by I. M. Flippy
Stackler.
Jackson.
Ugh, Todd…
The problems and anxieties of the day warred in Eric’s mind already, and it was only ten in the morning. He sat at his desk and pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache coming on. Ambient music played from his laptop. It was a soft symphony of rainfall and Spanish flute. He opened his eyes and took a sip of chamomile, sitting back at his desk.
He felt as tense as a bowstring. Though it did not take much.
He had already read Jackson’s specs on Gigi three times and made a few pages of notes. Not that he didn’t already have notes on Gigi. He’d courted Jordan Abrietti over the course of six months. He’d scheduled his gym visits around “bumping” into him. Eventually they would get to talking at the gym’s juice bar and Eric had truly felt he was right on the verge of reeling him in. Now Stackler got the credit for it?
“Son of a bitch,” Eric said under his breath.
That Jackson had just handed him the account anyway was not the point.
Impulsively, Eric got to his feet and marched up to his office windows, carefully closing the blinds and shutting his door.
He always kept a change of yoga clothes in the office. When things got to be too much, he found a little yoga to be conducive to mental harmony. It helped him to forget annoying things. The category of Annoying Things included Stackler, Jackson, and Todd.
Todd was in a sub-category aside from both Stackler and Jackson because Eric could not pretend that Todd was an asshole. In fact, he was often kind in a way that made Eric think he should be kinder himself. But he was also annoying. He was chaotic, snarky, and even worse, he was brilliantly good at his job and didn’t even make a big deal of it. Eric had often watched Todd pitch a campaign or casually drop some idea he had and felt effusive compliments on the tip of his tongue, only to bite them back.
Todd with an ego, he decided, would be insufferable.
An hour later, Eric wore short yoga pants and a tank top, bent in half in the middle of his office, his head resting comfortably somewhere around his knees, his ass in the air. There was a sharp knock on the door, and it creaked open. People around the office were used to him doing yoga once in a while. Considering the outrageous amounts of money his accounts bought in, he didn’t feel too bad about it.
“Eric?” Todd Ellis had a raspy voice that pitched up when he was excited or angry. But now it sounded much lower than usual. Eric opened his eyes and looked between his knees at Todd, upside down and hovering in the doorway, his mouth hanging open.
Eric took a deep breath and slowly stood up straight again. “Yes?”
“Oh, I just wondered if you saw Jackson’s email?” Todd smiled at him as if they were pals. “We’re going to Catalina Island! I think it’ll be kinda fun. I mean assuming that once you’re out of the office, whatever bug lives in your ass is off duty.”
Eric’s mouth dropped open, and he blinked, the inexplicable urge to laugh bubbling up inside him.
Every once in a while Todd came out with a real zinger that Eric had no ability to argue with, if only because Todd often had kind of a point. But he kept his mouth in a straight line and ignored the jab. “Catalina? Seems like a strange choice for this kind of thing.” He racked his brain, trying to recall every conversation he’d shared with Jordan about his life with Alphonso and how they worked together. “Oh. Wait, that is a favorite vacation spot of theirs. Huh. They’re taking us where they’d take their family. Feel like that means something.”
“Wow, you got to know them well,” Todd muttered.
“Jordan, I did yes.” Eric took his bottom lip between his fingers, rubbing it back and forth. Todd hovered inside his office, looking incongruous among the minimalist and perfectly ordered distressed wooden shelves displaying the few plants and books he kept inside. He had his hands in his pockets as he gazed around. Eric had noticed that whenever Todd stepped foot inside his office, he looked like an uncomfortable museum visitor.
Am I really so cold? Eric sometimes thought when Todd acted that way.
“Is Stackler seeing anybody?” Eric said.
“Stackler? You’re into Stackler?” Todd's voice cracked and pitched up high. Even his shaggy hair seemed surprised. “I thought—”
“I am not!” Eric said. “No. Jesus, Todd. I’m just asking. It’s relevant.”
“Oh. Uh… I have no idea. Who would date that asshole? I mean he’s hot, but he’s still a reptile with a nice haircut.”
Eric nearly did laugh at that. This happened often around Todd. The corners of his mouth quirked up and his eyes watered at the effort it took not to give anything away. He turned his head and clapped a hand to his face, snorting into his wrist for a split second, and wiped his mouth. He composed himself and straightened his tank top, raising his eyebrows.
“Do you know when we leave?” Eric said.
“Friday!” Todd said. “How ‘bout that!”
“In two days?” Eric gaped at him. “What? But you have to have an entire pitch!”
“I know!” Todd rubbed his hands together as if the whole thing was only a lark to him, an entertainment to pass the time. Typical Todd. “They said they want to see us work fast. It’s like an audition. They’re not expecting to take the campaign we pitch necessarily, but they’ll decide if they’re hiring us or not based on this trip. You should read the email, dude. Um…” He cleared his throat. “Nice uh... yoga pose, by the way.”
And then he was gone.
Eric lived in a well-situated apartment complex in Westwood, close to the offices of Jackson & Larrabee in Century City. Even with traffic, the drive was short and at times Eric wished he lived a little farther from his work. When he took the job, it all seemed so convenient. He had always liked driving. Even with the hubbub of traffic, the clean and comfortable sanctum of his car was calming, and he liked to drive while listening to music or audio books.
Sometimes he also took the opportunity of a short drive to call his parents and check in. The conversation could never be too long if he sounded harried while he explained that he was just now pulling into the underground parking garage and could they finish this conversation later? So far, his parents had failed to catch on.
The traffic was light that day as he drove home. He’d hardly made it ten minutes into a memoir about a young girl’s friendship with a wild falcon before he was pulling into the underground lot at his building, buzzing in his keycard.
In the cavernous silence of the parking structure, Eric was left alone with his thoughts again.
He could not stop thinking about Todd’s casual advice.
Get an edge over Stackler. But what edge?
Eric grabbed his messenger bag, locked his car, and crossed the parking structure to the elevator as he mulled it over.
When he’d started at the firm, he had been confident in his industry knowledge and his ability to foresee what clients wanted and how to deliver it. He was strategic, smart, and exuded an air of competence. He was good at bringing in clients of a certain type who appreciated such qualities.
But there was something missing.
Even if it had never come up during his performance reviews (and it had), Eric would have known there was something missing. Because whatever it was, Paul Stackler had it in spades. It was something to do with ease and charm. Eric looked like he was working hard for clients because he was always working hard. Stackler could look like no one was working at all, but everything was somehow getting done. It was all just a party with a lot of money involved.
No wonder Jordan and Alphonso were taken in.
Whatever Stackler had done, it must have worked a lot better than pestering Jordan at the gym.
“Stupid,” Eric said to himself in the elevator. On the sixth floor, he got out and walked down the wide corridor with its neat blue geometric carpet to his door. “Completely stupid.” He let himself in and flicked on the lights. Instantly, he felt a little calmer in the sanctity of his own space. But just a
s quickly, he noticed there were several books missing from the floor to ceiling bookshelves next to the windows in his living room. The replication of a vase by a famous Spanish sculptor that had always sat on his coffee table was also gone.
His bamboo was missing.
Eric sucked in a breath and dropped his bag on the replica of a classic Arne Jacobsen chair by the shelves. “Son of a bitch.”
Henry.
Eric toed off his shoes and padded into the living room. He sat down on his mid-century modern couch with its perfect lines and high-end charcoal wool upholstery, and dialed his ex-boyfriend.
“Henry—”
“It was my vase that I paid for. Those were my books and sweater and cufflinks. Those were also my photographs.”
Eric’s stomach twisted, and he tripped on the edge of his area rug before he righted himself. He put his phone on speaker and held it in his palm. “You took the photos? The cufflinks?” Henry had been neat about it, anyway. It took Eric a few minutes to notice that a few framed photos that had decorated the walls of his dining space were gone. He went to his bedroom and discovered the lack of a suede jacket, the cufflinks missing along with the velvet box they’d come in which he’d kept in the top drawer of his dresser. He stared down at his phone, unable to speak. His breath was awkwardly loud in his own ears as Henry remained silent, allowing Eric to corroborate the missing items.
“But... they weren’t yours,” Eric said. His voice sounded too small. The break-up was a whole year old and yet it never seemed to be over, at least from Henry’s side of things.
“They were mine,” Henry said. “I bought them.”
Henry stood in his perfect bedroom with its shiny hardwood floors, the bed outfitted in designer sheets, the Hockney print on the wall…
“They were gifts,” Eric said. “At the time. They were gifts. The cufflinks were for my birthday. You bought me the jacket because you thought I looked good in it. You don’t even like that Velez vase?”
“I honestly didn’t believe you’d care, Eric,” Henry said in his ear. “You hardly cared that we broke up. I think it’s fair that I take back what I invested in the relationship. You’ll find everything I returned to you in a box in the coat closet.”
“I have nothing left of you at all,” Eric said. He leaned on the cornflower blue wall of his bedroom, feeling a little weak as he made his way back to the living room. A cold sensation crept up around his neck. “Just pictures on my phone. Nothing else. It’s like you were never here. And... you don’t want anything of me? As if none of it happened? Two years of our life meant nothing?”
“I thought you’d prefer it.”
“Well, I don’t.”
“Eric, I’ve got to go,” Henry said. “I apologize if I’ve hurt your feelings.” He sounded like he was ordering coffee at Starbucks. Eric pictured him bustling around his kitchen, throwing ingredients into a wok. When he thought of Henry, it was always in a kitchen.
“But—”
Henry hung up, and Erik swallowed. That icy feeling curled up around his neck. He pictured chilly tendrils poking into his brain, placing thoughts there he didn’t want.
Am I really so cold?
It was seven o’clock when Eric sat down at his dining room table with a bowl of curried tofu and quinoa. He tended to eat formally at the table without listening to so much as music. He sometimes liked the meditative ambiance of eating in the quiet.
Except that this time, the blank spaces on the wall next to the dining table weren’t silent at all. They loomed and seemed to speak as he chewed and swallowed a bite of kale.
He doesn’t want to remember you, they seemed to say. Who would? What is there to even remember?
That cold dark tendril feeling was up around his neck again just as his phone buzzed. He sighed, relieved by the disruption to his moping, and yet more relieved that it was Todd Ellis calling, of all people. Work stuff. Even better.
“Todd,” Eric said, quickly slipping back into the firm tone he used with anyone from work. “What’s going on?”
“I have an idea,” Todd said.
“Like a pitch?” Eric sat back and eyed his uneaten food. The curry was too bland anyway. He needed to work on his curry game. “That’s good. You’re usually last minute. I pictured you throwing together the presentation while sitting by the pool the day before—”
“It’s not the pitch,” Todd said. “I’ve got tons of time for the pitch. I already have ten ideas for the pitch.”
Eric’s lips twitched, and he kept his judgements to himself. He really couldn’t fault Todd for the way he worked, as much as he might want to. His campaigns were too often brilliant. Not that he felt compelled to tell Todd he thought so.
“What then?” Eric said.
“I’ve read over everything about Gigi,” Todd said. “The way they’re so family oriented? Jordan and Alphonso and their two kids are as much a part of the marketing as the company itself, and they have a bunch of couples working for them? It’s practically a cult. I bet they start wearing jumpsuits, go live in a commune in Oregon, set up a bunch of yurts, you know what I mean?”
Eric choked on another one of those annoying laughs bubbling up and cleared his throat. “And what’s this got to do with anything?”
“It’s about how you can get an edge,” Todd said. “Even better, how we can get an edge.”
“And how is that?” Eric said, frowning down at his tinted glass dining table.
“Okay, well you’re not going to like this at first glance.” Todd spoke quickly, as if hoping Eric might miss something. It was a habit of his. He’d used the same rapid speech when he’d told Eric he’d lost the Moo Moo account to Stackler before rushing off down the hall and leaving Eric to deal with his rejection.
“Todd…”
“Just listen to what I have to say,” Todd said. He had that high pitch to his voice. It made him sound a little hysterical, but Eric stifled a smile. He always pictured Todd as a cartoon character when he spoke like that. “And think about it. Really think about it before you say no because you will definitely say no at first.”
“Oh my god, Todd. Spit it out already.”
“My idea is that we pretend to be a couple,” Todd said.
Eric sat, holding the phone, and blinked down at his curried tofu as if it were responsible for the nonsensical idea Todd had just suggested. “Excuse me?”
“I know it sounds crazy!” His voice pitched up again, but this time it did not make Eric smile. “But think about it, man. Stackler is single and we’re all single and Jordan and Alphonso are obviously total romantics who really get off on working with other couples who also work together. It’s a thing with them! What better way to get the edge! You’re so afraid of Stackler, well, here’s your answer.”
“Pretend to be a couple.” He sneered, yet a tiny part of him that didn’t hate a little crazy (the part he usually stifled just like so many abrupt laughs) wanted to hear more.
“It wouldn’t even be hard,” Todd insisted. “We could bring it up casually on the way to Catalina, right? We could pretend it just slipped out. We could easily say we’ve been keeping it under wraps at work for... I dunno, professionalism or something. Then we play happy couple for a few days on the trip and you do your superstar account thing and I wow em’ with my pitch, and that will put us over the top!”
“Todd…” Eric tapped his fingers on the dining table. He caught his reflection in the glass and blinked in surprise. He was smiling. The left corner of his mouth was turned up. His eyes were bright. He didn’t look annoyed or disgusted at all. He looked like he was talking to an old friend. Just as quickly, he frowned at the happy looking man in the glass and turned down his brow. “Todd, I’m going to hang up and tomorrow I’ll put this down to your creative mind going a little haywire. I’m sure it happens occasionally. Goodnight, Todd.”
“But—”
He hung up before Todd could go on and shook his head. Alone, where nobody could see him look less
than serious, he chuckled under his breath. He got to his feet and cleared away his failed attempt at curry as all the wild implications of what faking a relationship with Todd would involve drifted through his mind.
They would have to hold hands just for show. Kiss! They would have to pretend to know each other so intimately. Though, if Eric thought about it, he knew Todd more intimately than he probably wanted to admit. They’d probably have to share a suite and that would be infuriating. He was neat, ordered, fastidious. Todd was walking chaos with good hair.
And all that was beside the point. The entire idea was both ethically questionable and unprofessional.
Also, the kissing.
“Ridiculous,” he said to himself as he loaded his dishwasher. But for some reason, he could not stop chuckling whenever he thought about it.
Acknowledgments
Thanks, Fading Street. Thank you so much, Janna, my awesome cover artist. You are forever my Annie Wilkes and a true artisan of Grandma Skills. Thank you, Rebekah, former bookstore cohort and fabulous friend, for all your feedback over the years and for important conversations over ghost pepper wings. Thanks, Rachel and Al in general. Thanks, Gwen Martin, for some great advice on how to navigate this stuff. Thanks to anyone who’s ever reviewed my books. Thanks to anyone who has ever enjoyed my fanfiction and everyone I’ve squeed with and argued with and whose content I’ve enjoyed in fandom. <3
Also by I.M. Flippy
A Fugitive in Grass Valley
Bart Goes to Brentwood
A Day in Cleburne
Summer of Sonny