by Max Monroe
I smile and wink. “Bingo. That’s exactly what I want you to do.”
“You realize that makes no sense, right?”
“Just trust me on this. You’re going to hold out for something that’s bigger and better. Something like Beacon House.” I smirk. “But you’re going to need an offer on the table in order to do that.”
“You sound insanely certain.”
“Because I know how a thriving company like Beacon House works,” I answer with conviction. “I already know they’re not currently looking to add any editors to their roster, but I also know they don’t want to miss a new, up-and-coming, sought after editor who graduated from a prestigious school like Stanford.”
She stays quiet for a long moment, and I watch her closely. I might not know much about women, but I know Maybe looks damned beautiful when she’s deep in thought.
“You really think this is a surefire plan?”
I lean back in my leather chair. “I didn’t turn ten thousand dollars in credit card debt into a thriving billion-dollar business without having this kind of foresight. Stick with me, kid.”
“Okay,” she finally agrees, raising both fists above her head in a pathetic excuse for a cheer. “Beacon House, here I come.”
I laugh. “First stop, Rainbow Press. Next stop, the job of your dreams.”
Her responding smile lights up the damn room. “God, I hope you’re right.”
“I am,” I say with the kind of confidence you can’t fake. “You’re going to do big things in the publishing industry.”
An adorable snort escapes her nose. “You’re just saying that.”
“I’m saying it because it’s true,” I correct her and proceed to grab a piece of paper from my desk and jot down the information for her interview.
Next Tuesday 2:00 pm with Cassandra Cale, editor in chief at Rainbow Press
“When you get to the lobby, ask for her,” I explain and slide the paper across the surface of my desk until it meets her fingertips.
She takes it into her hands, scanning it quickly. “I thought you hadn’t set this up yet?”
I shrug. “I guess I fibbed.”
She grins and waves her hands around the office at my photographs with celebrities, Business Bureau Awards, and original Pollock paintings. The one solid wall of my office is covered from corner to corner, and the other three are made of glass. “You better watch that nose, Pinocchio. There’s a whole lot of valuable, breakable shit in this room.”
I smile, stand from my chair, and circle the end of my modern black desk to lean into the other side—closer to her.
“What are you up to for the rest of the day?” I ask as a means to distract myself from reaching out to grab her trim waist.
“Uh…I don’t know… Go home. Take these heels off. Figure out TapNext.”
“TapNext?” My eyebrows draw together.
“It’s a dating app,” she explains, but it’s not the app I don’t know. A good friend of mine by the name of Kline Brooks created that hugely successful dating app many moons ago. It’s based on the standard dating model, but it’s undeniably better in every area possible. More secure. More clients. And the highest match success rate in the country. “My friend Lena, the one I went shopping with, wants me to try it out with her.”
Discomfort comes out of nowhere and fills my throat, but I swallow it down. She doesn’t need some asshole raining on her parade.
“Anyway, Lena is convinced my dating card is about to be so full I won’t even know where to begin.” She rolls her eyes, and then a tiny, nervous smile kisses her lips. “I’m not sure if I should be excited or terrified.”
I nod, but I don’t need a mirror to know it’s stiffer than normal.
“What’s that look for?” she asks, noting my sudden silence.
“Nothing.”
She quirks a brow. “It doesn’t seem like nothing.”
It is nothing. It’s a simple attraction to a beautiful woman I’ve known most of my life. It’s not anything to get worked up over, for God’s sake. Right?
Still, it’s not like I can say that to her. “I’m just happy I’m not the one who’s about to set up a profile on TapNext,” I improvise instead.
“You don’t like dating apps?”
I shake my head. “Not for me anyway.”
“Because you loathe dating,” she says with a little smile.
“I don’t loathe dating. I just don’t have time for it.”
But apparently, I loathe the idea of you dating, which is fucking insane.
“You totally do,” she retorts, and I just brush it off with a laugh.
“Just do me a favor, yeah?” She raises her perfectly shaped eyebrows pointedly and waits for me to continue. “Be careful who you agree to go on a date with.”
She laughs. “You afraid I’m going to end up in someone’s trunk?”
“Jesus, kid. That’s a terrifying thought.”
“Don’t worry, Milo,” she says with a wink. “I’ll make sure the FBI does background checks on all of my prospects.”
A tiny grin curls the corner of my mouth as I shake my head. “Smartass.”
“Yeah, well, someone had to lighten the mood here.”
“Says the person who just mentioned ending up in someone’s trunk.”
“It was a joke!” she excuses on a laugh.
“A horrible joke.”
“I guess maybe Bruce is rubbing off on me.”
“Also a terrifying thought.”
“Fine,” she says with a cheeky grin. “I take back the trunk joke.”
“It’s a little late for that.”
She rolls her big brown eyes. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think I was sitting across from Evan right now.”
“Yeah, well, since he’s in Austin, I guess someone has to keep an eye on you.”
Clara’s voice fills my office suddenly and interrupts our banter. “Mr. Ives, I have Mr. Frost with Berkin Industries on the line for you.”
Maybe smiles slightly and jerks a thumb toward the door. “I guess I’ll leave you to run your empire, Billionaireman.”
“Very funny.”
She grins. “Thank you for the sage career advice.”
“You’re welcome,” I say, and the genuineness in my tone can’t be missed. “Let me know how it goes with Rainbow Press next week. And if you have any issues figuring out where you need to be, give me a call.”
“Will do.”
I watch with dismay as she disappears, out of my office door and down the hallway and most likely home to start a goddamn dating profile on TapNext.
Son of a bitch. The idea of it makes me cringe.
But Maybe Willis is off-limits. So, I have no choice. All I can do is sit back and watch the real-live nightmare happen.
Maybe
I have an interview today.
An I’m going to interview but not take the job interview, but an interview all the same.
Thanks to Milo, I am meeting with Cassandra Cale, the editor in chief for Rainbow Press—a publishing house located in Manhattan.
It’s supposed to be a laid-back meet-and-greet where I’ll introduce myself, she’ll ask me some questions, and then tell me about the job opportunities that are available within the company.
Funny how that still translates to what must surely be a heart attack.
My chest is tight and my hands are fidgety, and if my knee would stop bouncing for just one fucking second, it’d be nice. And jaw pain. Women having heart attacks usually have jaw pain, right?
Anxiety, party of one!
I take a deep inhale and force myself to walk down the steps of the nearest subway station. My new pair of pale pink heels click-clacks against the concrete what sounds like assuredly, but my legs are so shaky, I have to do something I never do—grip the dirty, grimy, bacteria-infested banister to the left of the steps—to prevent myself from falling face first.
I make a mental note not to touch my face with my germy
hands before I can wash them at the very first opportunity.
The noon subway crowd is chaos, and people are everywhere. Rushing. Waiting. Running. Walking fast. Walking too slow. It’s a swirling sea of hipsters, homeless, and upper middle-class worthy of that movie Sharknado.
Despite the variety of backgrounds, when it’s crowded like this, people have no distinction. They are just things in your way. Moving, smelling—good and bad—sometimes accommodating but a lot of times rude things.
An older gentleman in khaki shorts with his belt basically fastened to his neckline bumps me as I step onto the platform, and I teeter on my heels.
He doesn’t notice, though. I am, like him, just a thing.
With a whine and a displacement of air, the train arrives, and I hurry on with the rest of the New York crowd. Belt man bumps me again to find the only open seat left and plops his khaki ass down like he owns the joint.
I, on the other hand, am left standing beside one of the metal poles.
Promptly, the train shuts its doors, leaving anyone outside of its threshold stuck in the muggy station air, and starts its path toward the next station with a jolt. Unsteadily, I grip the coolness of the pole to keep my balance.
One hand free, I pull my phone out of my purse and do what everyone else on the train is doing, I scroll through social media.
Facebook first.
Then Twitter.
And for the briefest of moments, I search the TapNext app that Lena has been badgering me about for the past week. But when I locate it in the app store, I can’t get myself to download it.
What in the hell would I do on a dating app?
The only thing I can imagine is disaster.
Yeah. Definitely not doing this today.
I move right along, and by the time I pull up Instagram, I’m what those new age parents refer to as overstimulated. I scan the train surreptitiously, keeping one eye to my Instagram feed as a means of pretense until my attention catches on the phone screen of a young woman seated right beside the metal pole I’m holding on to. Wearing a cutoff pair of jean shorts and sporting curly blond hair, she looks to be about my age.
I watch as her fingers tap excitedly across the keypad and wait for something of interest to show up in response to her succinct prompt of Tell me.
I shouldn’t be looking. Or reading, for that matter, but I can’t help it.
After all the peptalking I’ve had to do to avoid throwing myself directly onto Milo’s penis, I have zero willpower left.
I want to spread your legs wide, slowly, and kiss down the inside of your thighs.
My cheeks heat at the simple sentence, but I have to blink three times just to steady myself when the next message populates.
I fucking love how wet you get.
Holy mother of subway sexy times.
My mind takes off at the pace of a Derby horse.
Who the hell is the dirty talker on the other end of her phone?
Is he even a fraction as attractive as Milo?
Does she know how flip-flapping lucky she is?!
Her fingers tap across the keypad, and a few seconds later, her response pops onto the screen of her phone.
I’m on the subway, and my back is arched just thinking about this. I’m craving you so bad right now…
God. I want that.
I want the low-ache, can’t-breathe, skin-scratching feeling of someone talking to me like that. I want to be wanted so badly, a man can’t stand the thought of waiting another second to tell me what he’s going to do with me.
I want to sext and be sexted and live out every single word in real life.
I’ve never even come close to experiencing a sliver of what the NSFW blonde has.
Am I missing out?
I suppose there’s still time to change it, but is it even possible for a twenty-four-year-old virgin to sext?
I’m not completely naïve, but I can’t deny I’m still pretty damn naïve at the same time.
Without a second thought, I swipe the lock screen on my phone, click into my messages, and pull up the straightest shooter I know.
If there’s anyone who’ll know what to do—know how to take control of this part of my life and change it—it’s her.
Me: Do you like sexting people?
Lena responds a minute later.
Lena: Definitely. Though, I’ve had some seriously weird sext conversations that I’d prefer to never experience again.
Me: Like what?
Lena: Oh, honey. You don’t want to know.
Me: Yes. I do.
I nod to myself as I send it just to punctuate my words with completely useless emphasis.
Lena: Well, I’ve had guys send me pictures of things I didn’t want to see and go into explicit detail on things I would never even type into Google, and I’ve been looped into a group conversation with some swingers with questionable choices in camera angle.
Me: But you do sext. I mean, you’ve for sure sexted before and you’ve liked it.
Lena: Lol. Yes, I’ve sexted and, yes, I’ve liked it.
God, I want to sext message someone.
You want to sext Milo.
No. Not Milo. Well, not specifically him. Obviously, it’d be great if it were him, but I just want to experience it in general.
Hello, denial! Nice to meet you! I’m a big fat liar otherwise known as Maybe!
God, my inner subconscious is such a snarky biotch sometimes.
Lena: So…mind telling me where all this is coming from?
Me: I’m sitting here on the subway watching this cute girl sext message with someone. I kind of saw them…on accident.
Sort of. I mean, the first message was definitely an accident, but the next four or so were more of an intentional eavesdrop. Those are minor details, obviously.
Lena: Adorable and a little voyeur? I swear to God, you are too much. I fucking love it.
Before I can respond, another text message pops onto the screen.
Lena: Stop eavesdropping on other people’s sext convos, and do it for yourself. You need to sext message Milo. Tonight.
The mention of his name makes me gasp and choke at the same time, and the sound comes out kind of like a bark. The man to the left looks at me, and his mouth turns down at the corners. Obviously, he was hoping to find a cute Yorkshire Terrier or the like, and instead found a virginal, odd girl.
I turn my back on him and go back to typing on my phone.
Me: WHAT? No.
Lena: You gotta be crazy if you want to get what you want in the end. And you want Milo. Scoot out onto that sexting limb and reach for him.
Me: OMG. You’re serious. YOU’RE SERIOUS???
Lena: Consider this Phase 2 in Maybe’s Seduction Plan.
Me: Phase 2? HAHA. I’m still trying to uncover my eyes in Phase 1.
Lena: Just trust me, okay?
Me: I wouldn’t know the first fucking thing to say.
Lena: Let me guess, he’s already told you he wants you to let him know how your interview goes today, right?
Me: How in the hell do you know that?
What the hell? Did she bug me before I left Bergdorf’s with her last week?
Lena: I’m telling you…I have a real sixth sense about these things. The man is into you, Maybe. He’s currently trying to fight it, but the proof is in the pudding. He wants to see you. Talk to you. And, after your sext conversation tonight, he’s going to want to bang you.
Me: Your confidence is terrifying.
Yeah, but you’re one-hundred-percent smiling like a loon right now, so what does that say about you?
I groan inwardly at my own ridiculousness.
Lena: Have I steered you wrong yet?
Me: Technically, no. But I’m chalking that up to luck more than anything.
Lena: You have no reason to doubt me.
Me: You do realize it’s not as simple as me just sexting him, right? To do that, I would have to know something ABOUT sexting. The closest I’ve ever com
e to dirty talk is the end of the year exam in sex ed.
Lena: LOL. Relax. You’re not going to start a sexting convo with him. You’re going to text him about your interview. And THEN, you’re going to segue it into the sexting.
I furrow my brow.
And she really thinks I’m capable of something like this?
Apparently, she’s lost her mind.
Me: How in the hell am I supposed to do that? Everything I’m coming up with revolves around, “Oh, so, by the way, would you care to engage in a little sexting with me?”
Lena: HA! Yeah, definitely don’t do that.
Me: See? I cannot be trusted to handle Phase 2. I’m completely incompetent.
Lena: Take a breath, girl. You can do this. You’re attracted to Milo, right?
I frown at my phone.
Me: Obviously, yes.
Lena: Then you’ve got the tools. When something you want to do to him comes to mind, just type it instead of keeping it to yourself. And, trust me on this, it does NOT take much.
The subway whines as it slows down at the next stop—my stop—and just before I can shoot Lena another message about how awful of an idea this is, a new text message comes through.
But it’s not from her.
Milo: I glanced at the clock and saw the time. I hope you’re not nervous about today, but if you are, just know you have no reason to be. You’re going to do great, kid.
God, it’s like his ears were burning or something.