by Abby Jimenez
“Becky, who the fuck is he?”
I could hear her breathing heavily on the other end and for the first time, her dramatics were pissing me off.
“He’s an extreme sport vlogger. He’s got a channel even bigger than hers. Quiksilver sponsored his last surfing competition, the one where he got bitten by a shark and just kept going?
“If you’re Jesus’s Abs, Drake Lawless is Lucifer’s Penis. He’s like the final boss boyfriend that you have to fight in a video game once you’ve defeated all the lesser exes. He looks like Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing, only with blond hair and tribal tattoos. And sorry, but he’s, like, way cooler than you. I mean, I hate to say it, but it’s true. You won’t even get on a plane, and Drake carried her down a mountain in Venezuela wrapped in a parachute. Oh my God, they’re probably getting married by a shaman, right now. How could you let this happen?!”
I paced Vanessa’s tiny living room. “Is he her ex or—”
“Yes, he’s her ex! How can you not know this? The Drake-and-Vanessa saga was, like, the biggest YouTube romance of all time. There were T-shirts and everything! They were all crazy about each other and had tantric sex on, like, every beach in Barbados. And then she broke up with him because he had that coal-walking accident in Tibet and she told him he had to quit doing dangerous stunts, and he was all, ‘I can’t! I do it for the children!’ Because he donates all his money to pediatric cancer research? So she left him and he was so devastated he spent two months in a tiki hut on his private island making sculptures of her out of driftwood.” She paused. “He brought her up like three times during his TED Talk. We were all really worried about him.”
I dragged a hand down my beard.
Vanessa never talked about him. Not once. I told her I’d watched her videos. Maybe she thought I knew already and it bothered her to bring him up so she just…didn’t?
I felt like a popped balloon. I just stood there, staring into her kitchen, listening to Becky gasp and moan about what an idiot I was for letting this happen.
“I have to go,” I mumbled, hanging up on her.
I put Grace in her swing and sat down heavily on the couch to google Drake—I got as far as typing in the first four letters of his name before Google suggested Drake Lawless and Vanessa Price. The other suggestions weren’t much of a comfort. There was Drake and Vanessa pregnant. Drake and Vanessa secret wedding. Drake and Vanessa get back together…
I poked around and found the video of how they met. It was his. He was BASE jumping off a waterfall in Venezuela and Vanessa was there doing her own video blog. She sprained her ankle and he carried her down the fucking mountain, just like Becky said.
Apparently Vanessa wasn’t initially interested, because the next three videos of his were him doing grand gestures to get her attention. He followed her to Brazil and rappelled onto her hotel balcony from the roof to ask her on a date. Then he flew her to a botanical garden in Cornwall to see the corpse flower bloom—and he actually piloted the plane. I was halfway through their romantic motorcycle ride through Peru when I decided I’d seen enough.
I knew Vanessa had another life, that her current situation wasn’t what she normally did with her days. But I don’t think I truly realized how exciting her other world was, how exotic her tastes were—both in travel and men. The guy lived in a yurt, for God’s sake. And Becky was right. I didn’t even fly.
Now what we did together looked boring and sad in comparison. Hanging out with me was probably something she did just to pass the time until she got back to what she’d rather be doing.
And I thought she said she’d never touched a six-pack before. What the fuck???
I tossed my phone on the couch and sat there feeling completely blindsided. And jealous. Ridiculously, wildly jealous.
Why hadn’t she talked to me about this? We talked about everything—except her channel. Maybe this was another topic she preferred didn’t bleed into the rest of her life. After all, it was over between them.
At least it had been before today.
Now I half wondered if she said she didn’t date because she was holding out for someone else. Holding out for him. Maybe he couldn’t stand being away from her and he was quitting stunts. Maybe this was him coming to tell her. Sweep her off her feet.
And now I was sitting here, babysitting for a woman I was in love with while she went out on a date with her ex.
And that’s truly what it was. I was in love with her.
The reality of this hit me like a gavel coming down. An instant call to attention. A hard stop.
I was in love with her.
But of course I was in love with her. Who wasn’t?
She could have any man she wanted. Any man at all.
Women like Vanessa were muses for artists and musicians. They became famous paintings and love ballads. They danced in the rain and ran away with princes who would give up their thrones to have them. They were the sirens that sailors wrote about with voices that could lure a man to his death.
She was a beautiful migratory bird with her wings clipped. And the second she could, she’d fly again. Out of St. Paul, away from me…
And probably back to him.
CHAPTER 20
THE LUCRATIVE INVESTMENT THAT THE EXPERTS DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT!
VANESSA
A crowd of fans had gathered outside of Vermilion. Someone must have leaked our location.
By myself, I was a draw. By himself, Drake was a massive draw. Together, we were a galaxy-level, defying-the-laws-of-physics, magnetic force. People were probably feeling the pull and getting into buses to drive in from out of state and they didn’t even know why.
Laird was getting his camera ready and Malcolm was putting new batteries in my mic.
Drake was drinking some banana flip thing with a sprig of pine in it across from me. “You’re doing a great job with Grace,” he said, taking out the garnish and setting it on a plate. “But you should really use cloth diapers. Reduce your carbon footprint.”
“I don’t have a washing machine, remember?” I said. “I use Adrian’s and I seriously doubt he wants me washing dirty diapers in it.”
Malcolm snorted. “That guy would let you eat crackers in his bed.”
I laughed dryly. “Oh yeah? I kissed him last night and he pushed me off him. So riddle me that.”
“He pushed you off him?” Malcolm asked, clipping the tiny mic to the front of my dress.
“Yeah. Like you know how you act when you look down and you see a spider on you? And you’re like, ‘Oh my God! A spider!’ and you hop off the sofa and do a little freak-out dance and then run from the room? It was like that.”
“Come on, it was not,” Drake said with his amused smile.
“Okay, it wasn’t quite that dramatic. But the sentiment was the same.” I scoffed. “Why does everyone keep telling me this guy is into me? Like, literally everyone I know in the last twenty-four hours had sworn that he can’t keep his eyes off me. Honestly, if it wasn’t for that, and liquor, and the super sweet ‘you are the breeze’ thing he said to me on my sofa last night, I might not have made a total ass of myself. I blame all of you for this.”
Drake smiled. “You’re blaming us? I hadn’t even met him until today. We weren’t even there.”
I put a hand on my chest. “Well, it’s not my fault. I wasn’t there either. It was Drunk Vanessa, who is a totally different person and shouldn’t be held accountable for her actions.”
Drake laughed.
I sighed. “Do I catch him checking me out sometimes? Sure. And does he like to spend time with me? Totally. But thinking my ass looks nice in my jeans and enjoying my company are very different from wanting to date me and my fifty percent chance of dying by thirty. It’s official,” I mumbled. “I’m probably never having sex again. My last sexual encounter will probably be with TSA.”
Malcolm laughed.
“He seems good with the baby,” Drake offered.
“He’s great with
the baby. You know, just not interested in me.”
Malcolm turned on my mic. “Why don’t you just go over there and ask him why he didn’t want to kiss you?”
I shook my head. “Nope. I need to start putting boundaries between us. I just threw myself at a guy who didn’t want to make out. I totally humiliated myself. I think it’s time to exit this situation while I still have some dignity left.”
Like I even had a choice in the matter. Adrian was probably ready to go back to the noncommittal head nods in the hallways. He texted me saying he wanted to talk, but what was there to say? It would always be awkward between us now. He probably came to watch Grace today because he said he would and then he’d start making excuses and find someone else to hang out with. Someone datable who didn’t pounce him on the sofa after one too many martinis.
Drake reached across the table and put a hand on my wrist. “Enough about him.”
I raised my eyes to his. A woman outside the window behind him pressed a naked boob to the glass. It was negative five outside. I applauded her commitment. “Whatever you do, don’t turn around,” I said.
“Why would I turn around when I have you to look at?” He grinned at me.
And now we were in character. Malcolm and Laird were already filming.
I arched an eyebrow. “You know, there’s a reason we broke up, Drake. It was a good one.”
He leaned across the table and pressed the top of my hand to his lips. “Yes. It was.”
I gave him a long lingering look. “I miss you,” I whispered.
He stared at me for a moment. Then he sat back in his chair and took something from his jacket pocket. When he pulled out the gorgeous engagement ring and held it between us, I gasped. It was a band with inlaid pearl.
“I found the pearl myself,” he said. “I spent half my life looking for it, just like I did for the one who’s going to wear it.”
“Drake…” I breathed, a hand on my chest. I wasn’t even faking it. It was beautiful. The ring and the sentiment.
We let the moment sit for a few seconds.
“Aaand we got it,” Malcolm said, lowering the camera. “One-take wonders, both of you.”
“Phew.” I sat back in my chair. “Drake, I appreciate this more than you know.”
“Enough to entertain a brief sales pitch for a startup I’m interested in?”
I tilted my head. “You need me to invest?”
That was weird. Drake was a gazillionaire or something. He hardly needed my money.
“I think you might want to get in on the ground floor for this one.” He made a come-here motion to someone behind me. I twisted in my seat to see who he was calling over.
Brent was making his way to the table.
“No. Are you fucking serious, Brent? You called Drake?”
Brent sucked air through his teeth. “He’s the only other rich person I know,” he said, arriving at the table with his hands balled in front of his mouth.
I shook my head. “No. You’re not sucking Drake into one of your get-rich-quick schemes—”
“Butterfly, that’s not what this is,” Drake said. “Hear him out. Trust me.”
I looked back and forth between them. Drake was giving me his easy smile, and Brent looked like a puppy dog who wanted to be let back into the house.
I crossed my arms. “Fine. But only because it’s you asking,” I said to Drake.
Brent grinned and did a little happy dance. “Can someone get the lights?” He whirled back in the direction he came from and Laird and Malcolm took their seats next to us at the table.
Joel appeared and started placing professional-looking bound catalogs of some sort in front of us, and Brent turned on a small projector on a tripod.
A PowerPoint presentation popped up on the wall.
Okay…So far this was all a little more than I expected. I had to admit I was already slightly, if not cautiously, impressed.
Brent took his place in front of our table and cleared his throat. “Women’s clothing doesn’t have pockets.” He let this hang in the air for a moment. “I’m here to speak to you about an exclusive, innovative new product that was inspired by my sister Vanessa, and her life hack for the fact that none of her cute clothes have places to put her lip balm.”
Drake looked over his shoulder and smiled at me.
Brent clicked to a picture of us making a snowman circa five years ago. “Growing up in Minnesota, my older sister Vanessa loved spending time outside. And anyone who knows my sister knows that she’s obsessed with Carmex. You know, those little yellow lip balm tubes with the red caps?” He clicked through to a picture of a tube of Carmex. “Great product, tastes like shit. Sorry, Vanessa—but it does.”
The audience gave a little titter and the corner of my mouth twitched.
“In addition to its questionable flavor, Carmex gets hard when it’s cold outside and it won’t squeeze from the bottle. So to combat this problem while wearing her pocketless clothes, my sister would put it in her bra to keep it warm. Unfortunately, you could see the pokey end of the tube through her shirt. Not sexy.” He clicked to a picture of me. Eighteen years old in gloves and a hat smiling in the driveway, with a red arrow pointing to my boob, where the end of my Carmex poked out.
“This gave me an idea,” he went on. “What if we made a lip balm that doesn’t taste like shit? Formulated to soften with the heat from your body. It’s got a soft tube so it lays flat on your skin and you can’t see it through your clothes. All natural, organic, sustainable ingredients with SPF. And the tube is biodegradable with a seed in it, so if you bury it, it breaks down and then grows a flower. Giftable, Earth friendly, edgy, super millennial.” He clicked to a picture of a tube of lip balm. “Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce to you BoobStick.”
Joel was walking around with a tray, placing prototypes in front of us. I picked one up and turned it around in my fingers.
It was cute. Instagramable cute. Pink with a delicate teal floral filigree on the front.
Everyone started taking off the caps and trying it. I put some on my lips and licked it. It tasted like guava. It tasted good. Really good.
Brent went on. “In front of you are sales forecasts and return projections, a market analysis, and full marketing, manufacturing, and operational plans. As you can see, our production costs are low and we feel due to the novelty nature of the product, we can sell it at a higher price point than comp items. Our website is already up and functional.” He clicked through to a professional-looking website that matched the artwork on the lip balm.
“We offer different flavors. We roll out additional products over the next eighteen months. Hand creams, bath bombs. We offer a gender-neutral DipStick on a rope, perfect for the active customer who doesn’t have pockets or bras.” He winked at Drake. “We target retailers like Anthropologie, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods. We launch the brand at Drake’s next sporting event as welcome gifts in the guest rooms, where we can get the product in front of a VIP list of influencers.”
I opened the professional-looking packet in front of me and flipped through the graphs and numbers. This was not Brent’s MO at all. He was always so instant gratification when it came to his business pursuits, but this? This must have taken him months. Longer. All this work…
“This is amazing,” I breathed, looking up at him.
He broke into a grin.
“No, I’m serious, Brent. This is incredible. You thought this up? You put all this together by yourself?”
He smiled. “I did. You sent me to business school, remember? You just didn’t think I was paying attention.”
I laughed and looked down at the tube of lip balm. I would buy this. It was like something you’d see by the register at Sephora.
“I had some help with the graphic design,” Brent said. “Annabel did it, actually. You know. Before.”
I looked up at him. “Annabel did this?”
“All her. The website too. She’s good at it. And I got the idea for the
seed from Dad. Remember that time a Chia Pet broke in the living room and he just left it there and the carpet started growing a lawn?”
I snorted. “God, yes.”
“Oh, and my first investor is someone you know,” he said. “I hope you’re not mad. I asked him not to tell you. Adrian gave me a small loan for the materials for the pitch meeting.”
My heart did a little flutter. “He did?”
Brent nodded. “I pitched him at the hospital in the men’s room.”
My face fell. “Ugh, are you serious?”
“He wasn’t mad,” he said quickly. “He agreed to let me send him my business plan. He liked it. He sent me the money the next day. Also, I heard you talk about the spider thing.” He sucked air through his teeth. “I’m sorry. That’s super weird he didn’t kiss you back. Joel and I both thought he was into you.”
I scoffed. “Wouldn’t be the first time this week I’ve misjudged a situation,” I mumbled, looking at the packet again.
Brent took another step toward me. “Vanessa, Adrian believes in this. So does Drake.”
I didn’t blame them. I believed in this too.
I nodded. “My answer is yes. I’ll give you as much as you need.”
Brent yelped and Joel crashed into him. They hugged and hooted, spinning around the restaurant.
Drake tipped his head at me. “You can’t give him all of it. What about me? I want to invest too.”
I shook my head, watching Brent and Joel celebrate. “I’m surprised you even let him pitch me. You could have just backed him and had the whole thing to yourself.”
Drake laughed good-naturedly. “I wanted to. I offered it. But it was important to him that you do it.”
I wrinkled my forehead. “Me? Why? I don’t think he cares as long as he gets his money.”
Drake looked amused. “He wants your approval, Vanessa. He wants you to be proud of him. He wants that more than anything. More than the money.”