Mr Right Now: A Romantic Comedy Standalone

by Lila Monroe

  I tried to rally. “Well, I could work on the Jefferson accounts, or pitch for the Insignia deal, I’ve done a lot of research on—”

  “Stick to what you know,” he sneered. “You’re lucky you did moderately well with the hygiene products last year, or you’d be out on your ass right now. There’s a new tampon line to work on, and with Marianne out with the flu you can come in and look it over, see if you can manage something simple.”

  And then he hung up on me.

  He’d never done that before. He’d been dismissive, sure, but he’d coated it in polite phrases and sweet-sounding sentiments. This…contempt…that was new.

  It probably meant he was getting ready to fire me.

  I tried to make myself feel something about this as I slowly stood, trying to remember where I’d last seen my purse and keys and everything else I’d need to make it into work. All my hopes and dreams were about to go up in smoke. I should have felt crushed.

  But I already felt crushed.

  This…this was just a grain of sand on top of the mountain that was already crushing me.

  I thought about Hunter. I couldn’t help it; it just came to me in one painful flash: his smiling face, his strong arms, the partial glimpses of his past and the silence that hadn’t shut me out but had invited me in, invited me to really open up and let someone else in for the first time.

  But now it was all over.

  My career was on its way to being all over too.

  And I had absolutely no idea how to turn any of it around.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I was having trouble following the plot of this reality TV show—there was something about someone cheating on somebody who had maybe cheated on them before, and also something about a car that somebody was supposed to have bought for someone else, and also some sort of competition based on putting together a ridiculously expensive birthday—but it was okay that the plots were labyrinthine and endlessly embroiled, because the more energy I expended trying to trace complicated plotlines and digest my rubbery General Tso’s chicken, the less time I was spending wallowing in the spectacular blow up of my relationship with Hunter, and the subsequent slow, painful disintegration of my career.

  Well, in theory, anyway.

  My phone shrilled on the coffee table, and I jumped up, simultaneously muting the TV as I check the caller ID, cruel hope twisting my heart into pieces.

  It wasn’t Hunter.

  But it wasn’t my boss, either, which I tried to feel grateful for.

  It was Paige.

  I wasn’t exactly up for a feelings share with my big sister—my feelings felt too big and spiky and painfully sharp for sharing, or for anything that wasn’t locking them up tight inside me where I could be the only one who was hurt by them. I still answered the phone, though, because the last time I didn’t answer she showed up on my doorstep with a dozen cupcakes and a first aid kit.

  “Hey, Paigey, how’s it hanging?”

  I sounded horribly fake even to me. There was no way I would ever have phrased things like that if I were doing half as well as I wanted to be. And there was no way that Paige would be fooled, either.

  And she wasn’t; I could tell by the cheerfully brittle tone of her voice. It made her sound frighteningly like our mother. “Oh, nothing. Just missed you, thought we could chat.”

  I sighed. “I’m fine, Paige.”

  A pause. “Are you, though?”

  I blinked back my tears. Damn that woman for knowing me so well. Damn her for loving me. Damn her for not letting things lie, for not letting me lie to myself.

  “People get broken up with every day. It sucks and it sucks and it sucks and then it starts to suck a little less and eventually it doesn’t suck at all anymore. I can’t skip the initial suckage, though.”

  Paige gave a half-hearted little laugh. “I wish I could help you skip it, though.”

  “Dream on, dreamer.” There was a lump in my throat; I tried to talk past it like it wasn’t there. “And don’t worry so much about me.”

  “I’m your big sister. It’s in the contract.”

  “Well, thanks.”

  “Of course. And if you ever do want to talk about anything, absolutely anything, you know I’m right here…”

  Oh, I wanted to talk to her so badly it hurt. I wanted to open up my mouth and spill out every toxic, horrible thing I was feeling until they were all gone and I felt scraped clean of my betrayal of Hunter—and it had been a betrayal, even if it hadn’t been on purpose, even if I had felt terrible afterward.

  Even if I still felt terrible.

  But I couldn’t do that to my big sister. I’d already vented so much to her; I couldn’t pile more things up on her shoulders. Not when she was already working so hard getting out from under the weight of my mother’s neuroticism.

  I couldn’t let Paige take on even part of my burden.

  Instead I asked, “Have you seen him?”

  It was the exact wrong thing to say to keep Paige from worrying about me, and still it slipped out of my mouth.

  Paige was reluctant. “Ally, I don’t know if this is the best—”

  I couldn’t let it go now. “Come on, Paige, I’m not stalking him or anything. I’m not going to show up naked declaring my undying love. I just…I just want to know how he’s doing.”

  I must have sounded really pathetic, because Paige admitted, “Well, I did run into him at a charity auction. It was the one for the victims of hurricanes, to raise money for housing.”

  “He looked—” My voice nearly cracked. “He looked okay?”

  “He looked fine,” Paige said quickly. Too quickly.

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “Nothing!” Too quickly again. Then, “Almost nothing. It’s not important, honestly it’s not. Can you just trust me on that, Ally?”

  Visions of Hunter looking lost, his clothes worn, his frame wasted, dashed through my head. What if he was drinking? What if he wasn’t eating? What if he was—

  “Paige,” I warned.

  “It’s nothing.” She sighed. “It’s just—he had a date with him.”

  Had I felt crushed before? I felt now like all the air had been forced out of my lungs in a single punch. I felt smashed as flat as a sheet of paper.

  I was going through hell, but apparently losing me wasn’t even a blip on Hunter’s radar, not if he was carousing around town with a beauty on his arm. “Oh.”

  I’d meant it to come out noncommittal or even disinterested, but apparently my cracked and bleeding heart showed right through, because Paige backpedaled quicker than a cyclist coming across an alligator dozing on a bike trail.

  “Maybe it was a work friend,” she offered quickly, in a voice so bright and chipper she might have stolen it from a Stepford wife. “Or he might have been putting on a brave face. You know how guys are. They can’t admit when they’re hurt. Especially when they’re business hotshots, they think the tiniest scratch will have the sharks circling.”

  “Yeah, sure.” It sounded reasonable. But I knew it wasn’t the truth. “Thanks anyway.”

  Then we shared an awkward silence just long enough for me to look around my apartment and reflect on how quickly and effortlessly my entire life had gone to shit.

  “Mom finally broke the news to Dad that both daughters ruined their chance with the most eligible bachelor below the Mason-Dixon Line,” Paige said finally. I could tell by her voice she was trying to lighten the mood. “I think he was mostly disappointed that he wasn’t going to be getting a discount on bourbon anytime soon.”

  Great. Now I was disappointing even more people. Just perfect.

  I changed the subject. “So, how’s Sergei? Is he still in the picture?”

  Paige hesitated just long enough for me to intuit that she was debating letting me switch the focus of our conversation, but eventually the bait of being able to talk about her own life pulled her in.

  “No, not really. We’ve been chatting, meeting up for co
ffee, that kind of thing. And we kissed a few times. But, well—” I heard the rustle of her long blonde locks as she shook her head, and I could just see that pensive sad expression I knew she’d be wearing. “I’ve realized that Sergei is what I really wanted when I was twenty-four, but now that I’m older I feel like…like I just can’t be looking back at the past like that. I want something real. Something that’s going to last.”

  That was Paige, smart and sensible even in her rebellion.

  “So, what’s the future hold?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure,” she admitted, “but I’ve been getting awfully restless lately. New York, maybe. The art scene there has always been amazing. And if my party planning ever gets off the ground, who knows? I might have to city-hop for a while, go where the work is.”

  “Well, if you need a stepping stone, there’s always room on my couch.”

  Paige made grateful noises, but I knew she wouldn’t be taking me up on my offer.

  Paige had seen my couch, and she knew that there was only room on it for me and my self-pity.

  The reality show had ended hours ago and there was never anything remotely interesting on at this time of night, but I knew that turning the TV off would only fill the apartment with a terrible silence that I couldn’t face. So I was flipping through channels, trying to find something that wasn’t a congressional hearing or an infomercial for a food processor that sliced, diced, and also organized your socks or some shit.

  And then the Douchebros’ ad came on.

  “Oh, baby, oh—” Creaking springs and lustful moans gave way to the sight of a barely clad, barely legal blonde sucking eagerly at the neck of a Knox bourbon bottle, held directly at the crotch line of a smirking male model.

  I wasn’t sure what I was more disgusted with: the objectification, or how insultingly unsubtle it was.

  “Yeah, swallow it,” the man urged. “You know you like the taste.”

  She murmured happy agreement, but then there came a whimper of pure need from the floor beside the bed, where multiple near-nude supermodels lay entwined. “When’s my turn?”

  The man looked straight into the camera and winked.

  KNOX BOURBON, said the letters slapped up over his face as the audio cut to a poorly sampled hip hop track. EVEN GOOD GIRLS SWALLOW IT.

  I let the remote fall out of my hands, horrified. Distantly, I heard the sound as it hit the floor.

  This was how Chuck wanted the company represented to the world?

  Hunter had to be tearing out his hair right now.

  Hunter—

  I grabbed for my cell phone and punched in his number. I had to hear his voice, had to know he was okay, had to let him know that this wasn’t me, I had never wanted this—

  “This is Hunter Knox.”

  “Hunter, I—” I began.

  “Leave a message after the beep, and don’t forget your number if it’s blocked.”

  Frustrated tears filled my eyes. Damn. Voicemail again, and I’d let it fool me. I’d heard it over and over these past few weeks until I had every cadence of every syllable memorized, and I still let it fool me because I was so desperate for his forgiveness.

  “I—Hunter, I, I just saw the ad, and—” When I’d picked up the phone, I’d been so certain I’d know what to say, that the words would just come. But now that the moment was there, they were all so out of reach. Just like Hunter. “I’m so sorry.”

  That was all I had left. That was all I could say.

  “God, Hunter, I am so, so sorry.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  I looked away from my computer screen and rubbed my bloodshot eyes, massaged my forehead and tense, aching jaw. I sighed.

  Damn, damn, and double damn.

  Hunter still hadn’t called me back, but the burst of energy I’d gotten from my revulsion at the ad had still managed to propel me across my apartment to do some research. And that research was not encouraging.

  The new campaign was bombing harder than a fighter plane over enemy territory. Sales of Knox bourbon were way down, share prices were plummeting even faster, and Twitter feeds were blowing up with hashtags denouncing every person involved in its production as sexist scum. I stalked the social media profiles of the Douchebros and pretty soon had to look away; they were still virulently defending the product, not even realizing that they were fanning the flames of the online outrage with their outdated misogynistic rhetoric. It had a desperate note to it, though; even they realized that something was wrong. Somewhere way back in those reptilian brains, they had to know that they had fucked up, and fucked up bad.

  There was even talk of a boycott.

  I clicked on one of the links in the tweets, which took me to an online Forbes article. The outlook was grim, according to that reporter: she claimed that with the share price tumbling, it might be the end of the line for the heritage company. Bigger drinks companies were circling like vultures over a dying rhinoceros, and no executives could be reached for comment.

  I thought about the pride in Hunter’s face as he talked about family heritage, about the meaning in the careful, artistic production of each bottle of bourbon, about carrying on tradition.

  What the hell was I doing here in this depressing apartment, this ode to inertia and giving up?

  I had to snap out of it.

  There was no way I was letting Knox Liquors go down like this. Hunter was probably going crazy right this minute trying to hold off a takeover, and he couldn’t accomplish it alone. He needed my help.

  And I needed to make things right.

  I shot off a quick e-mail to work cashing in every single vacation day I had, and grabbed my keys. I was going to save Hunter.

  Whether he wanted me to or not.

  My car screeched into the driveway of the manor house, and I got out. I shut the door softly, my heart hammering its way up to my throat. I was half-expecting Hunter to come storming out of the manor and demand that I explain my presence, and if that happened I had no idea what I would say. My self-confidence in the righteousness of my mission had started to erode after fifteen minutes of driving, though not enough to turn back around.

  Not enough to abandon Hunter.

  It could never have been enough to abandon Hunter.

  The grounds were strangely quiet, the still air of the evening broken only by the occasional call of a bird from the woods. The far-away burble of the stream, a breeze rustling the grass. I’d expected to find Hunter in full war mode against the Douchebros, barking orders into a cell phone, dictating lists to Martha, striding back and forth across the grounds as the workers still loyal to him scurried to do his bidding.

  But it was all so quiet it could have been abandoned centuries ago.

  I rang the doorbell to the manor house three times, trepidation growing in my stomach. When no one answered, I put my hand on the doorknob, expecting to find it locked.

  It turned under my touch.

  “Hunter?” I called as I entered. “Martha? Anybody?”

  My voice echoed back to me, the only thing in the house besides the spiders skittering across the cobwebs above.

  “Okay, this is about three times more creepy than I expected,” I muttered, closing the door behind me.

  It creaked like a ghost’s moan, because of course it did.

  I wandered through the house, occasionally calling out but finding that my voice grew softer and softer as I did so, as if I were afraid of someone actually answering back. I knew I was being silly, but I couldn’t help myself: the Gothic architecture looked so much more imposing in the half-light—even flipping on the switches didn’t help, since at least half the bulbs seemed to have been burnt out and never replaced. There was a fine film of dust over everything. What had happened to all the servants? Had Hunter reassigned them all to help save the company?

  Had Hunter packed them all up and left?

  No. No, Hunter would never do that. Hunter would never give up.

  I was just letting my imagination run
away with me, letting myself get overly influenced by all the darkness and all the eerie creaking sounds of a wooden house naturally settling into its foundations on a cool summer night.

  I hoped.

  Eventually, the maze of hallways led me to the back of the house, where I saw Martha sprawled out on a lawn chair beside the pool, sunning herself—for a certain value of sun; it had nearly set—in a skimpy red bikini, her damp curls fanning out across the plastic of the chair, a martini on the table next to her.

  It was so normal and reassuring I thought I might cry.

  Martha spotted me as I slid open the glass door. “Ally!” she cried, leaping to her feet with a happy smile and enfolding me in a warm hug. “Oh, it’s so good to see you!”

  I felt the tension seep out of my shoulders as I hugged her back with relief flooding my heart. I hadn’t realized until just this moment how worried I’d been that for all her conciliatory phone calls, Martha would side with Hunter and not want to forgive me. I’d lost my almost-boyfriend, I didn’t want to lose a friend too. “It’s good to see you too, Martha. But what’s going on? Where is everybody? The house is deserted.”

  Martha rolled her eyes. “Paid vacation. Most of them have jetted off to Cancun, but someone has to stay behind and make sure the property doesn’t get overrun with mutant alligators or drunk teens or whatever, so I volunteered. I mean hey, I get the pool all to myself and Amazon delivers right to the door, so it’s practically a vacation. Only downside is my boytoys hate driving out this way, so I have to work extra hard to make it worth it.” She grinned. “But oh, do I make it worth it.”

  I was confused. “Hunter’s in Cancun?”

  “Oh, no, no,” Martha said, shaking her head. “Hunter’s gone fishing.”

  She said it with a load of significance that I didn’t understand. “Is that…a metaphor?”

  “Nope,” she said with a sigh. “I wish. Nah, he’s holed up at his lodge by the lake, brooding like a goddamn sparkly vampire. Has been for weeks now. It’s what he always does when he feels cornered. He pouts.”

  I felt simultaneously concerned that Hunter was feeling cornered, glad that he had some kind of defense mechanism in place, and worried that said mechanism might not be the healthiest one. Well, I couldn’t find out if I didn’t go talk to him, could I?