ll see you at work tomorrow.”

  A flicker of disappointment crosses his face. But it passes quickly, and his typical, emotionless demeanor returns. He doesn’t argue or fight for me or try to convince me otherwise. Honestly, I think he’d feel the same regardless of what I’d said, what my decision would have been. And that perfectly confirms I made the right decision.

  When William turns away, I enter my building and find my doorman still staring at me, looking rather confused.

  “He couldn’t afford my fee,” I say with a shrug, leaving him gaping at me as I strut to the elevator, adding a little extra swing of the hips for the show.

  Back in my apartment, I get myself a glass of wine. As I pour, it feels like a celebratory glass. I feel, well, proud of myself. I feel stronger right now in this moment than I have been in a long time. Getting into Harvard Law and getting my firm job, as much as I hate it, made me feel like a strong, confident, powerful woman.

  But turning down William and the life he offered makes me feel a different kind of strong. Alive, joyful strength. I raise the glass and, alone in my empty apartment, give myself a toast.

  “To me.”

  Settling on the couch with my laptop, I type up the review of the restaurant William took me to for dinner. Not surprising it was average. Fine, but not memorable. Comfort food. Not spicy. Not different. Just… fine.

  I set the post to go live tomorrow morning, and, as I’m about to close my computer, I see a saved draft on my administrator’s board. I’m confused, since that’s the infamous drunken blog post about Lee’s restaurant. If it’s still a saved draft, that means it didn’t go live – and if it didn’t go live maybe all of this has just been some crazy dream and … but no.

  With a foggy reflection, I dimly remember typing up two different posts that night. I lean back on the couch and try to recall that night in my mind. I furiously typed out the first one, the one that got published. But after, and this is where my memory starts to get less and less clear, I typed another one. This must be it. Part of me is terrified to see what nonsense I wrote, and part of me knows curiosity will definitely win out.

  I give myself a little liquid bravery with a gulp of wine and then pull up the draft. It’s littered with typos and lots of fucs and fulks and foucks.

  But in between the typos was me writing what I always wanted to tell Lee, but never would face to face. How he’s smart and brilliant. How he inspires me. How he goes after what he wants with passion and life and fire. How he could be so much more.

  It’s well past midnight now. I still have work in the morning, in that sweltering, confining office. I shouldn’t stay up. I shouldn’t keep my computer screen open. I shouldn’t open up a new draft of my blog.

  Fuck what I should do.

  20

  Lee

  I never realized how little I really needed until it was all gone. I didn’t need the ridiculously priced art or the Italian leather sofa or the newest curved 4G TV. It’s all just stuff that I thought made me… me.

  Now I’m selling the last of my stuff, my top of the line kitchen equipment which I’d installed in my apartment for personal use. The buyer’s a young girl. She’s starting her own restaurant. She couldn’t afford new, of course. I can’t help but see myself in her.

  We talk for a while as I help her pack everything up. I see the passion and thrill in her eyes I once had, back when I was starting out. I’m going to find that again for myself. I want it. I want it more than models fawning over me or a fancy car or cameras flashing in my face. All I want is passion back in my life, and if I can’t have it with Jenna by my side, I’ll have to have it on my own.

  We load everything into her beat-up Volkswagen, and when she pulls out her wallet to write me a check I’d smile. “I’m not really a fan of littering,” I tell her.

  She pauses with her pen in her hand, checkbook on the dash. “What?”

  “Littering. I just hate it.” I’d grin at her confused face. “Don’t you?”

  “Well, yeah, obviously. But I, um, don’t know what that has to do—”

  “Hannah, you can write that check if you want. But I’m going just to rip it up and toss it in the street. And I really just don’t want to have to litter.”

  Realization slowly crosses her face. “Are you saying …”

  “I’m saying,” I say, taking the pen from her hand and clicking it closed, “I better get an invite for opening night.”

  Hannah throws her arms around me, and I almost start crying when she pulls away and I see tears pooling in her eyes. But I’m a fucking man, so I wait until she drives off, leaning out the window and waving, taxis honking and screaming, and I’m back inside my apartment before I allow myself to tear up.

  I pop open a beer and look out my window. I have a few hours before I have to head to the airport, and I’m determined to sit here and take in the city with just me and my beer till it’s time to leave. No, not to leave.

  To start. To begin.

  My phone beeps from my leather jacket that’s flung in the corner by the front door. No more coat rack. Or hangers for the closet. No more hooks even. Everything went. So, I just tossed it on the floor for when I’m ready. It’s either a $1,200 jacket or a $2,100 jacket. And it’s sitting on my dusty floor. I laugh at the image. Once you let all your security blankets go, it’s amazing how little you care about the things you once cared about. I once paid $50 to get a tiny stain, no bigger than a pen point, removed from that jacket’s sleeve. And now it’s on the floor.

  A minute later, my phone beeps again. I ignore it and enjoy the skyline and my beer. It’s cheap beer, nothing special or that I’d ever sell at my former restaurant. Nothing I would have even touched a couple months ago.

  But, I swear it’s the best beer I’ve ever had. Better than all those high brow craft beers or fancy imported ones. My chef’s palate must be going to shit, because I like this better than the $300 wine I had for my birthday last year. How have I been missing out on this all these years? I twist the bottle around like it’s some sort of magical elixir. Damn.

  When my phone beeps again, I glance over at the crumpled mess of fine, buttery soft leather by the door. It beeps again.

  Maybe friends are saying goodbye? I thought I’d already talked to everyone. None of my friends understood, of course. They thought I was high on some bad marijuana or whatever new experimental drug the kids are doing these days. I did my best to explain the sudden change, but it was hard without mentioning the biggest catalyst. They’d all tried to sit me down, give me drinks, and convince me I didn’t need to decide right away. Most suggested I take a vacation.

  “Grab a few Victoria’s Secret Angels, use my private jet, and spend a few weeks naked in Monaco, man,” Jose helpfully offered.

  “Come with me to Mexico, and we’ll down tequilas for as long as it takes to get this out of your system, bro.” That was Alex. Idiot Alex. I think he still went without me.

  “Dude, let’s go to the desert and drive dirt bikes and then we’ll find some local chicks to fuck. Next day: rinse and repeat. It’s simple, Lee. Rinse and repeat. You’ll be back to yourself in no time.”

  Myself. Right. What they didn’t get, what none of them understood, was that I haven’t been myself in a long time. Which is exactly why I’m leaving. Because I want myself back. They don’t understand, but I sure as hell do. And that’s all that matters.

  Again, my phone beeps. And then again. The beeps are getting closer and closer together, and it’s really making it hard to relax with my cheap beer. I laugh again at how much things have changed since …

  After my phone beeps three times in a row, I groan, put
down my beer, and plod over to my jacket and search the pockets. Of course, my phone is in the last pocket I check. Figures.

  I check whatever nonsense is ruining my peaceful afternoon. Text message after text message after text message. More just keep rolling in, to the point where I can barely focus on one.

  Dude, have you seen it?

  WTF?

  Why didn’t you tell me???

  What are you going to say?

  I squint in confusion, because I honestly have zero idea what the fuck they’re all talking about. Finally, I mute the damn thing because its beeping is driving me crazy. I can’t remember the last time my phone blew up like this. It even stalls a little as I try to pull up another text. What the fuck?

  At last, someone emails me with a forwarded link. I abruptly get to my feet when I see the name of Jenna’s blog in the link. Shit, it must have been published earlier today. I pace the floor and tap my phone against my palm.

  “I don’t have to open it,” I say out loud, as if hearing my own voice will convince me. “I don’t have to open it.”

  I can just keep my phone on mute. I can also turn it off. Hell, I’ll just print my boarding pass out at the ticket counter. I don’t need to use my phone. I’ll hail a cab to the airport like it’s 2010. I don’t need my phone for Uber or Lyft. I can raise my thumb like a normal human being. I’ll turn it off and ignore all the texts and emails and instant messages. I’m going to the airport, getting on the plane, and taking off without opening the link to Jenna’s blog. No harm, no nothing. I don’t have to see what it says.

  “I don’t have to open it.”

  I set my phone on my suitcase, pick up my half-finished beer, and walk away. I don’t stop walking until I’ve escaped to the furthest corner of my apartment. I try to focus on the traffic below, the clouds drifting across the skyline. I even watch the guy in the apartment across the street walking around naked even though he knows everyone can see his flabby ass.

  “I don’t have to open it.”

  I step toward the suitcase, but only make it a few feet before retreating back to the corner. The problem is I want to open it. I chuckle to myself, because I tried to rid Jenna of her fear and here I am huddled in a corner with my beer like a child with his blankie. I make it halfway across the room to the suitcase before I groan and stalk right back again.

  Maybe it’s best if I don’t open it. Jenna made up her mind the night she walked away, and I’ve started to heal from that. I have my own path set out before me and I’m happy with it. What is reading her new blog going to bring me, but more pain? What’s the point of ripping open wounds that don’t need to be reopened?

  So, I’ll just walk over to my phone, hold down the button until it asks if I want to turn it off - and turn it off. It’s that simple. I take another sip of beer and then another.

  My eyes wander back to my bare-ass naked neighbor. He waves. His penis waves as he waves. I give him a little nod and half-smile. If he can walk around naked in front of a skyscraper full of floor to ceiling windows, I can walk fifteen feet to a suitcase to turn off a phone. I can do this. It’s just one more hiccup, and then I’m out of here. I’ll finish my beer, grab my suitcase, and then I’m off.

  To start.

  With a deep breath, I finally make the incredible distance to my phone, pick it up, and squeeze my eyes shut as I wait for it to turn off. Turn off, turn off. I peek an eye open, and all I see is the volume indicator showing I have turned the volume up as high as it can go. Damn it. Wrong button. I fumble around for the right button, but I stop.

  I knew it all along. I knew I wasn’t going to turn off the phone. I knew I was going to click on the link. I knew I was going to open the page. I knew I was going to read what Jenna wrote.

  With my phone clutched in a white-knuckle grip, I sink to the floor and press the blue underlined hyperlink. For I second, I regret I have the latest phone with a super fast connection, since I don’t even have the time it would take to load to prepare myself. Suddenly, it’s there. Breathing hard, I read the title of the blog post.

  Torch: An Update

  My eyes fly across the page.

  To start with, this is not a retraction of my earlier post regarding Torch. I stand by everything I said and believe at the time that those words were the truth, even if a slightly drunk version of the truth.

  I recently went back to Torch. Not for the highly anticipated, highly broadcasted redo dinner I ditched. But before that. I’m referencing the time I went to Torch where Chef Lee Bowers and I cooked in the back kitchen. This is a review of that experience.

  Some things from my first post remain accurate still. One, Lee still has the tightest ass in New York City. Two, Lee’s chest is still chiseled by the gods themselves. And three, Lee still smells fucking amazing. Like, all the time. Ladies, I’m serious.

  But many of the other things I criticized in my first blog have since changed, and thus the update. In that kitchen, alone with Lee, I saw a different man than the one I saw the night I made a fool of myself and drunkenly posted a blog online. I don’t think it’s that Lee has changed. No, I think this is who Lee has always been. But I saw a man without a mask. He was stripped of all the pomp and circumstance he usually wore like an Invisibility Cloak (shout out to all fellow Harry Potter nerds). Standing over the stove, I saw a man who loved his craft and wanted to share it with others. I saw a man who took chances and made daring choices, with both his food and his life. And, I saw a man that wanted nothing else than for me to have that same fearlessness.

  See, I’ve been hiding, too. This blog, the internet, this anonymity has been my mask. I’ve been too afraid to throw it off and reveal me. Not the manufactured, polished, glossy me. But me.

  So, I may regret this. This may be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life. And, yes, I’ve had a glass or four of wine. But I don’t want to live my life in fear. I don’t want to be brave only behind this mask I’ve created for myself. So, I’m going to type out the next sentence and leap, for once in my life:

  My name is Jenna Harrison and I love Lee Bowers.

  The phone slips from my fingers.

  21

  Jenna

  After everything I’ve been through, I don’t think I’ll have any fingernails left. I’ve never been a biter, but pacing around my apartment all morning and now into the afternoon, I’ve suddenly developed an affinity for it.

  At first, I tried some yoga. Stretched across my rug in the living room, I tried to hold downward dog to calm my mind. But, my toes kept bouncing, and with my palms pressed against the floor, I wasn’t able to bite my nails, but I did chew my lip. Tree pose was no good, because my leg shook far too much to hold me up, despite supporting myself against the wall. Child’s pose, pigeon pose, cobra, dolphin, and whatever other animals I could think of. None of them helped still the anxious twitching in my fingers or calm the thoughts stampeding around my head.

  I almost stopped the blog post from going live. I came this close to canceling the schedule, deleting the words I typed, and calling in sick from work to crawl under the covers. I ended up calling in sick anyway, but I did let it go live. I forced myself to sit on my hands on the couch until my computer notified me that it was done. My words, more importantly my name, were up for all to see. No going back. It was done, and I couldn’t undo it.

  Strangely enough, I didn’t want to.

  But that didn’t stop me from biting at my nails as I waited for … well, I didn’t know exactly what I was waiting for. Some silly part of me expected Lee to coming storming through the door like at the end of some cheesy chick flick. He’d sweep me up in his arms and kiss me and carry me to the bedroom and we’d have amazing, mind blowing sex as the screen faded to black. We’d still be banging long after the theater emptied, the teenage employees half-assed picking up the popcorn, and the next crowd meandering in for another showing.

  I’m halfway through biting my thumbnail right down to the quick, but my door still has
n’t burst open and Lee still hasn’t swept me off my feet. That’s not going to happen. At that point, I realize I have no clue if Lee even saw it. If I were him, I wouldn’t even keep reading my silly blog. Why in the hell would he? That would be insane.

  So, I steel my nerves and decide to be a little proactive. Baby steps. Posting the blog was a big giant fucking moon leap, but still. I open up the blog again and go to the instant messenger. My last conversation with Lee is still there. I ignore it and type a few lines and flip the screen away from me to resume my nervous nail-biting.

  Hey Lee, I’m sorry. You were right. I was scared. I hope you can forgive me. Jenna.

  Minutes later, something beeps and I lunge for my computer screen, but there’s nothing on the instant messenger. I scramble around for my phone, but find it without any new notifications flashing on the screen. For God’s sake, the beeping is just my microwave.

  I sigh and plod over to my kitchen to retrieve the cup of warm herbal tea. I’m thinking it may help with the nerves. Or at the very least it’ll be something to hold so I can’t bite my fucking nails.

  I try watching some soaps. I even put on the Spanish ones to catch up on some language skills. Those only provide an hour or so of distraction, before I’m looking again at my computer and phone and even staring out my window as if I expect Lee to come strolling out of a cab.

  Maybe he’s at work. That’s why he isn’t responding. It is, in fact, a weekday so I guess it would be reasonable Lee is hunched over a pot in the kitchen. Rather than scrolling through the internet waiting for his ex – if you can even call me that – to post a tell-all blog and confess her love. I hope that is the reason.