by JA Huss
Her eyes go yet even wider. “Seriously? That’s it?”
I lean in to her even closer so that I can whisper in her ear, “Eden, everything you did with me on my terrace. It’s all in the videos.”
I pull back and the look of abject despair on her face breaks my heart a little.
“But... I...”
“Hey,” I say, taking her hand, which she jerks away. “It’s OK. It really is. Just... and I have to ask... you didn’t actually steal the idea, did you?”
And almost before the question is out of my mouth, that same mouth is being slapped. Hard. Like, shit, like, really, really fucking hard.
“Ow!” That’s me. Obviously. “What the fuck?”
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” she says. “I’m sorry! That’s not like me! I don’t know what came over me, I just—”
But that’s all that she gets out of her mouth before my just-slapped and still-stinging lips are on hers. Kissing her. Also hard.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - EDEN
Holy shit. Perfect timing!
Because for a second there I felt a little like a top-heavy ice cream cone and one more lick was gonna send it crashing down onto the sidewalk.
Oh… ohhhhhh…. ohhhhhhhh… that feels nice. He’s such a great kisser.
“Eden,” he says, still kissing me.
“I’m not the Sexpert,” I whisper back.
“But the other day…”
“Look,” I say, breaking contact. “I’m gonna tell you something but you gotta promise not to tell anyone, OK?”
He cocks his head at me. Like, OK, here we go. I’ve finally worn her down and she’s gonna come clean.
But they’ve got nothing on me. Yet. He said they’re working on decryption, but they don’t have it. Yet.
So I still have time. Time to… I dunno, make him like me enough to keep my secret? Maybe? I’m kinda grasping at straws.
“Andrew,” I say, whispering still. I make my voice sexy. Not Sexpert sexy, but sweet sexy. A little high-pitched. A teeny bit pouty. It’s very annoying but I don’t care. I’m dying here. Dying. “I have to confess…”
“Yes,” he says, eyes locked on mine. “Yes.”
I take a deep, deep breath and when I let it out, I go, “I really suck at blow jobs, no pun intended, and well, pretty much everything else that goes with having noon-time sex with the boss’s best friend. I’m no good. I’m a terrible sexifier. And the blow job, well. I just didn’t know what to do. But like everyone else these days, I stumbled upon those Sexpert videos and I watched a few. OK, more than a few. All of them. Because she’s funny and she’s cool and, frankly, she’s kind of who I wish I could be. And I…. I took notes. I took lots of notes. And committed them to memory. So I’m sorry I used another woman’s repertoire on you, it wasn’t right. Maybe a little bit dishonest because it’s a teeny bit like wearing one of those magic bras that make your cupcakes… I mean, boobies… look great. And then your guy takes your bra off and just looks at them like, ‘What the fuck just happened?’ You know? It’s a little bit like that. And so… well, I led you on. I’m not a good blow jobber and I cheated.”
I gulp air because I used up all my breath with my super-lame excuse, and then huff it back out, making my hair fly up over my glasses.
He just looks at me.
He’s never gonna believe this.
I shift from one foot to another. Then cross my arms. Uncross them and shift my feet again. Push my glasses up my nose. “I’m sorry. OK? What else can I say?”
Really? What else can I say?
Believe me, I pray.
Please, please, please…
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - ANDREW
What. A. Load. Of. Horseshit.
I grew up on a horse farm. I know.
I sigh. Because this whole thing is going to end badly. Son of a bitch.
And while it won’t end badly in the cruel and sometimes empty ways all my other relationships have ended badly, it’s still gonna be awful. Maybe this is going to be even worse. It’s not even a proper relationship yet. It’s just...whatever it is. But I liked where it was headed and now... Now, it’s gonna end with the probable devastation of someone who’s cute and sweet and who pouts when she gets frustrated. And devastating a cute, sweet, pouty person is just the worst kind of devastation. It’s like flattening a field of flowers with a steamroller.
Well, that’s a bummer.
So I know what I need to do. I need to just say, “OK,” and then step away from her. I need to climb down off this wall, let her figure out how to get down on her own—because she’s not my problem—and then go back to the office so that I can run the app, pull the conclusive match, so that there’s no more denial and debate, and get this whole thing over with.
Yeah. That’s exactly what I need to do.
But.
My arms reach out and I grab her around the waist, drawing her into me tightly. Her hands immediately come up to grab hold of my exposed shoulders and slide under the fabric of the tank top I have on. Her fingers grip into the muscles along my back and her nails scratch the flesh.
My tongue lances in between her teeth and she duels in kind with hers. Suddenly, I find my hands on her ass, drawing her to me, and as I do, she stumbles forward, kind of biting my lip, her nails digging even harder into me and scraping the skin, causing me to yelp in pain and let go of her. And as I’m pulling back, she drags her teeth along the skin of my bottom lip and now I’m bleeding from my mouth and my back all at once. Which is no small achievement for a five-second make-out session.
“Ow! Fuck!”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she cries, waving her hands in front of her and hopping in place from foot to foot. “Oh, shit, I didn’t mean to do that!”
“Ach,” I breathe out, trying to walk off the sting from having been slapped, scratched and bitten. “It’s fine,” I say through clenched teeth. “Don’t worry about it. But those nails are the reason you couldn’t get a grip on the wall. You need to cut those fuckers.”
“Fuck, I’m sorry. I don’t—Why’d you kiss me?”
“What? I dunno! I like you! Why’d you slap me?”
“Why? Because you’re accusing me of something I didn’t do! I did NOT STEAL PIERCE CHEVALIER’S GODDAMN IDEA!”
“Eden... I’m going to ask very simply, one last time: are you the Sexpert?”
There’s loud music playing downstairs. Really loud. I think Leo must’ve gotten into the DJ booth. I don’t think anyone just heard our little outburst, and now we’re silent. Just staring at each other. Again.
“Look, I’m gonna be able to pinpoint the voice and match it. I get it. Pierce is an asshole and you work for him and the guy can’t even remember your name and... I get it. But, I mean, look. This is not gonna go great for you, but if you tell me why, I can help. I really can. Dude listens to me. And I know you think I’m just a rich, selfish asshole, but I promise that I really strive to see to it that only one of those things is true. And I like you. OK? I know we don’t know each other really, but I like you. And I can help. I can make it be OK. Hey, I could’ve stolen a charger from anyone sitting on the freeway that day, but I picked you. And there’s gotta be a reason for that. So just let me give you a hand. OK? Please?”
Once more, she’s not meeting my eyes. She’s looking everywhere but at me. Finally, after long moments of avoiding eye contact, she says, “Borrowed.”
“What?”
“You didn’t steal my charger. You borrowed it. You gave it back.”
I smile. “Yeah. Borrowed.”
There’s another long moment and just as I’m opening my mouth, she speaks first. “It’s not me.”
She says it so quietly, I can barely hear her.
“What?”
“It’s not me.” She says it only slightly louder than before, but I make it out this time.
“Eden—”
“It’s not, OK? It’s not.”
I look down at her. She pushes
her glasses up the bridge of her nose, sniffs, rubs the back of her hand across her runny nostrils again, and looks at me like she’s trying very hard not to cry. And I am reminded of something I once heard. It may have been in an art theory class, or it may have been with those guys on the peyote excursion, or it may have been somewhere else entirely, I don’t really remember. But the gist of it was:
Facts are just some shit that we all agree on.
So. I take a moment. I nod my head. And I say, “OK.”
“OK?”
“OK.”
I want to agree with her on the shit she’s telling me. And I want to believe her.
Because I really, really, really like her.
“I’m sorry I got weird,” she says in her still-small voice.
“No, hey, look, look at me.” She does. “It’s OK. The whole thing was weird. The whole first couple of days that I was here were weird. Don’t sweat it.” She nods. “Listen,” I say, “I, uh... I feel like I need to get some Band-Aids and maybe some Bactine or something. You wanna, I dunno, get out of here?”
“I have to be here. It’s mandatory team-building.”
“Well, I mean, first of all, I’m still not sure Pierce knows you work for him.” She laughs. “And second, it wasn’t specified which team you’re supposed to be working on building, was it?”
She gets a teeny smile that makes my dick jump and shakes her head. Her hair kind of shakes in front of her face with the shaking of her head. I push the strands back from her cheeks and she looks up at me. Slowly, I take her glasses off, breathe on them, wipe the lenses with the hem of my tank top, and then put them back on her face. She smiles wider.
“Do you...?” she starts, then cuts herself off, nibbling at her bottom lip. She slays me. She absolutely slays me.
“Do I what?”
“There’s this art gallery thing.”
“What art gallery thing?”
“I dunno. Some art gallery that’s supposed to be opening this week. I heard about it. I was gonna go, but I don’t really know anything about art and figured... I dunno. You’re an artist and stuff, and that maybe you’d wanna go and, like, explain stuff. Or something? And I was gonna ask you, I really was, but then I got freaked out because I like you too, I really do, and I was worried that like, maybe because I’m bad at, y’know, the stuff, the sex stuff, I mean not all of it, but the sexy mouth stuff that it would be weird and you’d be thinking about that, and then I got weird, because I think I might be weird, and... Do you think I’m weird? Know what? Don’t answer. Doesn’t matter. But so, so then, when I saw you here I got embarrassed or nervous or something, which—I know! Hard to believe! Haha. – But, so, but yeah, so anyway. So the art thing. Do you wanna go and like, teach me about, you know, art? ‘Cause...? No. Never mind. But, yes. Do you?”
She takes a deep breath and holds it, squinting her eyes tightly and smiling with a lot of teeth. I look at her and a smirk overtakes me.
She’s being half-flirty, half-coy, half-flibberty-gibbet, and half-little-lost-lamb-oh-won’t-you-show-me-things-big-strong-man. Which I realize I just made up and also that four halves equal two things, but I’m starting to think that she’s maybe five or six things all rolled into one.
I tilt my head and say, “Are you asking me out on a date?”
“... Am I?”
“Are you?”
“I dunno.”
“Think you might be.”
“What? Asking you out on a date?
“Sounds like you are.”
“Oh. Well then, yeah, I guess I am.”
A beat. Then we both start laughing.
To hell with it.
“Yeah,” I say. “Sure. I’d like... Yes. I will go out on a date to an art gallery thing with you. It’s Colorado, so it’ll probably just be a bunch of Ansel Adams wannabes, but why not?”
She closes her eyes and then looks up at me through her lenses.
“Andrew?”
“Yeah.”
“I would never steal anything from anybody.”
“... Yeah, I believe that. It’s OK. Sorry I got in your face about it. Let’s get out of here.”
She leans up, gives me a kiss on my lip where she bit me, then turns and walks out of the studio. At the edge of the wall, she trips and almost goes careening down the side, but she catches herself and looks back at me and grins, nervously.
“Do you think you can get down on your own?” I ask.
She looks down, looks back at me, looks down again, back at me. “I dunno. I mean, probably. I think so.”
“Do you want my help?”
She gets a momentarily pained expression and then, after a second, she nods quickly.
I shouldn’t be doing this. I shouldn’t be helping her. I shouldn’t be going on a date with her. I shouldn’t be engaging with her. I’m going to burn her. Not because I want to. It’s the last thing I want to do. But when it does turn out to be her, I have to tell Pierce the truth. I have to. I just... I have to.
Don’t I?
“Yes, please,” she says in a tiny voice.
I smile because she makes me smile and I say, “You got it,” before placing myself in position on the side of the wall so she can brace herself against me, knowing that if she does happen to lose her grip on the way down, I’ll be there to catch her.
Sexpert Advice
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - EDEN
“Ticket?”
I’m at the dry cleaners picking up my best black silk dress for my date with Andrew tonight. “Hi!” I say to the woman behind the counter. Svetlana is her name. I introduced myself when I dropped the dress off the other day. And even though she’s not wearing a lick of makeup and her face is shiny with sweat since it’s hot as hell in here, she’s beautiful.
I think every girl called Svetlana is probably beautiful. I wish I was called Svetlana. It’s definitely a Sexpert name. Maybe in the next video I’ll tell everyone my name is Svetlana?
Would Andrew buy that? Would it throw him off the trail? I mean, I think I did a pretty good job of convincing him I’m definitely not the Sexpert. I think he bought it.
He did. He has to. Because if he didn’t, then this date might be a setup and I don’t want it to be a setup. I kinda like him. And if he could just make Pierce let this stupid obsession with the Sexpert go, maybe we’d have a chance?
“Lady,” Svetlana says. “Give me ticket.” She drawls that out in her most do-not-fuck-with-me-I’m-Russian Russian accent.
“Eden,” I say. Because she doesn’t recognize me. “Remember? I introduced myself the other day?”
Svetlana glares at me.
I hand the ticket over.
“Wait here,” she growls, as if I have a choice, then scoots off to go find my dress.
I glance around to see if I know anyone behind me. That’s the cool thing about living in the TDH. Your neighbors are everywhere. But nope. I don’t. And everyone is too busy checking their phones to make eye contact with me, so I can’t even make a new friend while I wait.
“Here,” Svetlana says, hanging my dress on the little rack to my right. “Forty-one fifteen.”
“Wow,” I say. “OK. Forty-one dollars to dry clean a dress.” I go fishing for my credit card.
“You want pretty dress for sexy date so you can hook rich TDH billionaire, sexy girl? You pay for it.”
Right. I shove my credit card into the chip reader. That’s one bad thing about living in a super-trendy neighborhood that isn’t close to anything else. You pay a premium for services. I mean this is the only dry cleaners in the whole neighborhood. It’s like the Russian mob has paid someone off so they can inflate prices. So if I want to clean a silk dress on the cheap, I gotta take it somewhere else. And that involves getting in my car and driving places. And if I add up the cost of gas and effort, it’s really not worth it.
So yeah. It sucks. And Zoey has already explained that we won’t get any money from this month’s killer take for about two months. That su
cks too. Because I feel very much like I’m living outside my means right now.
“You want receipt?” Svetlana asks.
“Yes,” I say. “Business expense.” And then I smile, feeling a little bit proud that next year I might get to itemize my taxes because I’m a legit business owner.
Svetlana just rips the little piece of paper off the cash register printer and hands it to me. “Next!”
I take my receipt and tuck it away so I can give it to Zoey later. I’m pretty sure this date is a tax write-off because it really is business. I mean, I have to convince Andrew I’m not the Sexpert. That qualifies.
So here’s my plan for that.
One. Distract him with the dress, but not the cupcakes. Hide the cupcakes. And this dress is perfect because it’s all sexy in the back and goes all the way up to my neck in the front. I’m talking Baby Got Back kinda back.
Wait. I think that means ass. Well, I’m pretty sure my ass will look good too.
Two. Go someplace quiet and peaceful. Which is what I was thinking when I had that crazy art gallery monologue moment at the end of our rock climbing date. Well, that wasn’t a date. Not really. Even though it kinda felt like one. There’s flyers all over the TDH for this stupid art gallery thing. Like, it’s a Big Deal. So, good call, Eden. Art gallery is the perfect place to have a serious I-swear-to-God-I’m-not-the-Sexpert talk that will end all talk of me being the Sexpert.
Three. Kiss him.
I actually sigh when I think that. Andrew is a great kisser. God, his lips… So I’m gonna kiss him. I’m gonna give him my very best kissing ever. I even rewatched my Sexpert video on kissing so I’m all brushed up on how to do it right. That’s a gem that never got much attention, so even if he’s watching my videos, he probably didn’t see How to Nibble Her Kit-Kat. Get it? Nibble her Kit-Kat? You always eat the chocolate off first. Everyone knows that. At least I thought they did. Maybe not. Maybe that’s why that video was a dud?