by JA Huss
“For where?” Myrtle asks.
“Someplace not shitty,” he says. And goes back into his office.
I turn back to face my new friend Eden, who says, stutteringly, “Your friend is Pierce Chevalier?”
I sigh again. “Yup.”
We stare at each other for a second.
“You need something, Eden?” That’s Myrtle, breaking the mood.
“Oh, yeah, I, uh... I wanted to ask you something, actually.”
“OK,” says Myrtle. Then she looks at Eden. Who raises her eyebrows at Myrtle. Who gives a look like, What? to Eden. Who looks back at Myrtle like, Gimme a second. And then Eden looks back to me.
And I can’t help but grin as I say, “OK. Well. See ya!” And head off.
As I reach the elevator bank and press the button to summon a car, Eden calls out, “I... I thought you stole my charger!”
I stop and turn back. “Stole it? I’m shocked. Who do you think I am?”
She shrugs. “I dunno. Who are you?”
My grin spreads in such a way as to make my eyes close when I respond, “I’m just a guy who tries to do what he says he’s gonna do.”
“Yeah?” she asks, a flirty little grin on her lips that I’m now noticing are plumper and poutier than I realized before. Oh, boy...
“Yeah,” I say with a hint of a laugh. Then I add, “Cross my heart,” as the elevator doors open, and I step inside and out of sight.
CHAPTER FIVE - EDEN
I sigh as the elevator doors close and he disappears, then call out, “Hey! Your name!”
But he’s gone.
“It’s Andrew,” Myrtle purrs in my ear.
“Jesus,” I say, swatting her away. She was so close to me when she said that, she gave me a chill. “Why do you have to do that to me? You know it’s weird.”
She laughs. And Myrtle laughing is a beautiful thing because she doesn’t do it often. She’s one of those women who takes her role in life seriously and her role in life seems to be making people uncomfortable in every way imaginable. So she purrs into my ear a lot and every time I get this chill up my spine. Not like a creepy chill either. And I swear to God, I’m not bisexual, but Myrtle purring into my ear makes me want to reconsider that decision sometimes.
I rub the back of my neck to make that feeling go away. “Andrew, huh?”
She nods, winking at me. “Andrew Hawthorne. CEO of Aureality and creator of that app, Voice Lift.”
“Voice Lift, no shit?” That’s what I use to disguise my voice for the Sexpert videos. And just as that thought manifests in my head I get a weird feeling. Like…
“Yes, he’s got the empty offices down on forty-nine.”
“That big ol’ space that used to house all our creative people?”
“Yup,” Myrtle says, peeling a banana and taking a bite. She never eats the donuts I bring on Mondays. Ever. And I’m pretty sure she only eats the bananas to drive all the men up here crazy because Josh Washburn is watching her chew from the open doorway of his office right now. “He’s Pierce’s best friend or something. So we’re going to be seeing a lot of him.”
“He stole my charger on the freeway this morning.” I hold up the charger as evidence. “But he gave it back, so I guess he didn’t really steal it.”
Myrtle laughs again, but this time it’s the normal kind. Where she only tips up the corners of her mouth as she lets out a small huff. “Did you come up here for something? Or are you just making your good-morning rounds?”
Sometimes, if I bring donuts, I come up to fifty-one to say hello as well. I figure you can’t be too friendly with the upper management, right? And almost all of them appreciate the gesture. I was voted Most Likely To Brighten Your Day two years in a row at the company picnic we have every summer.
But I am here for a reason. “So listen,” I say. “Apparently something big is happening because Gretchen has me on an assignment to thwart a twat’s takeover of some intellectual property we don’t actually have. Do you know anything about this? I’d go back and ask Gretchen, but she’s in a pissy mood right now and I figured you’d know better than anyone. So what’s going on?”
“Oh.” Myrtle waves her hand in the air. Then she leans in to whisper at me, but this time she’s not trying to turn me on by purring. She’s just being quiet so Pierce can’t hear her. “If you think Gretchen is in a mood…” She huffs again. “He’s going out of his mind about this shit.”
“What shit?” I ask.
She takes my arm and pulls me down the hallway, looking over her shoulder as we walk. “Some girl is on YouTube with a video series Pierce thought up.”
“Yeah, I got that much from Gretchen. I’m supposed to grab related articles from the past two years and start blasting them all over social media. My problem is that Gretchen never told me what the videos are about.”
“Sex,” Myrtle says. “She’s calling herself the Sexpert. And Pierce is pissed off because…”
I stop hearing Myrtle and just stare at her glossy red lips as she continues talking because the word Sexpert is echoing through my head.
She didn’t just say that. I made it up. There’s no way all this stress and angst is about me. I just have the Sexpert on my mind because we were on the radio and we’re getting hits, and…
I snap out of my momentary shock just in time to hear Myrtle say, “And she’s gone viral, Eden. Oh, Pierce is livid. He thinks it’s someone he knows.”
“What?”
“Like an enemy of his father’s. But I think it’s probably someone here at the company.”
“Why would you say that?” I ask.
“It only makes sense. It was a super-secret project. He only has a small group in on it and they’ve been twiddling their dicks about it for almost a year, so one of them probably decided, Hey, if he’s not gonna do it, I will.” Myrtle shrugs, like this really does make all the sense.
“Oh, my God,” I say. He’s gonna think I stole that idea. And I didn’t! So I say, “I had no idea he was working on something like this.”
And then I realize I should really shut the fuck up, because Myrtle doesn’t even know I’m the Sexpert.
No one does.
And it needs to stay that way forever, and ever, and ever.
“Of course you didn’t,” Myrtle says. “But that’s what this is all about. So you should grab all the sex advice articles. That’s what you needed to know, right?”
I nod. Still in shock.
“Oh, and that Andrew guy you were swooning over?”
“Yeah?” I say.
“Well, Pierce got him to agree to find this Sexpert using some new voice app. I guess he can do that. So…”
“He what? I mean... How do you know?”
“Same way I know Pierce has a foot fetish. Myrtle hears everything, sweetie.” She winks and pats my shoulder. “This will all blow over soon. Don’t worry too much about it.”
I take a deep breath. Hold it. Let it out. Swallow. Smile. Then pull on the hem of my shirt to help mentally straighten myself out, and say, “Well, I have work to do. Gotta get the art department to make new sexy graphics! Byeeee!”
So I wave my usual cheerful wave and scoot past her.
I head straight to the stairs and immediately get out my phone and start texting Zoey as I pass through the door.
Me: bitch we got problems pierce is sexpert
I didn’t mean it to come out like that but I can’t be bothered with punctuation right now. And anyway, two seconds later my phone buzzes an incoming call from Zoey. I tab accept and whisper, “I’m gonna get fired today.”
“What the hell are you talking about? What’s that mean? Pierce is Sexpert?”
“I stole his idea and then he found out and I didn’t mean to do it and now the cute freeway guy is on the case and he’s gonna out me and get me fired! I’m fucked!” I whisper-scream that last part into the phone while I hold it at arm’s length.
“Eden!” Zoey snaps. “Calm the fuck down and exp
lain! I didn’t understand any of that.”
But then the stairwell door opens on fifty and two girls—Sara from accounting and Leslie from data entry—start walking up to fifty-one towards me.
“Hey, girls!” I wave and smile at them, trying to act normal.
“Hey, Eden!” they chime back together. “Happy Monday!” they say.
“Happy Monday,” I say back.
Now I get it. I totally get why people hate it when I say that.
When they disappear onto fifty-one I go back to the phone. “How… when… Zoey! I think I might’ve stolen this idea from Pierce!”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I was there when you came up with it. Remember? It was Valentine’s Day two years ago and I was pregnant, and sad, and poor because business was bad and you said, ‘We should be strippers.’ And then I said, ‘I can’t be a stripper because I’m fat.’ And you said, ‘You’re not fat, you’re beautiful.’ And then I said, ‘We need a stupid YouTube series like that dumbass seventeen-year-old who got famous on Ellen! after she made stop-motion movies of Barbie and Ken having sex.’ And you said, ‘We should totally make a ridiculous sex advice channel and we should call ourselves the Sexperts!’ Remember all that?”
That was how it went down. “I was drunk though, remember? That asshole Matthew dumped me after I put out and I was pissed off. So maybe I accidentally heard Pierce say something about the Sexpert and then I only thought it was my idea?”
“That’s stupid. Don’t be stupid, Eden. You’re not stupid. You came up with the name! I was there!”
“Yeah, but we’ve been using Voice Lift to disguise my voice and the goddamned Voice Lift inventor is the cute freeway guy and now Myrtle says he’s on the case and he’s gonna figure out who I am!”
“Ridiculous!” Zoey yells. “No one is gonna find out who you are, Eden. We don’t even show your face.”
True.
I take a deep breath. Maybe I’m just overreacting?
“Besides, this was our idea so fuck-face Pierce can just fuck off. We’re viral, I’ve got the next video ready to post for tomorrow. We’re gonna ride this wave, baby! All the fucking way into shore and all the hard work we’ve put into it over the last year will finally pay off.”
“How many hits do we have now? Like sixty thousand?”
“Sixty!” She laughs. “Bitch, we’re at almost one hundred thirty thousand hits. And that’s just for How to Play With Her Donut! Licking His Sour Apple Pucker is a close second with almost a hundred thousand. All of them, Eden. All of them are going crazy right now. I just got an invitation from YouTube to monetize. We hit the threshold like ten minutes ago! So we’re gonna start getting paid!”
“Really?” I say. “For real?”
“Yes! We’re in, Eden. We paid our dues. We created this content. We put in all the sweat equity and now we’re going to get paid. We did not steal this idea. We invented this idea! OK? So just calm down and relax. I know it’s a lot to take in. I mean, just yesterday we were nobodies and today everyone in Denver is talking about us. But we can lose it all if we make the wrong moves. So don’t say anything to anyone about what you just told me, got it?”
I nod. “Yeah, OK. Got it.”
“We did this,” she repeats. “We. Did this. Pierce needs to just fuck off.”
“OK,” I say. “OK.”
“So… tell me about the cute freeway guy.”
“Later,” I say. “I have to pull together a campaign to fight the Sexpert first.” And then I end the call and force myself to walk down to my floor, open the door, and pretend I’m not the real reason why Pierce Chevalier is having a very bad Monday.
When I get back to my desk I get back to work trying to calm myself down. I make a list of all the sex advice articles we’ve run over the past two years, rank them in order of popularity, then send the entire list up to the art department so they can come up with new graphics. Then I email my intern and tell him we need a meeting today to come up with hashtag ideas.
When all that’s done, it’s lunchtime. And while usually I just go sit outside in the Towne Centre and eat something from one of the many lunch trucks, today I actually have an appointment to sign my rental agreement in the hottest residential building in the entire TDH neighborhood.
The place is called Sunset Towers. It’s not as tall as the TDH building, but it’s got thirty-seven floors. My place is on the second floor, and there’s no view of the sunset. Or the mountains. But I did manage to get a view of the Towne Centre from my small terrace. So all summer I’ll have a front-row seat for the free concerts in the square. And I can walk to work, and walk to the dry cleaners, and walk to bars… it’s fabulous. And even though I have to pay an extra two hundred bucks a month for these privileges, it’s worth it.
I might just have the very best studio apartment in the entire world.
So I walk across the square, my checkbook ready to commit, and make my way into the leasing office with a smile on my face, the whole horrible morning behind me and my whole lucky day feeling back in place.
“Eden!”
The greeting makes me turn, just as I’m about to approach the receptionist and tell her I’m here. And there he is. Andrew Hawthorne. The man I now know Pierce has charged with spilling my secrets and ruining my life.
“Hey! Looks like we’re going to be for-real neighbors,” he says. “You don’t have a cup of sugar I can borrow, do you?”
CHAPTER SIX - ANDREW
She doesn’t look happy to see me. She did look happy. Just, like, a second ago when she walked in. And now she looks unhappy.
I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.
“What are you doing here?” she asks. With some definite snark.
“I’m signing my rental agreement. Just like you, I assume.”
“You’re renting?”
“Yeah, I’m renting. Whattayou mean ‘you’re renting?’”
“Whattayou mean what do I mean?”
“I dunno. You said ‘you’re’ like I have scabies or something.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You totally did. You said it like a mean sorority girl.”
I know I’m pushing her buttons. Every word that comes out of my mouth seems to make her more and more upset. And the more upset she gets, somehow, the cuter she gets. Which is why I’m deliberately fucking with her. Which some might call mean, but I would counter that it’s her fault for being so dadgum cute. The sorority girl crack is making her especially flustered.
“I... Wha...? Sorority?” she stammers out.
A piece of her hair falls down in her face as she shakes her head. Her breathing has sped up, which is causing me to notice something that I somehow completely overlooked before. Her breasts are... well, they’re something. Holy shit.
“Um, did I do something wrong? Why are you so upset?” I ask.
“I’m not upset!”
“You’re not?”
“No! I’m not! You’re upset!”
I can feel my brow furrow. I look quizzically from side to side. I take a breath to respond, stop, then try again, “Yeah, I’m really not.”
“Whatever. You stole my charger.”
“That’s what Pierce... I thought we went through this. No, I didn’t.”
“You so did!”
“I gave it back. That’s, I think, by definition, borrowing. Which is what I asked. If I could borrow your charger.”
“You drove off.”
“What did you want me to do? Traffic started moving. I waved for you to follow me, so I could pull over and give it back.”
She starts to protest but stops. “You... That’s what you were waving for?”
“That’s what I was waving for.”
“So I would follow you?”
“So you would follow me.”
“So you could give me back my charger?”
“Affirmative.”
She presses her lips together and pouts. Which is maddeningly adorable. “I totally misrea
d that,” she finally says. And I break up laughing. Oh, my God. This girl is a little weirdo.
I think I love it.
“Well, somebody’s in a good mood.” That’s the leasing agent who has just swooped in with the awkward grace of a herd of ostriches. She’s wearing a grey business suit thing. Like a skirt and jacket-type deal. The jacket has a nametag on it that reads “Cheryl.” “I’m Cheryl,” she says, extending her hand. The nametag didn’t lie.
“Hi, Cheryl, I’m Andrew. This is Eden,” I say, gesturing to Eden.
“Oh.” She looks down at a binder she’s carrying. “Eden...Presley, yes?” Eden nods. “And Andrew... Oh.” Her tone changes and she swallows a little. “Oh, Mr. Hawthorne, yes. Hello. Such a pleasure. I’m Cheryl.” She extends her hand. Again.
I shake this time. “Uh, yeah. Hi.” I look over at Eden, who cocks her head to the side. I shrug and bounce my eyebrows.
“But you’re...” says Cheryl. “You’re not... together? Are you?”
“Oh, no. No. No way,” blurts Eden. Both Cheryl and I stare at her somewhat emphatic denial. “I mean... No. We’re not.”
Sighing, I say, “Yeah. That’s for sure. We’re definitely not. Together. We’re just...y’know...old friends.” I wink at Eden, who scrunches up her face and pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose. Oh, man. Oh, man. Oh, man.
“Oh, well, that’s lovely!” proclaims Cheryl. “Well, then, how about we get your rental agreements signed and I can show you both the property.”
“Sounds great,” I say, brightly, matching Cheryl. I don’t even do it mockingly. Cheryl’s just one of those people who is so unnaturally cheery, they drag you along with them.
I encourage Eden to sign her paperwork first. There’s only three places to sign. And I have to assume she’s signed a rental agreement before. But it takes her, like, half an hour because she reads every. Single. Word. Of the agreement. Twice she asks questions of Cheryl. I just stand off to the side and watch her.
Huh. I was kind of joking with Pierce about meeting a girl on the freeway, but...
I’ve been waiting. Waiting because I have this really bad habit of winding up with women who are... less than a good fit for me. I had this serial monogamy thing going for a long time and somehow managed to just go from one shitty relationship to another. I’m good at a few things in this world but finding the right partner to...uh...partner with does not seem to be one. And after the last one...