Mr. Right Now

by Kristina Knight

  Whatever school he’d attended to learn how to do this, she had to get the number. She would be the students’ practice dummy for the rest of her life.

  “What has you wrapped up so tight, Casey?” The words floated by her ears. Calm. Easy. What did have her wrapped so tight? She couldn’t put her finger on a single incident.

  “Everything,” she sighed, her head drooping forward. “To the right.”

  Tyler focused his movements on a knot below her right shoulder. When the muscle loosened, he moved to the other side.

  “I can make those worries disappear. You just have to trust me,” he said, pulling her hair to one side and dipping his head to kiss the back of her neck.

  She stiffened.

  “No. Relax.” He drew the words out, emphasizing the syllables with the tiny movements of his hands. The effect was broken.

  The knots were coming back, twice as hard this time.

  “What are you doing?” She stood, leaving Tyler sitting on the sofa alone. His hands remained in mid-air for a second, then dropped to the cusions.

  “I’m doing my job, and you’re making it damned hard,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “I’m being paid to make sure you have a fun, relaxing week. I can’t do that if you pull away from me every time we get started.”

  “Get started?” Her voice rose and she worked to bring it back down. “We’re not getting started on anything. We’ve been through this. I didn’t hire you. The person who did made a mistake. Nothing is going to go on inside this room between us.”

  “Look, I know you’re uptight. You’re feeling depressed after the break-up, and that’s normal. Sometimes people like you need a little help in the relaxation department,” he said, rising from the bed and moving toward her.

  She backed up. What, he was a psychologist now?

  “I am not uptight.” She had never been called uptight in her life. Cold, but not uptight, and she shouldn’t care about the labels anyway. “I am not depressed. I am just fine.” Just who did Tyler Cash think he was?

  If she was in need of relaxation, he was as big a reason as any other. Every time she turned around, he was bleeding from the nose, dragging her down hallways and into surprise parties with no warning. If he would only disappear, she could relax just fine with Mason. She wouldn’t be screwing him on an open deck or in a sauna. They might actually make it to a bed. Hell, without Tyler around maybe she could have an actual vacation romance. As it was, him being in the room kicked her best chance at relaxation to the curb.

  “I’m a professional,” he said, waving his hands in her direction. “I see this all the time. Sometimes high-powered women lose a sense of themselves. I am here to help you find it again.”

  “I don’t need to find myself. I was doing just fine before you and this cruise came along. We have to share this room for the next few days, so let’s work up some ground rules.”

  Tyler stood to pace between the bed and sofa. “I have a job to do. I can’t work with ground rules. Everything has to be open and easy,” he said, putting his hands in the back pockets of his jeans.

  Open and easy? How could anything be open and easy when she was basically sharing her room with a male prostitute? Whatever. She wasn’t going there. “You’ve been relieved of your duties. Now, I’ll take mornings here, you can have afternoons. We can divide the evenings, say six to ten and ten ’til whenever. What part of the evening do you want?”

  “You can’t fire me.” His mouth hung open in disbelief for a moment before he snapped it back. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “Ha! Haven’t you heard? Employers don’t have to have a reason to fire you. And before you get any big ideas about suing me, you’ll still be paid for your time.” She wanted to pull her hair out. What was with this guy? It wasn’t like they were actually breaking up. They were in a business arrangement. “The cruise is free, and we’ll call this a downsizing, not a firing. What part of the evening do you want?”

  “You can’t do this to me. My reputation will be shot. I’ll become the escort who—”

  “If you don’t tell anyone you were here with me, I won’t say anything either.”

  Tyler tapped his right foot against the floor, weighing his options. “So I’m not on the job, but I get paid. A cruise and I can see someone else.”

  “Uh-uh.” Casey shook her head. “Sorry, big boy. You dating anyone on board is off-limits. As long as we’re in this room together and people think we’re together, you can’t see anyone else.”

  Lowering his voice, Tyler said, “I can’t go six days without sex.”

  “Well, I’m not having sex with you. Get a magazine and use your time in the afternoon wisely.”

  He clicked his teeth against his tongue and looked at her through his eyelashes. Did he really think that was sexy?

  “You have no idea what you’re missing.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I can imagine.” And it’s nothing compared to Mason. “Do we have a deal?”

  He shrugged. “I supposed I don’t have a choice.” He stuck out his hand and she took it. “This is the weirdest contract I’ve ever fulfilled.”

  “Maybe you’ll write about it in your memoirs.”

  His jaw clenched and then visibly loosened. “Whatever,” he said, disappearing inside the bathroom.

  A knock startled her. She waited for another knock and asked, “Who is it?”

  “Housekeeping. I, um, have another bed for you.” The words came softly through the door.

  She breathed a sigh of relief, opened the door, and let a bellboy wheel a rollaway into the room.

  “Where do you want it?”

  She looked around.

  “There,” she said, pointing to the tiny dining nook.

  The bellboy set up the new bed. “Will there be anything else?”

  She shook her head. When he was gone, she knocked on the bathroom door. “Which bed do you want?”

  “The rollaway.” His voice was muffled, but she made out the words.

  Ever the gentleman.

  * * * *

  Mason slammed the last of the whiskey back, set the tumbler down hard on the bar and leaned forward. He wanted to see her again and she had only been gone for a few minutes. Women never had this effect on him.

  Shit.

  He should be in the disco, dancing with single, willing women, not slamming drinks in the bar and trying to come up with a way to see a woman who had now screwed him twice and run away both times. His ego couldn’t take much more.

  She thought a reporter was after her, had some strange man staying in her room and everyone on board thought she was recently married. He couldn’t blame her for running scared, especially since he was the reporter and he knew the kind of story the paper wanted. He pulled the reception invitation from his pocket and frowned.

  Even knowing she’d left out a few details, her story made sense. Though how the cruise ship could mistakenly put two strangers in a room together was beyond him. Why didn’t they fix the mistake once they found out about it? Everyone made different reservations, so how did the whole mess get started?

  It smelled like a setup. He powered on his BlackBerry and opened a file with Casey’s background in it. First book sold, new book contract. A little personal history. Her agent’s name and contact information were at the bottom of the page. Jane Brunner. The woman who took publicity stunts to a whole new level.

  She once had an actor skydive into a wedding to win back his ex-girlfriend. Instead of thinking it was wildly romantic, most people thought he was a first-class stalker. He hadn’t been in a big-budget movie since.

  Jane should know, though, that Casey wouldn’t agree with her all press is good press theory. Hell, Jane shouldn’t believe it. Not after the skydiving stunt. Casey’s reputation was important to her. She wouldn’t want to be talked about, mused about or joked about. He knew that after only a day. How could her agent not know it?

  He would offer his silence or help, but eith
er would go over like the proverbial lead balloon. Since he’d committed the lie of omission, he couldn’t now tell Casey he was the reporter she was avoiding. She wouldn’t take his help crossing the street, much less getting out of this mess. She told him she was a writer, but didn’t let on that she was the writer of the moment. That her books were in more than half the households in the country. If he told her he was the reporter, she would run screaming from the ship in a heartbeat. He needed another way to earn her trust.

  Why it was so important wasn’t a question he was comfortable asking, so he focused instead on a plan.

  Signaling to the bartender, he asked for another drink.

  “One more, then I’ll have to take your car keys,” the guy said, laughing at his own joke. Mason thought it would be funnier if he offered a lifejacket instead of taking car keys.

  He needed to get the stranger out of her room first. With her room cleared of all living bodies except her own, the non-existent reporter wouldn’t have a story to tell. So move the guy out. First he needed to know the guy’s name.

  Toasting his image in the mirror behind the bar, he took a long drink and then got up from the bar.

  He would start with the name. Then he would call in a favor or two and find out if Casey’s agent and ex were setting her up for a fall.

  Casey woke up with a splitting headache and the unsettling feeling she wasn’t alone. Gingerly, she picked up her head off the pillow and looked around the room.

  Empty.

  The rollaway bed looked as if it hadn’t been slept in. The door to the bathroom was ajar, the light on. She always closed the door. A brown leather duffel hid behind a corner of the sofa, the leg of a pair of jeans sticking out of the top. So she hadn’t dreamed the escort fiasco. That meant Mason was real, too.

  She was alone, but for how long? This whole cruise was surreal. Sagging back onto the pillow, she crossed her arms over her eyes and groaned. How was she going to fix this situation? It was like an episode of Three’s Company got mixed up with Erotic Confessions. A comedy of errors and sex.

  Her stomach growled, reminding her she hadn’t eaten since lunch the day before. She could call room service, but that wouldn’t solve the problem. She had to get used to the stares sometime. The clock on her bedside table read ten o’clock. Hopefully most of the passengers would be on deck for games and sunbathing, not in the restaurants. Casey rushed through her shower, and then dressed in white shorts, an orange-and-white striped tank and wedge sandals.

  The hallway was empty. She made it up the stairwell and almost to the cafeteria before bumping into Eddie. Did the man have some kind of writer radar? It seemed everywhere she went, there he was. Just like Mason. And Tyler. Who knew going on a cruise would have men coming out of the woodwork for Cassandra Cash?

  Jane had. Of course, she’d weighted the dice in Casey’s favor.

  “Ms. Cash, so good to see you again. Tyler’s in there,” he said. Eddie pointed over his shoulder toward a large meeting room. Casey made a mental note to stay away from the area. “We’re getting a poker game going in there. Have to have something to do, what with the rain and all,” Eddie chattered away, not noticing Casey’s frown.

  Rain? Rain meant everyone would be inside. She tried to see around Eddie, up to the main deck, but all she could see was a slightly gray sky. Maybe the rain wasn’t so bad.

  “...and that’s when we decided on poker. A few of the women were talking about joining us, but most of them are just chatting away about books and such.” Eddie leaned closer, cupping his hand around one side of his mouth. “I overheard talk about starting up charades and some other games in the other meeting room. There was talk of Pictionary and Name That Tune. I’d avoid the area if I were you.”

  “Like everyone there has the plague. I’m not a gaming girl.” Unless those games involved sex, apparently. “I, um, I just wanted breakfast, and then back to the room. I have some work to do.” She half-turned, preparing to escape the breakfast room. Room service. She needed room service. He caught her arm.

  “Working on the new book?”

  She nodded.

  “Are you going to work on the male orgasm this time? You know, thousands of pages are devoted to the female orgasm, but everyone seems to think we men work on autopilot.” He lowered his voice. “There’s more to us than meets the eye, you know.”

  Her brain hurt trying to absorb everything he’d said in the last two minutes. Male orgasms. Elderly male orgasms.

  Shaking her head, she said, “I can’t divulge any details.”

  “Can you give me a hint?” He sidled closer.

  “Sorry. Contractual obligations.” Liar, liar, pants on fire. There were no obligations, only a yawning void in her head where the book should be taking on form. Instead, she could only think of her dilemma. Once more the thought of turning Mason into a fictional hero, and herself into a heroine, struck her. She pressed her index finger to her temple and brushed the thought aside.

  Patting her on the shoulder, he nodded and smiled. “They don’t want some other writer taking your idea, huh?”

  “Something like that.”

  Then, as if realizing he was blocking her way to the deck, he jumped to the side.

  “You’re on your way to breakfast. I’m sorry. You better hurry. The fruit was picked over when I checked on Mags and the silver dollar pancakes were turning into door stops.” He brushed past her and disappeared around the corner.

  She took a deep breath and continued up the stairs.

  A cool breeze greeted her on deck, blowing her hair against her neck. Instead of a slightly gray sky, she saw dark, low-hanging clouds and a heavy rain pouring down into the ocean. Drops of rain beat against the canvas awning over her head, protecting her from a good soaking. Still, a few drops ricocheted off the deck and against her bare legs. She shivered. No way was this a quick shower that would evaporate in a few minutes. She should never have left her room. Why couldn't she, just once, act like the pampered semi-celebrity and order room service? Okay, Plan B: fill a plate quickly and get back to the room.

  She pushed the hall door open, pulling it shut again when the wind caught it. The room was crowded. Everywhere women and a few men who apparently hadn’t heard about the poker tournament two floors down sat around tables, talking. Hoping to stay anonymous, she hurried to the buffet.

  Eddie was right. The pancakes, eggs and other hot foods looked a little worse for the wear. She grabbed a plate and filled it with melon. She picked a bottle of water from the cold case, a carton of milk that reminded her of elementary school, several napkins and flatware.

  She turned to leave, and nearly dropped the whole lot. Mags and another woman she didn’t recognize stood just behind her. Startled, she raised her right hand to her chest, and the bottle of water she held bounced hard off her breast bone, making her catch her breath.

  “We wanted to ask you to join our table this morning,” Mags said. She nodded her head toward a table to the left, where several other women sat around the big circle sipping tea or stirring coffee. “Eating alone just isn’t any fun.”

  “I don’t mind...um...I was just going to—”

  The other woman talked right over her, pulling on her arm as she guided Casey to an empty chair on the other side of the table. “It would be wonderful to talk to you over breakfast. We thought you might even give us some pointers. Some of us are interested in memoir writing.”

  Panic filled her belly. “I don’t really know anything about recreating the past. I wouldn’t want to point you down the wrong road.”

  “Oh, pooh.” Mags waved a hand in the air, dismissing Casey’s words. Weaving her arm through Casey’s, Mags led her to the table. “You do a better job of getting those emotional details down than any other author I know. Besides, the things we want to put on paper about will be better if we fudge on a few details.”

  “I have work—”

  “You have to eat breakfast, dear. Didn’t your mother explain it’s the
most important meal of the day?” Mags pulled an empty chair from the table and motioned for Casey to take it. “Work will be there when you get to it. Girls,” she said, turning to the table. “This is Cassandra Cash, the writer. She’ll be joining us for breakfast this morning.”

  Casey placed her napkin in her lap as a round of “nice to meet you”s and “welcome”s came across the table. Deep breath, you can do this, Case.

  “Thank you for the invitation.” Such as it was. “I hate to eat alone.” Casey caught a melon ball with her fork, smiled again at the table and popped it into her mouth. The sooner she was done with breakfast, the sooner she could return to hibernation in the stateroom.

  The conversation picked back up as she ate. Melon ball, melon ball, murmured “uh-huh,” melon ball.

  “Well, the problem I seem to be having is with the sex,” an older woman across the table said. Her brown hair was tinted with a few well-placed streaks of white. Casey wondered if she had her hairdresser create the streaks or if she simply had the luck of graying symmetrically. “It’s just so regimented lately. I’ll tell you, it’s just not the same as it was back then.”

  A melon ball caught in Casey’s throat. She’d rather they talk about writing than about their geriatric sex lives.

  “I think I sh—”

  “I’m having that problem, too, Maureen,” another lady said, talking over Casey. “I remember what it used to be like, but then something happens and it’s completely different. Like my sexual experiences have been boring porn.”

  A few twitters of laughter rounded the table.

  Boring pornography? She had to get out of there before they started talking about lubes or sex toys. Casey wasn’t sure she could handle breakfast with the over-sixty Girls Gone Wild bunch. She popped the last melon ball into her mouth, stood and then froze.

  “Do you have that problem, too, Cassandra?” Every head at the table swiveled to look at Casey.

  Did she have what problem? The problem of her sex life feeling like a boring porn flick? Memories of Mason floated into her mind. Not hardly. Unbelievable, yes. Boring, no.