“I want…steak. What about you?” Phoenix peered at his menu and back at her when she didn’t reply. He sighed. “Ms. Carson, I am a busy man. Busy all day and all night, except for those times when I—for sanity’s sake—make the business wait. Now, I want to have a pleasant dinner with you where we touch base on some of the elements of your app but mostly just pretend we’re two young people enjoying a night on the town. Is that doable?”
He was used to being in charge, used to people following his lead, not used to beautiful women trying to tell him how the night was going to go. He had offered to listen to her sales pitch, hadn’t he? They’d get to that in due time. But right now, dinner. Phoenix had already made up his mind on the app anyway.
The server sidled closer and accepted their order in the hushed ambiance of the dinner hall. Cee-Cee-Cee asked for steak as well—she was too nervous to put any real thought into her food order. When the server left, Phoenix turned his eyes to Cee-Cee, who sat uncomfortably at the other side of the table. She looked ready to bolt.
“How old are you?” he asked when the server left.
She jumped. “Oh, um, twenty-two. You’re twenty-seven, I know. I read your file. How on earth did you begin a political career so young?”
“You read my file?” He blew out an amused breath. “You should know, then. I was in college by age fifteen and excelled at everything I put a hand to. I get the feeling you have a similar backstory. Am I right?”
She modestly smiled. “I didn’t start college so young. I just double majored. Uncle Bryan invited me to begin interning at his firm this year, and I have to admit it’s been an enlightening experience.”
“Ah, I see. You’re related. Makes sense. So, you’re in IT?”
“Computer programming.” She sipped from her wineglass, studiously watching bubbles float to the surface of the sparkling wine. He could tell his mention of her relation to the CEO of PR-ISM was a sore point. Phoenix cleared his throat to make her look at him. He couldn’t get enough of her eyes.
“Can I tell you a secret?” he asked. “I am relatively good at reading people, and I get the feeling you don’t want to be here. Did your uncle make you play nice with me? I don’t want you to feel you have to entertain me for his sake.”
She appraised him with skittish eyes. “That’s not the case. I genuinely appreciate the offer to meet. This is an honor. I just want to be able to talk to you about my—”
“Tenacious of you.”
“—App…”
Right on cue, their dinner was served and the conversation was left at a stalemate as Phoenix deliberately went silent and focused on cutting his steak. He felt her watching him. She didn’t touch her plate for a full minute, her attention fixed on him.
There were a lot of things on his mind, none of which Phoenix felt pressed to discuss with anyone. For starters, he had read the specs on her app, and there were problems. It wasn’t the program; it was him. Phoenix had never been a fan of social media because he viewed the various sites as nothing more than temptations to disclose an excessive amount of personal information that would likely float around the Internet for all eternity.
Why would anyone be interested in what some random person was eating, reading, watching or doing? He understood the allure on a basic level. People were nosy. That was the thing.
Phoenix had seen firsthand how one social mishap could flush years of hard work down the drain. His eyes went distant as he drifted off, remembering the look on his mother’s face when she had found out what his hounddog of a father had been doing behind closed doors. Secrets always came out.
They just came out faster and easier when people used social media. Phoenix knew drunken text messages could haunt a person for a lifetime. Harmless jokes could be taken out of context. When it came to politics, anything on the Internet could be either a tool for good or ammunition to kill his campaign, and he wasn’t interested in being a guinea pig with his career on the line.
His answer on the use of her app was no. Bryan Friedman had talked it up. Phoenix was sure Cora-Lynn had more shining speeches about the app’s grandeur, but he wasn’t interested. So why had he invited her out?
Because he wanted to get out of the house. It was Friday night, and it was damned difficult getting dates as the mayor (unless one counted vapid socialites and high-priced hookers). He chewed thoughtfully and swallowed slowly, finally lifting his eyes to hers. Her smile was planted in place, but it was beginning to waver. Phoenix surreptitiously snuck a glance at the time on his phone. She was on the edge of her seat. Better to get the business end of things out of the way before this poor girl burst with anticipation.
“About NowIn…”
“Right,” she beamed. “NowIn is a social media app that allows you to post across every major platform out there, fully customizable, to deliver content with minimal work on your part. It’s the branding iron of the future.” She spit the words out rapid-fire, and Phoenix was taken aback by her enthusiasm. She was passionate about this. It made her light up like a firework, and her already extraordinary face took on a new intensity.
He had intended to give her only a moment to talk before politely explaining that NowIn wasn’t something he felt comfortable using. However, at the sight of her glowing so enchantingly, he didn’t feel inclined to stop her. He finished the excellent filet as she chattered, her fork hardly touching her food.
“Picture this. You wake up in the morning, snap a photo and shoot it out to tens of thousands of followers on Twitter. At the same time, your blog is updated with the funny picture and doodled text that says, ‘He wakes up like this.’ Add some quirky stickers, maybe the constitution in one hand and a toothbrush in the other. There you have it—a mayor the people of town can feel they know intimately.
“No more Wizard behind the green curtain, pulling levers and blowing smoke. The real man is far more interesting than the illusion.” She blushed as she heard herself, and Phoenix didn’t miss the high color in her cheeks. His charming smile manifested.
“You think I’m interesting,” he murmured matter-of-factly, touching his napkin to his lips. She glossed over the comment.
“I think NowIn will show the town, the world even, that you’re not just interesting. You’re worth their time. They’ll race back to check what you post next. In a meeting? No problem! Whisper into your device ‘I’m in a meeting,’ and the app will select from your preset photos to find something suitable—say, a photo of you giving two thumbs up. Suddenly, government isn’t something that only happens behind closed doors. It’s something that happens in classrooms, living rooms, at work, anywhere!”
“I see the appeal. What’s in it for you? What’s in it for PR-ISM? I mean, your company already has the contract to cover public relations for me during my second mayoral run. Why do I need this app?”
“Sir, PR is about crafting a certain image. Our team at PR-ISM, we’re masters of that craft, but this app? This app puts the clay in your hands. You help sculpt the right image for you. Clearly, we wouldn’t put you out there and tell you to go crazy with it. I mean, the wake up in the morning thing was just an example. Ideally, you’d use it specifically when you want to get a message out to the people yourself.”
“Sir?”
She blushed again. He loved watching the pink suffuse her face. “It just seemed—.”
“I’m only a few years older than you, you know.”
She blinked rapidly, unable to speak, and he felt sorry for teasing her. “So I’d make my own personal statements, rather than have a third party read them in front of a press conference. Is that it?”
She grinned, tongue tucked between her teeth, happy again. “Precisely.”
Phoenix nodded. He still wasn't sold on it. He was a private man. There was his business/political life, and then there was his personal life. An app like this one would make it too easy to make the mistake of mixing the two. “I’ll think more about it,” he murmured.
Ms. Carson deflated
right before his eyes. It would have been comical if she didn’t look so down. Phoenix reached across the table to hand her back her tablet. “Hey, I said I’d think about it,” he repeated, his tone lighter this time.
She nodded bravely, cut a bite of steak and attacked it, chewing furiously. “Thank you.”
He shifted uneasily, hoping she wouldn’t start crying or some shit. She looked so small and waifish. “So, uh, tell me more about you,” he said, deftly changing the subject.
“Friends call me Cee-Cee,” she said, looking up at him. He noticed the faint film of meat grease on her lips but didn’t let her see him notice. “You can call me that since we’ll be working together so closely.”
“Thank you for that. Ms. Cora-Lynn Carson is a bit of a mouthful.” As she would be. “Cee-Cee it is. Call me Phoenix.” She shook his proffered hand but her heart wasn’t in it. She knew he was going to say no.
Phoenix hid his ire at the date gone wrong. Was he so unappealing? He had hoped they could pretend a little longer to be two people enjoying each other’s company rather than trying desperately to get something from each other. He sighed. What he wanted from her—distraction, a little grace, perhaps more—was not her problem. What she wanted, however, was his problem. It seemed like everything was these days.
An awkward silence descended over the table broken only by his question of whether or not she wanted dessert. She softly said no, and that was that. Dinner was over.
* * *
The awkwardness transferred from the restaurant to Phoenix’s car, and he realized this business dinner had hit Pitsville. Cee-Cee tugged at the hem of her dress and crossed her legs, then uncrossed them. Her eyes slid to his face and moved over his firmly set lips before dancing away, lured by the city lights beyond the glass.
“Did you have fun tonight?” he chanced the question.
She nodded too quickly. “I feel lucky just to have had the opportunity to meet with you one on one.”
He playfully nudged her foot with his. Whispering conspiratorially, he asked, “Bryan’s not going to get upset about me not giving a firm answer tonight, is he?”
“Oh, no! No! Bryan and the PR team and I agreed showing off the NowIn App would be a perk of being hired by your council, but we also understand we’re not here to sell you a product. This is just one of the many services we offer.”
“Glad to know. So, my dear tech girl genius, any other questions for me? You’re my social media liaison. I imagine you’ll have to get to know me better in order to handle my limited Internet presence. Anything you need to know to make your job easier?”
“Well, my head is buzzing with questions, but they’re more for me than you.” She looked down self-consciously, tucking her hair behind her ear. The pearl caught the light. Her bronze lips made him think of topaz. Pearls and topaz. “I mean, I’m sure I somehow blew the presentation. Maybe I should have played up the analytics, talked more about the thousands of positive reviews. A-admittedly, the NowIn App is the only thing of merit I’ve ever created.”
“Stop that,” he shook his head. “Let me give you a bit of business advice, one young successful person to another. You don’t apologize for someone else turning down something you have to offer. If your product is good, you stand behind that. It’s their loss, not yours.” She blinked. He chuckled, understanding he was talking against himself, but he hadn’t actually told her no yet, either.
“I’ll keep that in mind, Mayor Briton. Thank you.”
“Call me Phoenix, Cee-Cee.” There wasn’t much space separating them.
She tugged on her dress again, and their thighs brushed. That electric spark reanimated. There was chemistry in the backseat of the car.
Phoenix felt the stirring awareness of her womanly proximity somewhere low in his pelvis as he shifted position. He could tell she was aware of him too by the way she pressed her legs together and crossed her arms in front of her perky nipples. She rolled her eyes subtly. So what he’s hot and rich, and we’re alone together in his ridiculously expensive Rolls? her face seemed to say. He laughed aloud.
“You don’t know how to feel about me, do you? Cee-Cee, behind the title of mayor, I’m a pretty regular guy. I hope you don’t find me intimidating, because I try not to be. We’re going to be working closely over the next few months, and I want you to be comfortable around me.”
“You’re very approachable,” she allowed. “But, I gotta be honest with you. I’m not here to feel anything about you. I’m here to prove myself as a serious entrepreneur. It’s just, I…feel more like a kid playing a game of Lemonade Stand.” She snickered, admitting it. He laughed as well.
His diamond cuff links winked under the streetlight as the car hummed quietly, accelerating. “For what it’s worth, I see you as a serious entrepreneur.”
“Thank you for the opportunity to give this presentation tonight. Even if my app isn’t chosen, it was nice meeting with you. I foresee us working well together in the future.” She swallowed and slid her sweaty palms over her exposed thighs. She tried again to pull that damned skirt a little lower with no success. Cee-Cee lifted her head and tossed her hair and pasted on that smile that said she was a winner, in spite of, and he smiled back.
“Well, I haven’t not chosen you. I’d like to assess the beta program personally. Is that alright with you? I know a lounge nearby where we can hang out together a little longer and you can show me how it works.”
“Are you serious?” He nodded. Her eyes sparkled with glee, and she clapped her hands in anticipation while gnawing on her bottom lip, looking uncertain. “Where to start? There’s so much the program can do.”
“Show me everything,” he said. His eyes took a slow stroll up her body to her eyes. There was definitely something unspoken going on between them, and he found himself grinning in response.
“Let’s get to that lounge, then,” she murmured.
“You’ll like the place,” Phoenix assured her. “I go often enough for the folks to know me on a first name basis, but I still feel a sense of anonymity there. I can let my hair down, so to speak. Sometimes I need to feel like an average dumb twenty-something. Know what I mean? What about you? You go out any?”
She lifted a shoulder and shook her head, exactly as he suspected. “I’m really more of a homebody.” Phoenix reached in a built-in cooler for something to take the edge off, and he splashed a finger of vodka into a glass. She pointed at it. “Hmm. About that. I have a two-sip maximum.”
“Grenadine?” He held up the red drink additive, and she flashed a relaxed smile.
“How’d you know?”
Chuckling, Phoenix added the crimson syrup, stirred it, and handed it to Cee-Cee. “You don’t seem like a girl who turns down sweets. What’s a gorgeous woman like you doing staying at home on a Friday night?”
He toasted her and watched her waning confidence resurge in the form of a hair flip and dazzling smile. Suddenly they were two successful young people hanging out, all he had wanted in the first place.
“Achieving,” said Cee-Cee. “It’s what I do.”
“That’s what I do, too. I’ve got a feeling, Ms. Cora-Lynn Carson, we’re going to see a lot of success together.”
They crisscrossed downtown to the warehouse district, arriving at Phoenix Briton’s favorite hangout, the Yellow Lounge. His driver dropped them in front of the building, and Phoenix led her on his arm like a celebrity.
Chapter 4
Ashley Terrence held his selfie stick away from the group and yelled for everyone to “Chill, chill!” The throng of people backstage with him shoved and squeezed in for the picture. Magnetic, handsome, jovial Ashley tossed his curly dark hair out of his face and grinned as the camera flashed and the picture was taken. “Worldwide, Ashers!” he shouted excitedly with a toss-up of rock star fingers.
In response, the twenty or so guys hanging out with him added to the mayhem with a few hoorahs that drew shushes from the people running the show. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry!” A
shley covered his grin with the back of his hand and ducked off into his dressing room to keep the noise down. Of course he was followed. Five or six of his entourage materialized in the cramped room with him. He minded, but he didn’t show it.
“Ash, your set is up in twenty minutes. Preserve your voice,” his manager, Tegan, cautioned dryly. Ashley snickered and ignored her as he posed for another picture for his Twitter fans, one for Snapchat and a quick video to make into a Vine later when he had the time. Tegan sighed at his antics and continued working her phone, scheduling appearances for him.
Ashley was backstage at a high-end nightclub in this modest-sized town while en route to a bigger act in a city thirty minutes away. That meant two shows in one night. Playing on the Internet was the only way to normalize the chaotic frenzy of being a performer.
Although the twenty-five-year-old Aussie was semi-drunk and putting on a show of having a good time with his crew, the road life was boring the fuck out of him. They had been touring for the past two months. Meanwhile, his real friends were in Australia texting, telling him he was missing out on surfing and partying with them. His best mate, Tam, whom he hadn’t seen in months, was back in Australia, but he couldn’t get in touch with him because of the shitty time difference.
The irony was that even though he was surrounded by people, with millions of fans and hundreds of thousands of followers, this was the most alone Ashley Terrence had felt in his life. But three more months of this, and he would be free.
It was crazy, but he missed the ungodly heat of home. He missed his mother pouring him a Coke and his step-dad sitting in his underwear in the living room watching TV like that was normal. Most of all, he missed knowing for sure that the folks he considered friends weren’t hanging with him simply because he was a star.
He couldn’t wait to be back to that life, although he knew once he was, he’d be wishing for the bright lights, cameras and action once again. To think he was here because a few notes crooned on some YouTube videos had garnered the right attention from the right music execs. In a year’s time, Ashley Terrence’s life had rapidly changed.
MMF BISEXUAL ROMANCE: Phoenix Running Page 3