Instant Gratification

by Blakely, Lauren

  “Exactly. Work makes me happy. It’s gratifying to build a business, to nurture it, to see it grow. It’s reliable too. But I know that my mind-set isn’t something that usually meshes with other people’s.”

  “Meshes? What do you mean?”

  She shoots me a look like it ought to be obvious. “I’m thirty-five and single. I’m married to work at this point.”

  “Is that how you see it? You’re single because you love work?”

  “Pretty much, but that’s okay. I’m sure it’s different for you, being younger and, well, being a man.”

  I nod thoughtfully. “I suppose you’re right. Society doesn’t seem to think it’s such an issue if a man is obsessed with work.”

  “But when a woman is, that must mean she’ll never have anything else. Then again, maybe it’s true—I am somewhat obsessive. At least, that’s what my last boyfriend said when he ended things.”

  I grit my teeth, thinking of Elias, a guy she was involved with a year or so ago. I used to see him at Gin Joint when he stopped by, always sidling up to the counter, making eyes at the sexy brunette. I hated him on principle.

  “He said you were obsessed with work?”

  “Yes. And he said he wanted to be with someone who had more of herself to give. He asked for me to cut back my hours, to work less. I said thanks, but no thanks. Work is good to me, so I’m good to work.”

  “But you can’t be entirely obsessed. You’re not working tonight, after all. You were with me.”

  “News flash—I worked all day. I worked for six hours before I caught the train to Connecticut for the wedding.”

  “That surprises me, but of course, it shouldn’t, since you are, by your own admission, a workaholic.”

  “And you’re the same. We’re wired the same way—to want, to chase, to go after things.”

  I run my fingertips along the bare skin of her thigh, returning to my favorite topic. “Like I did with you tonight?”

  She inches closer, her voice turning sultry. “You did go after me.”

  “I wanted you. You wanted me. We both needed it.”

  “That’s not in dispute.”

  But it feels like something is. Like maybe we’re not entirely on the same page. Maybe I’m reading something into nothing, but I also feel like she’s reminding me we are only a fuck.

  But what the hell?

  I know that.

  Sure, there’s a small part of me that wants to say, Let’s do it again next weekend. Let’s make a deal. Let’s screw each other’s brains out till we’re through. But I’m intensely aware of the many reasons it would be a bad idea to keep this going.

  I have jobs to do. She has a business to expand. We have her brother, and that’s a big fucking deal. There is no time or space for anything more than this—a tryst in a limo after a wedding—and I need to stand firm on this hill, not die on a nagging desire for a little more.

  I shove that desire out the door, speeding past it.

  And speeding down Ninth Avenue too, since we’re back in the city, close to Truly’s home.

  I rub my palms together and pretend to roll up my sleeves like we’re getting to work, since that’s what she loves. “All right, Mr. Investor wants your report sooner, so that means we need to hop to it with our pub crawl. Every day, every night, we need to finish your homework, and you need to use me as your lab rat.”

  The smile that spreads across her face is magic. Now I’m really talking her language. “That would be great.” She rattles off the places she wants to check out and suggests a timeline.

  “Yes, yes, yes,” I say since she said yes to helping me.

  That’s us—two friends helping each other. Nothing more.

  She gives me a soft smile. “We’re still friends, right?”

  She might be reading my mind. I shoot her a look that says she’s bananas for asking. “Of course.” But inside I’m wishing she felt the same desire for more. Even though I know friends is what makes sense.

  As we near her block, she glances out the window then tucks her phone in her purse.

  “By the way, if he gets Looney Tunes as his ringtone, what’s mine?”

  “Why don’t you call me and find out?”

  I grab my mobile from my pocket and ring her number.

  “Bond. Jay Bond,” her phone says.

  “And I thought you weren’t affected by British accents.”

  She shrugs coquettishly. “Perhaps I am, after all.”

  “Good, then you can continue to enjoy mine from the friend zone,” I say, reminding myself of the score.

  I mean her. I need to remind her of the score.

  She smiles. “Yes, we’re good in the friend zone. Aren’t we?”

  “We’re great.”

  “I think so too.”

  When we turn on her block, I get out of the car and walk her to her door, since that’s what a gentleman should do. “Thank you for coming with me tonight.”

  “I say this with all sincerity and in every sense of the word . . . coming with you was my pleasure.”

  The way she ends that sentence, so sultry, so inviting, I want to slide out of the zone once again, rope my fingers through her hair, and haul her in for a kiss. But I don’t leave her with a hot, possessive kiss that makes her arch her back and drag her nails through my hair.

  Because that’s not what we agreed to. We agreed that tonight was a blip. So we’ll put it behind us.

  “See you tomorrow, Truly.”

  “Good night, Jason.”

  See? That was so friendly.

  I head to the car. As the limo pulls away, she’s already inside the lobby, walking to the elevator.

  Ready to dive into work.

  As we make our way across town, there’s that annoying twinge in my chest again. That nagging little ache. Only this time, it’s filled with longing.

  Which is unacceptable.

  There’s no room here for wanting more.

  There is no space in my life for more, if I could have it.

  Besides, when I check my phone, the message on it reminds me of one of the biggest reasons this won’t work.

  Malone: On a scale of one to ten, how easy was it tonight to fool everyone into thinking you and Truly were a thing?

  Ten, I want to say, but not for the reasons he thinks.

  Ten, because one of the things men will do to impress a woman is listen to her.

  Only, I didn’t just talk to Truly. I didn’t just listen to Truly. I didn’t ask questions about her work just to impress her.

  I didn’t do any of those things to woo her or win her.

  I did it because I want to understand her deeply, inside and out.

  And that’s getting to be a problem.

  I don’t reply to Malone. I don’t know what to say.

  27

  Truly

  I’m breathing hard like I’ve just run through tires on the obstacle course.

  Tearing myself away from that man had not been easy.

  The moment the door snicks shut behind me, I sink to the floor.

  “Fucking friend zone,” I mutter.

  I want to be back in the limo zone. I want to discover a new zone.

  But if I keep sliding down the slippery slope, I’ll want to live in the intimate zone.

  So I do what I do best.

  Move.

  I drag my ass off the ground, drop my purse onto the coffee table, and head to the bedroom. After peeling off my dress, I grab a pair of shorts and a sports bra, then tug my hair into a tight ponytail.

  I go downstairs to the gym in my building and try to exercise away these lingering desires.

  For sex. For him. For a little something more.

  When I’m done, I’m sweaty and my quads are burning. Once upstairs again, I flop onto my couch, grab the craft cocktail book, and try to lose myself in the recipes.

  In the morning, the empty ache in my chest hasn’t said sayonara, so I grab my phone and text Charlotte.

&nbs
p; Truly: I suppose this is where I say you were right.

  Charlotte: I usually am, as I tell my kids. But what was I right about? Was it saying a wedding would make you relapse? Was it the number of days it took? Was it how hard it would be to resist him?

  Truly: All of the above. And it was out of this world. We’re talking mind-bending level of Os. In a limo.

  Charlotte: Mmm. Best kind to have. Also, I’m shocked. So shocked. Here’s my shocked face. *Sends selfie of shocked face*

  Truly: Yes, I can see from the blank expression it’s a HUGE surprise to you.

  Charlotte: You’re into him, you went to a wedding, you were in a limo. Doesn’t take a world-class detective to add up the clues. But I suppose it’s sorta, maybe, kinda cool to know that the second time was excellent. Yay to good sex and all. :)

  Truly: I love that you’re trying to see the positive in me breaking a promise a second time.

  Charlotte: I’m upbeat like that. Also, stop beating yourself up. You’re still a good person underneath that horny-for-Jason exterior.

  Truly: Shut up!

  Charlotte: I’m just saying. I still love you.

  Truly: And I still love you . . . but it would have been nice if the sex was terrible.

  Charlotte: Really? Would it really have been nice to

  have awful sex?

  Truly: YES! Because if it had been terrible, I wouldn't be thinking about him. I wouldn't want to do it again, wouldn’t have wanted to invite him over to my house last night. If it had been terrible, I wouldn’t be wide awake at seven in the morning wishing things were different.

  Charlotte: What exactly do you wish was different?

  Truly: That’s what I’m trying to figure out.

  28

  Jason

  “How do I look? As good as, say, when I did the Gigante ad?”

  I draw a blank over Enzo’s question as I consider his reflection in the mirror at the tuxedo shop. Gigante—what the hell is that? A Spanish brand of tequila? Some new make of cigarettes from Barcelona? Or perhaps condoms for the fellas for whom jumbo is a tight squeeze?

  I finesse my answer. After all, he is a supermodel, so I’m sure there’s only one answer to his question. “Better. You look even better.”

  He arches a brow, giving me a come-hither look that I don’t think contains any emotion but is, rather, one of his cache of expressions. Open a bureau, pick a look from a drawer. “Excellent. Then I’d say I look pretty fucking fabulous. At least, that’s what they all said when I posed in my underwear for Gigante. You should have seen the billboards. But the traffic accidents. I still feel terrible for all the accidents caused when people stopped to stare.”

  Ah, Gigante is underwear. I should have known that. I’ll berate myself later for not prepping with a complete list of underwear brands worn by supermodels.

  “That’s a shame,” I say. “But hey, hazard of the job, right?”

  “My God, yes. One time when I was crossing Fifth Avenue, a woman tripped and nearly fell into a manhole from ogling me.”

  “Who knew the risk to society you could be as a superstar model?”

  “I caught her just in time though. I didn’t want to have that on my conscience.”

  “I bet you made her swoon when you caught her.”

  He flashes his ten-million-dollar grin. “I did. But I’d already met Valerie, so I was a taken man. Valerie and I met on my undies shoot. She’ll be here in a few minutes.”

  “Yeah, about that. Can I give you a tip about undies?”

  “Of course.” His brown eyes go wide and earnest. Enzo contains an interesting mix of Royal Caribbean cruise ship–size confidence and a doe-eyed desire to learn. Then again, anyone who looks like this man really ought to have universe-level stores of bravado. I don’t care for lads, not one bit, and I never have. But I can tell he’s not made like the rest of us. He’s not even in the top one percent. He’s the one percent of the one percent of the one percent, with cheekbones carved by a hundred vestal virgins and eyes that would Svengali anyone into anything. I bet he could even charm a lion into becoming a vegetarian with a single smoldering look.

  Or convince men to buy skin-tight briefs. Come to think of it, the way his backside looks in those trousers, I bet his ass was sculpted by the same crew who did his cheeks. But there’s still one thing about this man that is not going to make women swoon, no matter the firmness of those abs.

  “Here’s my tip: don’t call them undies. You’re in America now, and clearly you’re a rock star at the language. But sometimes we need to master the lingo too. Even I’ve had to adapt. All I want to do is call them pants, but no one would understand me. It’s either boxers or briefs here.”

  “Ah, boxers or briefs. But what about when I wear nothing? What do you call that?”

  I go stock-still for a second. But of course. It makes perfect sense. Naturally Enzo, the six-foot-two, twenty-six-year-old Spanish model who recently moved from Madrid to New York City to marry Valerie Wu, the nearly-twice-his-age CEO of a media and advertising conglomerate, walks around in the buff. “We call that commando. But please tell me you’re not wearing nothing right now as you try on the tux?”

  He gives me an eyebrow wriggle. “Wouldn’t you like to see?”

  “No, I actually wouldn’t.”

  He laughs then clasps my shoulder, doubling over. “Oh, the look on your face. I wound you up. Don’t worry. I have on pants too. Right?”

  I wag a finger at him. “You took the piss out of me. Also, I’d say you’re ready for the wedding next weekend.”

  He regards himself one final time in the mirror, shooting approving looks at his reflection. And those must be from the give-them-sex-eyes drawer. “Valerie will probably want to jump me the second she sees me. But she always wants to jump me. That’s a nice thing about women of a certain age. In fact,” he says, picking up his phone and checking the screen, “she’ll be here in a minute.”

  “To jump you?”

  “Please. She’d never do that in a store. Probably in her town car, though, and I’ll look forward to that. But she’s on her way, since I sent her a selfie after I tried it on and she wants to see me in this in the flesh. Selfies of me make her happy, and I want a happy bride.”

  A few minutes later, a statuesque woman with striking cheekbones sweeps into the tux shop, red Jackie O shades perched atop her waterfall of silky black hair, flashing smiles at the sales associates.

  “Hello. Good morning, Delia. Don’t you look dashing, Simon? That suit fits perfectly. And that tie! Do you sell it here? I’ll take one of each. Thank you so very much. Add it to my account.”

  She arrives at the dressing room area, brown eyes taking a leisurely stroll up and down her fiancé’s body. “Yes. Just as I suspected. Even better than the photo.”

  “I had a feeling you might think so.”

  “And I’ve already added the photo to my private collection.”

  “Of course you have. I knew you would. I know you so well,” he says, his tone laced with affection, his gaze only for her.

  “You know I love to look at them when you’re away in Bali, in Paris, in Milan, and I’m left behind all by my lonesome,” she pouts playfully, her eyes only on him.

  He chuckles. “You make it seem like you’re left behind to make casseroles.”

  “As if I’d even touch an oven. How do they work? You use them to cook food?”

  He laughs, clearly delighted with her. “I believe so. But the phone and all the wonderful apps on it do that just the same. So you can run your empire while I am away from you.”

  “And that’s why I love when you indulge me with my favorite photos.” Valerie and Enzo share a secret smile, then she spins around. “Where are my manners? It’s a pleasure to meet you in person at last . . .”

  She extends a hand, waiting for me to supply my fake name.

  “Jay,” I tell her.

  “Jay. How lovely to finally meet the best man.” She winks at me, since she’
s in on it. After all, she’s the one who found me. She’s the one who hired me—well, her assistant did. But, point being, she knows the score. The only thing she doesn’t know is my real name, since I don’t generally give it.

  I take her hand to shake. “And a pleasure to meet the bride.”

  “I’m dying to hear all about you. I love meeting new people. I love learning about what makes them tick. I want to know everything. But right now, I have some business to attend to. I have a call with my COO over a new partnership. I must return to my office on wheels. So we’ll talk more at the cocktail party?”

  “I’m looking forward to it.”

  She looks to her fiancé. “I’ll be waiting for you right outside. Then we’ll go to that gallery opening of the painter you love.”

  “Ahhh. You got the tickets!”

  “Of course I did. I know how much you love his work.”

  “Now who’s indulging who?”

  “What can I say? You know what I like. I know what you like,” she says with a smile.

  He raises a hand, runs his thumb along her jawline. “You’re too good to me, my love.” He drops a kiss to her lips, a proper store kiss, nothing inappropriate, but clearly the kind that seems to say something about their union. They’re not even randy. They’re simply tender and, it seems, truly in love. On the surface he might appear to be her boy toy, but he’s a multi-millionaire model who indulges her whims, and she’s the billionaire who indulges his.

  Funny, in a good way, how all these couples might be hiring me for appearance’s sake, but their connections with each other seem genuine. From Chip and Ashley and their delight in finding someone truly nice, to Enzo and Valerie and their surprisingly mutual romance, and even to Gavin and Savannah and the way they finished each other’s sentences.