Mr Right Now: A Romantic Comedy Standalone

by Lila Monroe

  I clenched my fist before my hand could rise up and slap him. Was he really so blind? Couldn’t he see how different it was for him? A man could dick around all he wanted and no one looked twice. A woman made one mistake, and her career was done forever.

  “As if you would know the first thing about standing on your own,” I said, my voice trembling. “Tell me, Hunter Knox, is it terribly lonely up there on your high horse with only your millions for company? How you must have struggled, having your opportunities occasionally delivered to you on a silver platter instead of a gold one.”

  “You think I’ve had it easy?” Hunter countered, his volume rising to match my own. “You think I haven’t worked and sweated and goddamn bled for this goddamn company? You don’t know me. You don’t know one fucking thing about what I’ve had to do these past years.”

  Rage coursed like acid through my veins. “And you don’t know one fucking thing about what I have to do right now, every single day.”

  Hunter shook his head, his expression fierce. “I’m not letting you walk away from this, Ally.”

  As if I had wanted to walk away. As if this were anything other than my only choice. Oh, Hunter. Oh, proud, beautiful, angry Hunter. My heart felt like it was going to burst with regret and loss and rage and desire.

  “There’s nothing to walk away from. We only ever had a beginning. And it might seem like it matters to you now, but one day, you won’t even remember it.”

  “Ally—”

  “It’s done, Hunter.” I tried to walk away but he placed a gentle hand on my shoulder, attempting to pull me back toward him. I resisted his touch, keeping my body still and refusing to turn around.

  “Is this…is this really what you want?” he asked. “I’ll respect your choice if it is, and we can end this for good, but—”

  “Yes,” I said, my voice cracking at the lie. “It’s what I really want.”

  I turned and ran, Cinderella fleeing the ball, before he could hear me cry.

  Before he could realize just how much I wanted him to persuade me to stay.

  Chapter Eleven

  I muffled my tears through my hands, head bent over my desk in my semi-private cubicle.

  It didn’t make sense. I had won. Hunter had once again gone for my ideas over those of the Douchebros. Mr. Avery, my boss, had greenlit them too. I should have been happier than I’d ever been in my life. I was finally on my way to the top.

  But all I could think about was what I had left behind.

  I had steeled myself for the Douchebros’ heckling, and kept an un-amused smile on my face as they harangued me, letting their own immature complaints about a lack of sex and explosions in my concept speak for themselves.

  But somehow I hadn’t steeled myself against Hunter’s cool indifference.

  He had approved my concept while barely glancing up from his phone.

  He hadn’t met my eyes once.

  He had walked away in the middle of my attempt to thank him for going with my idea.

  His rejection hurt like nothing I had ever experienced before. I felt as if my heart were ripping in two, as if I were drowning, as I were falling forever, as if I had already fallen and broken every bone in my body.

  And now he was gone, back on a plane to Virginia, and I was stuck here in D.C. alone with my heartbreak, trying to cry discreetly so no one else would discover how upset I was.

  I was counting the hours till I could escape work and go home to family dinner. That’s how bad it was.

  My dad passed me the mashed potatoes with a silent look of commiseration as my mother chattered on. We were both doing our best to get by with the minimum amount of nods and ‘mm-hmms,’ and eventually she would notice and there would be scolding. But for now there was food.

  Roast beef and mashed potatoes and braised greens and perfectly toasted rolls were arranged artfully on the best china, on a little pink checkered tablecloth that would’ve done Betty Crocker proud. And it was delicious. Almost enough to make up for the conversation.

  “And how often do you find a straight man who’s into historical costuming, I mean really—”

  Had I really thought this would be an escape? It was a commuted sentence at best.

  Mom hadn’t stopped congratulating herself since she sat down. It was the same old song: I was a huge disappointment, but Paige was perfect and so was her new man, whoever this latest one was who was joining us for dinner soon, and he was going to be the one to make an honest woman of her, and we would all just pretend that Mom hadn’t said the same thing about every other man she’d set Paige up with since junior prom.

  I swear, you’d need an archive to keep track of the polite fictions we keep current in my family.

  “And so successful, why, Paige will be set for life—”

  I wasn’t in the mood for this; not now when I was so heartbroken it was taking all the energy I had to keep from sobbing. I was sure this guy was like all the rest: blandly handsome, a mid-level job in a forgettable corporation, golf on the weekends and a second girlfriend in the Keys. For Paige’s sake, I would smile and pretend to believe that he could really be the one. Inside, my heart would be breaking for her, as well as me.

  “I think Paige should go for an off-the-shoulder wedding gown, and daylilies will make excellent center pieces—oh look, there they are!”

  The bell rang, and my mother sprang up to answer it.

  In the silence that followed, my father topped up my mashed potatoes. I topped up his greens. We gave each other matching looks of resignation, prisoners with extreme cases of Stockholm Syndrome.

  Mom bustled back in, grinning fit to burst. She gestured behind her.

  “Darlings, let’s extend our warmest welcome to Paige’s new beau!”

  I looked up, expecting Bland McForgettable—

  And my heart turned to ice, and then smashed into a million pieces.

  My beaming sister had come in arm-in-arm with Hunter Knox.

  Chapter Twelve

  Paige and…Hunter Knox?

  My eyes had to be deceiving me. I wasn’t actually seeing my perfect big sister hanging on the arm of my client and sometimes make-out partner. I was seeing something much less upsetting, like a Mafia hit or an escaped saltwater crocodile on a bloodthirsty rampage.

  I blinked rapidly, but the scene refused to resolve into anything other than what it actually was: Hunter. On a date. With my sister.

  I will not cry in public, I repeated desperately to myself as I pressed my lips together and tried to laser burn through Hunter Knox with my eyes. I have no reason to cry in public, and therefore I will not cry in public, I will not, I will not, I will not!

  The onions in my spring salad were a little over-fresh, and that was the only reason my eyes were watering.

  I reached up to wipe them with my napkin, and Hunter, displaying the kind of fine timing that lost the Battle of Waterloo, chose that moment to meet my gaze.

  His eyes widened, and his mouth dropped open slightly. He looked as surprised to see me as I had been to see him. But surely he would have known to expect me at a family dinner with his new girlfriend; why was he bothering to put on a show? Did he think I could be fooled that easily?

  Did he think I wouldn’t realize that he had been dating my sister the whole time he had been making out with me? And then something else hit me.

  I can never tell Paige.

  Hunter strode over, never taking his eyes off me, practically pulling Paige in his wake like a tugboat. “Ally! I wasn’t expecting you.”

  “Yeah, I bet,” I almost growled.

  A response like that normally would have won me a full-on glower from my mother, complete with a hissed ‘Allison Brierly Beignet Bartlett, that is not the way a lady comports herself;’ fortunately for me, my mom was in full matchmaker mode, and wouldn’t have noticed if little green men fell out of the sky and demanded we worship them. So my sarcasm went sailing right over her head like it was filled with helium.

  “O
h, I can barely ever manage to drag Allison away from her dreadful work,” my mother said, sparing me barely a half-second of disappointment before turning the sun of her approval back to Paige, batteries on full. “Not like my Paige, what a good girl! Always RSVPs, so considerate, and what an eye for detail! Oh, any man would be lucky to have such a wife, someone who understands the importance of little things, like having dinner and a martini ready when a man comes home from a demanding day of work—”

  My mom chattered on in a state of rapturous low-level misogyny, while Paige and Hunter made matching pained-but-polite faces at her ability to mentally time travel back into the 1950s. I bet they’d be the kind of couple that matched everything. Matching towels. Matching golf bags. Matching Tshirts with cutesy sayings like—

  I think I’m going to be sick.

  “I’m going to the restroom,” I announced. “If the waiter gets back before I do, somebody order me a white zin. And have them leave the bottle.”

  “We’re having lamb, dear, with that a more appropriate order would be—”

  “Actually, Ally, I have to go over some numbers with you and make a phone call to my CFO,” Hunter interrupted apologetically, his puppy dog eyes lowered in deference to my mother. He didn’t need to have bothered—having a Y chromosome absolved you of pretty much anything in my mother’s book. “Mrs. Bartlett, Paige, if you’ll excuse us—”

  Great, now I didn’t even get a full private moment to compose myself.

  “Oh, but couldn’t it wait until after the dinner?” my mother pleaded, already folding like wet tissue paper in the face of an assertive man. “All this talk of business, so terrible for the digestion…”

  “Ah, actually…” he leaned over and whispered something in my mother’s ear. She beamed, and I caught just enough of his whisper to gather that he was pretending to want my input on a surprise present for Paige.

  I deeply pondered how much it would hurt my career if I walked up to him and kicked him in the balls right at that moment.

  I mean, I’d never get hired again, but it just might be worth it.

  “Oh, I suppose we can spare you for a few minutes then!” My mother beamed up at Hunter like he was the Second Coming of Christ, and then wagged a finger in my direction. “Don’t you go keeping him too long, Allison; remember, he’s your sister’s!”

  “How could I forget?” I said with a smile so brittle you could have put peanuts in it and sold it at a confectionary store. I didn’t add, You’ve all but written her name on him in Sharpie marker.

  “If you’ll follow me, Ally…” Hunter’s voice was smooth, but his eyes stayed wide, and something in them begged me to follow without any fuss.

  I stomped resentfully after him as he led the way to the restaurant entrance, my stomach churning with anger, betrayal, and something suspiciously like yearning—but I’d deny it in a court of law.

  Hunter stopped me once we were out of hearing range. His mouth worked for a moment as if he couldn’t find the words, and then he said hurriedly: “I met Paige out in the lobby for the first time—I swear I didn’t realize until then it was supposed to be a date. Your mom made it sound like she was just inviting me to meet some members of the historical society.”

  Relief washed through me sweet as spring wine, until I remembered that I had no right to feel it. “Oh.” I still felt dizzy, off-balance, like I’d been thrown from a horse. I wanted to grab onto him for support. Onto those strong, firm arms… “I see.”

  But could I really trust this answer? Had he just been lying to me this whole time, was this just another lie?

  “Good,” he said gruffly. “I’m glad that’s been cleared up.”

  “Crystal clear.”

  He leaned in a little closer. “Are you still…angry, with me?”

  I looked away, unable to meet his eyes. “Why would I be?”

  “No reason.”

  I tried to pretend I didn’t hear the disappointment in his tone. I probably didn’t hear it. I was probably deluding myself. And even if I wasn’t, it didn’t matter, because even if that disappointment was there, which it wasn’t, I couldn’t allow myself to hear it. Couldn’t allow myself to get sucked right back into an infatuation that could never lead anywhere.

  “So you’re not angry?” His voice was disbelieving.

  “Of course not,” I lied through my teeth.

  “Good,” he said, relieved. A slight hesitation, then: “Because…well, your sister is a remarkable young lady.”

  The ground receded from under my feet at a remarkable place. “Ah.”

  “And I would potentially, despite the false pretenses your mom got me here under, be interested in seeing her. Potentially.”

  “Ah.” My pulse pounded in my ears, but my face was frozen in a panicked smile as my brain cycled through a series of vivid memories of Hunter and me together, failing to reconcile the connection I knew we’d both felt with the sister-chasing, cold-hearted swine standing nonchalantly before me.

  “If that’s not a problem.”

  “A problem.” I could hear my words coming from far away. They were coming out remarkably calm and well-formed, as if they were leaving the lips of someone who wasn’t trapped at the center of a spinning world. “Why would that be a problem?”

  “It wouldn’t!” he said quickly. “After all, you made it clear that nothing was going to happen between us. That you’re not interested. That’s still the case?”

  I kept my face resolutely still. “Nothing’s changed, Hunter. Nothing at all.”

  “Alright. But you still seem…” He reached out towards my arm, then thought better of it, letting his hand hang above my bicep like an unresolved promise. Like a temptation, like the fruit of Tantalus, hanging over his head.

  God, I wanted him to touch my arm.

  “…kind of angry,” he finished. He shuffled his feet. “Is it Paige? That’s she’s your sister, is that too—” He waved his arms, unable to quite come up with an adjective that Paige might be too much of.

  Paige was always the exact right amount of everything, pretty and sweet and demure. No wonder everyone preferred her to her wilder young sister. To me.

  A lot of the time, I preferred her to me.

  “Would you rather I didn’t date your sister?”

  What would he do if I said yes? Would he just keep dating her, secure in the knowledge of just how much I wanted him? Or would he dump her, ruining her temporary happiness and bringing the sourness back into Mom’s voice, the disapproval back into her eyes, just so…what? We could pine for each other from afar?

  The truth was useless to me. To him. To both of us.

  So I lied.

  “Of course I don’t mind you dating Paige,” I said, with a smile faker than a Rolex sold on a street corner. “I was surprised, is all. You can date her if you want. Knock yourself out. I fully approve.”

  And with that I spun on my heel and strode back toward the dining room, head high, toward what would no doubt be a long, cozy dinner in my own personal hell.

  “I wouldn’t want to disparage the chef, but his braised lamb with asparagus simply isn’t a patch on what Paige can do with the same ingredients—”

  I decided to make an attempt to deboard the Paige Is Perfect in Every Way Train. “Oh hey, those dinner rolls look delicious, Mom, could you pass them?”

  “I’m closer,” Hunter said, “allow me.”

  Before I could protest that I could reach them myself, he swung the bread rolls around so quickly that I had to reach out and grab them or get smacked in the face. Or worse, appear rude in front of my mom. My fingers accidentally brushed against his and I felt a frisson of electricity dance across my skin, fierce and dangerous.

  I snatched my hand away before it could yank Hunter across the table for me to ravish him on top of the asparagus.

  I tried to casually look around to see if any of my family members had noticed me spazzing out. Paige’s face was just a little too carefully composed; shit, what if sh
e realized I had feelings for Hunter? I couldn’t ruin this for her.

  Thankfully, my mom lost all peripheral vision when she had a potential marriage in her sights, and went sailing gleefully on full steam ahead: “And Paige is most accomplished, have you seen her watercolors? Perhaps she might paint a tasteful landscape for your manor—”

  Paige rolled her eyes behind Mom’s head at an angle only I could see, her face suggesting that she would much rather be doing a cubist study of a slaughterhouse than anything like a tasteful landscape. I shot her a sympathetic smile, and she slung one back at me while Mom chattered on, oblivious to communiqués the two allied powers were sending each other.

  It was impossible to be mad at Paige. Someday, scientists might isolate the exact chemical formula of Paige’s you-can’t-be-mad-at-me-ium, but for now, I would have to settle for being absolutely furious at Hunter.

  Maybe it wasn’t fair to him, but hey, who said life was fair?

  “And the historical society would simply be lost without her organizational skills—”

  “Must be a family trait,” Hunter jumped in smoothly. “Ally has made the library a joy to behold with her re-filing of all those dry old documents; I’m seriously considering hiring her as a clerk.”

  “You couldn’t afford me,” I snapped before realizing that I was supposed to be acting like I wasn’t angry. Because I had no reason to be angry. I wasn’t angry! Or at least I was definitely going to not be angry sometime soon.

  I could see my mother’s eyes narrowing, her selective blindness slowly fading away as she sensed blood in the water of the Ally-behaving-inappropriately kind.

  Thankfully, I have a big sister to save me.

  “I have to visit the ladies’ room,” Paige announced. “Ally, will you come with me?”

  “Look at this fucking bathroom,” I said, slapping my purse down on the green marble counter. “Who the fuck does it think it’s fooling?”