by Lexy Timms
“You don’t want to go to bed with me. You’ve made that pretty fucking clear.”
“Did I say that?”
He leaned in a little closer, catching himself before his body touched hers, and wondered what the hell he was thinking. She was probably just looking for one more reason to mock him.
“Anyone ever tell you that you’re…”
“Kind of a bitch?” She smiled at him. “All the time.”
Before he could answer, she spun on her heel and slipped past him, hip sliding deliberately against his on the way. He watched her saunter down the alley, her hair catching the sunlight as she moved out onto the main street again, turning the corner and disappearing without looking back.
Fucking tease. Jackson hadn’t only been right about her. He’d been right about the competition, too. With her in it, it was going to be harder than he’d thought, in more ways than one. Shaking his head, Parker turned toward the gym and started walking.
***
Sitting in the car, Parker glanced down at the clock on his phone. 8:23. Jackson was late. He was never late to business meetings, but try to get the man to go somewhere fun and he would inevitably be fifteen minutes behind the time he was supposed to leave. He’d been that way when they were roommates, usually caught up in finishing one more section of homework. If he didn’t come out within the next five minutes, Parker was going to get him. He turned up the music, and leaned back further in his seat.
A minute later, there was a knock at the passenger window. Without opening his eyes, Parker reached over and hit the unlock button. “You’re late,” he said as the door opened.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Parker opened his eyes and hit the lever that would bring his seat back to upright for driving. He turned and looked at Jackson, who was sitting in his passenger seat dressed in black jeans and a t-shirt. “You’re always late.”
“I am not! I’m never late to meetings.”
“You’re always late when I want to go out.”
Jackson didn’t answer that one. He knew Parker was right.
“What took so long this time?” Parker asked as he shifted the car into drive and pulled out.
“I was working on some paperwork. Lost track of time.”
“As usual.”
“It was paperwork for you, you ungrateful bastard.”
Parker laughed, and when he cut his eyes briefly to the right, Jackson was hiding a smile by looking down at his phone.
“Come on. Admit it. You need some time away from your desk.”
“Yeah. That’s probably true.”
“It’s definitely true. Any longer and you were going to turn into one of those shriveled up old accountant-types who wear suits everywhere and never stay out past eight.”
Jackson flipped him off. Parker laughed again and kept driving. He hadn’t told Jackson about his run-in with Jennifer two days ago. Since then, he hadn’t seen her, but he’d heard her name mentioned more than once. Meanwhile, his own people were spreading the word of the contest, and his clients had been voicing support, telling him they knew he would win.
“How is the search for a candidate going?”
The sound of Jackson’s fingers tapping against the screen of his phone didn’t even slow. “We’ve narrowed it down to five options. The next step is to have you talk to each of them. See who you think is most likely to be successful. We made sure they’re all the kind that people are going to be rooting for: sad life stories, that sort of thing.”
“I’ll trust your judgement, then. When do you want me to meet them?”
“Later this week. We’ll be bringing them in one or two a day so that they’re not taking up too much of your time.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Parker took a right turn, and moved deeper into downtown. They weren’t going to the little club he’d hit on Wednesday. It was the weekend, and Jackson lived closer to midtown anyway.
He pulled up to the curb beside the club, and turned the car off. A line of people was already winding out the door and down the sidewalk. Jackson looked at it like he was considering turning around and walking home.
“Just come on.”
They got out of the car, and Jackson followed Parker toward the end of the line.
“You just going to wait in line? Really?” Jackson stared at him in surprise. He didn’t seem to think Parker waited for anything these days.
Parker shrugged and laughed. “I guess I could go tell them who I am, but honestly I don’t mind the waiting. If you get in at the front before everyone else, people either hate you, or follow you around trying to figure out how you’re famous and whether or not you’re going to be willing to let them be hangers-on. Not really my idea of a good time.”
Jackson laughed. “Yeah. Okay. That makes sense.” He gave Parker a sideways look. “I wouldn’t know, seeing as I don’t really have the star power to jump club lines.”
“You just need to get out more.”
“Yeah. You say that a lot.”
Ahead of them, the line slowly inched forward, and Parker began to wonder if he should’ve tried to jump it after all. Some places recognized him. Some didn’t. This club he hadn’t been to before, and there were plenty of people more famous than he was in New York City. Half the reason, if he was being honest, that he didn’t try line jumping most places was that he didn’t want to walk up there and say who he was only to get turned down. No way was he making himself a laughingstock.
The line inched forward, and they moved with it.
“So, Jennifer Leandra showed up at the diner while I was eating my breakfast. Did I tell you that?” Parked relaxed against the brick wall and folded his arms over his chest.
Jackson’s eyebrows shot upward. “No, you didn’t tell me that, and you know it. What was she doing there?”
“Trying to psych me out or something. Getting all up in my space, mostly. Calling me names.”
“Calling you names?”
“Something about my big, dumb face.” The answer he got to that was laughter, and Parker glared at Jackson as he doubled over in mirth. “If you keep laughing like that I’m going to tell them I don’t know you at the club door. Or just push you off a curb once you’re drunk.”
“Sorry. Sorry.” Jackson pulled himself back together and looked up at Parker. “She really said that? Your ‘big, dumb face’?”
“Yeah, really.” He waiting to see if Jackson would start laughing again. “And then when I got up and left she told me that she didn’t really think I was stupid, or she wouldn’t have picked me to go up against for her little challenge. Honestly, I have no idea what she was trying to accomplish.” He rolled his eyes and took a few more steps forward. “Women!”
“So you, what? Just left her there?”
“She followed me out and hit on me.”
Jackson stared at him. “Dude. So she walks in. Insults you. Then hits on you?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“I think you’re right when you say that she’s trying to psych you out.” Jackson shook his head, and took a step forward with the rest of the line. “Are you sure you don’t want to go back on this? It seems like she might not be entirely stable.”
“I can’t back out. Not now. There’s too much riding on it, and we’ve already started the publicity shit. You know that.”
He did know it, and Parker saw it on his face.
“Okay. You’re right. I just... Honestly, Parker, I worry. I don’t want anything to happen to the company, and I don’t want anything to happen to you. Don’t let her get too far under your skin, okay? Whatever happens with this challenge, your clients love you. And you know what they say about publicity: It’s all good.”
“I’ve heard that. Not sure I believe it. You’ve seen what happens to people who get bad reviews in our business.”
“Losing a challenge like this isn’t a bad review. It’s losing a silly little contest. No one really cares about the results as much as they care about the
fact that you’re doing it at all. It’s all just a game to them. A lot of stunt and glitter.”
“If you say so.”
“Be you. Everyone’s going to love you.”
The last few people ahead of them were approaching the bouncer, and Parker ran a hand through his hair. “What do you say we drop shop talk once we’re in there? Honestly, I just want to enjoy my Saturday night.”
The expression on his face said that he would rather have finished hashing the subject out, but Jackson nodded. “Sure, Parker. That’s fine with me.”
They stepped up to the bouncer, and after a moment he waved them through into the dimly-lit interior of the club.
“To the bar?” Parker suggested.
“Why not? Quench our thirst. Hard work, that standing in line.”
Parker chuckled and pushed his way through the little groups of people that were milling around at the edges of the dance floor and up to the bar, claiming one of the few empty stools left in the place. Jackson slipped up beside him. “My treat tonight. So just pick something.”
Jackson nodded. “I won’t say no to that.”
They ordered their drinks, and Parker slid off the stool again as he took his. “Dancefloor?”
“I don’t think so, man.” Jackson took a sip of his gin and tonic. “I need to be a lot more drunk to get out in that mess.”
Parker laughed, but he led the way to one of the small tables that sat behind the railing on the second floor, looking down over the shifting mass of bodies in the center of the club. They sat there for a while, finishing off their first round of drinks and chatting about pretty much anything that wasn’t work. He could see in Jackson’s face sometimes that there were things he was thinking about and not saying, but Parker pushed past them. If Jackson had other things to say about the contest with Jennifer, he could say them on Monday, when Parker was ready to talk about them again. For the moment, all he wanted was one night where he didn’t have to think about work, or about Lioness Home Fitness and Jennifer Leandra, and how to beat her in a contest that probably wasn’t worth their time in the first place.
“Another drink?”
Jackson looked down at his empty glass and pursed his lips like he was going to say no. Parker lifted a hand to catch the attention of one of the shot girls wandering the level and waved her over, sliding four shot glasses off the tray. He handed a fifty in their place, and she gave him a grin and a wink before moving away. Parker watched her hips sway in the flashing light, and turned back to find Jackson giving him the exasperated look he had perfected their second year of college, when Parker had been hitting every major party he could pull the location of and coming in hungover and grinning every Saturday morning, smelling like a new girl’s perfume.
Jackson must have been thinking about the same thing, because the look of exasperation shifted to something thoughtful. “Do you ever think about settling down, Parker? You know, picking someone out and at least attempting to make a go of a relationship that’s longer than four hours?”
“Four hours is a short night. Drink your shot.”
“You know what I mean,” Jackson said, picking up one of the shot glasses but not yet tipping it back. “Do you ever want to do something that isn’t... This?” The word was accompanied by a wave of his arm that encompassed the entire room with its flickering lights and grinding bodies.
“Nah.” Parker shook his head. “I’m sure I’ll want to eventually, but for now, honestly, a relationship sounds like a lot of work for not a lot of return. If I’m going out every weekend to find a new girl, I get a new girl every weekend. If I’m in a relationship, I get what?”
“Love? Companionship? Someone to share your bed with, whose name you can actually remember?”
“I remember their names.” Parker gave his best friend a look across the table. “And it isn’t like you’re really doing that much better than I am, unless you’ve got something going on the sly. I haven’t seen you with the same person more than twice since senior year of college.”
“I’m busy.”
“We’re all busy. That’s why this is easier. If I’ve got a girlfriend, she’ll want more of my time than a quick roll in the sheets every few days. Maybe when I’ve got the business running smoothly on its own.”
“There’s a lot of maybes and eventuallys in there, is all I’m saying.”
“Tell you what, Jackson. When you start really looking for someone you’re willing to spend the rest of your life with, I’ll consider giving up on my bachelor lifestyle.”
Jackson shook his head, and knocked back the shot he was holding. Parker followed suit.
A second shot, followed by a third shortly after, and he was starting to feel pleasantly buzzed. Jackson, who wasn’t nearly as big as he was, looked a little further along the path to tipsy when they both stood up to wind their way through the other people milling around the second level and down to the ground-level and the dancefloor.
“I don’t know about this.” Jackson hesitated behind Parker.
“Would you quit being such a stick in the mud, dude? Seriously. I saw you dance in college. You used to mop the dancefloor with the rest of the guys.”
Jackson laughed, but the words seemed to have done the trick, because he slid out into the crowd, and Parker was left standing alone at the edge of it. It helped, he thought as he watched the lights flash over the dancers out on the middle of the floor, to be tall. He could see things other people couldn’t. Like the really good- looking blonde dancing near the upper right corner, in fact. Parker grinned, and made his way through the tightly-packed bodies to her little portion of the dancefloor.
Up close, it still looked like she didn’t have anyone in particular to dance with, though he could see that there were several guys orbiting her. All of them looked up at him with dismay when he slid up behind her. She turned.
“Hey,” Parker said, loud enough to be heard over the music, but exaggerating the word so she could see it on his lips just in case she couldn’t hear it.
Her eyes flicked up and down his body, and she smiled. “Hey!”
Score 1. Several of the other hopeful suitors were already slinking away. Parker stepped in closer and leaned down so that she would be able to hear him talk without him shouting.
“I’m Parker.”
“Tara.”
“You want to dance, Tara?”
She grinned at him, tossing her hair back from her face. The strands caught the shifting lights and for an instant she was haloed in rainbow colors. “Sure do.”
Parker gave the remaining guys a look that told them to get lost, and wrapped an arm around Tara, pulling her in close enough that he could feel the heat of her body pressed against his own. “What’re you here for?” he asked against her ear.
“Honestly?” She pulled back enough to look up at him, and he liked the way she smiled, like she had a secret that was too good not to share. Girls who wore a look like that always had something fun up their sleeves. “I’m here to get laid.”
Parker laughed. “No kidding? That’s what I’m doing here, too.”
“Looks like you came to the right girl, then.”
She danced up closer, rolling her body against his, and Parker let his fingers close around her hips to pull her in until there wasn’t enough space for air to slip between them. He wondered, briefly, where Jackson had gone off to, and decided he didn’t care. As awkward as it was probably going to be, they could always drop Jackson off at his apartment before Parker took Tara home to his if Jackson didn’t find someone to go home with himself.
The beat of the song shifted into something with a heavier bass, and Tara gave a little yelp of delight, grinning up at him. “I fucking love this song!”
Tara, Parker discovered, loved a lot of songs. Not that he was complaining. She danced to them like she was getting paid to do it, writhing up against him in a way that he was pretty sure shouldn't actually have been allowed in a public space.
Halfway through
a song that Tara was especially enthusiastic about, Parker spotted Jackson through the shifting crowd. He was dancing with a girl who might have been a redhead, although the shifting colors of the lights made it a little hard to tell. Parker gave him a thumbs up he probably didn't see. Maybe he wasn't going to have to worry about giving him a ride home after all. He could always take the subway in the morning. Or a cab.
Suddenly Tara did this thing with her hips that made him forget about Jackson entirely, and Parker growled low in his throat and pulled her up closer against him, nipping a mark into the curve where her shoulder met her neck.
Another song, and they slipped off the dancefloor together, headed for the bar. Tara was giggling, pressed up against his side like she wasn't quite sure she could stay upright on her own, although she'd managed it just fine up until now. He pushed the crowd aside to give her space, and hoisted her up onto one of the stools with his hands around her waist.
“You sure you're not too drunk, babe?”
She turned around in her seat and grinned at him. “Too drunk to go home with you? Definitely not. No way am I missing that chance. I'd regret it forever.”
Sober enough to make full sentences, then. Parker took the seat beside her. “I guess I'll just have to make sure that you have nothing to regret, then.”
Tara signaled the bartender, then turned to look at him again, laughing. “You had better.”
“Is that a challenge?”
She just grinned at him. What was it with blondes and challenges lately?
A tap on his shoulder alerted Parker to the presence of Jackson, who had at some point snuck up behind him. He turned enough to look down at his business partner, eyebrows lifted. “What's up, man? This is Tara.” He glanced from one to the other. “Tara. This is Jackson.”
That had been the wrong order, but he doubted they were going to care.
“Just wanted to let you know that I've got another ride,” Jackson said. He grinned at Parker. “So I won't be needing to take up your backseat, which I think is probably better for both of us.”