Captain

by Lauren Rowe

  “And T-Rod’s stunningly beautiful,” Sarah adds. “Hey, love, do you have a photo of T-Rod on your phone?”

  “Why would I have a photo of T-Rod on my phone?”

  “I thought maybe from the wedding? Maybe she’s in one of the group shots?”

  “I don’t have any of those shots on my phone—just a few select favorites of you and me.”

  “It’s okay,” I interject. “I’m sure T-Rod’s stunning, but I’ve got another Argentinian I’m currently a bit obsessed with.”

  “Baby, stay focused,” Jonas says playfully. “The poor guy’s losing his mind.”

  “Sorry,” Sarah says, looking sheepish. “I didn’t mean to get us off track. I was just trying to prove my point about Argentinians being beautiful.”

  “No problem,” I say to Sarah, smiling at her. “I’m sure I’ll meet T-Rod at some point and instantly realize you were completely right.”

  Sarah giggles. “Okay, anyway, back to the Argentinian woman you actually care about: do you know if Samantha speaks Spanish?”

  Memories of Samantha’s whispered voice in my ear flood me, sending blood straight into my dick. “Yeah, she speaks Spanish,” I reply, trying to keep my voice sounding neutral.

  “That might be helpful to Henn,” Sarah says. “You never know. Maybe there’s some sort of annotation about bilingual employees in Delta’s employee files.”

  My heart lurches into my throat. “Delta’s employee files?”

  Jonas and Sarah look at each other like I’ve just screamed, “Someone, please, cut off my dick!”

  “Where’d you think Henn would look?” Jonas asks slowly.

  I run my hand through my hair, my stomach suddenly doing somersaults. “Facebook? Some census bureau database? I guess I didn’t think it through. I’ve never worked with a hacker before.”

  “So... you’re comfortable with the idea of Henn hacking into the Census Bureau but not an airline’s employee files?” Jonas asks.

  “I guess it just seems particularly illegal to hack into a company’s private employee files. I mean, I can’t even pretend that shit is legal.”

  Jonas shrugs like that’s an obvious statement. “What Henn does is definitely illegal. But no harm will come of it, I can personally assure you. Henn will go into the database, look around, get the information, and leave without a trace. That’s what he does.”

  “But...” I begin. I run my fingers through my hair, collecting myself. “You don’t think it’s crazy for a dude to hack into an airline to find a girl with whom he chatted in a bar? I feel like if I do this, I’m crossing some line I’ll never be able to un-cross.”

  “And what line would that be?” Jonas asks calmly.

  “The line between sanity and insanity?”

  Jonas laughs. “Sanity is highly overrated, my friend.” He looks at Sarah. “In fact, it’s my experience a little infusion of madness is a very good thing.”

  Sarah smiles.

  Jonas addresses me. “But, hey, given I’m a dude who hacked into the University of Washington to find a woman I’d never laid eyes on, take my opinion with a grain of salt. But either way, we gotta call Henn and let him know what you wanna do because he’s a busy guy.” He pauses. “So what’s it gonna be, Ryan? Are you gonna listen to your brain or your soul?”

  I twist my mouth, considering the situation, and quickly realize I’ve got no choice. “I’m gonna listen to my soul,” I say.

  “Atta boy,” Jonas says, a huge smile spreading across his face. “No regrets that way.”

  I nod definitively. “If I don’t do this, I’m gonna go to my grave wondering ‘what if.’”

  “Worst two words in the English language, as far as I’m concerned,” Jonas says. He begins scrolling through his contacts on his phone, presumably looking for Henn’s number. “My two cents? If your soul is shouting at you about Samantha half as loudly as mine did at me about Sarah, then, in my opinion, you have no choice but to listen the fuck up.”

  Chapter 13

  Tessa

  “…and that’s why the Climb & Conquer brand embodies adventure, fitness, and, most of all, the pursuit of excellence,” Josh’s brother, Jonas, says into his microphone, and everyone packed into the massive gym applauds enthusiastically.

  I’m at the grand opening for Josh and Jonas’ chain of new rock-climbing gyms, observing the festivities from a spot at the far back of their flagship Seattle location. At the moment, the Faraday twins are standing on a stage in front of an idle band, the two of them kicking off the party by telling everyone about their shared passion for climbing and their company’s inspiring mission to make the world a better place—and, honestly, after what happened last week at The Pine Box, being here among these excited, happy people on this joyous occasion feels like a balm for my downtrodden soul.

  As busy as I’ve been this past week pulling this event together, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Ryan from The Pine Box—about how charismatic and honest and emotionally intelligent he seemed to be—about how truly certain I was I’d finally met the man of my dreams—and about how totally wrong, wrong, wrong I turned out to be about him (surprise!). Talk about a girl with a defective picker! Every freaking word Ryan said, every smile he flashed me, every touch of his fingertips—and, in those last few, delicious moments, every soft kiss of his delectable lips on my cheek and ear and neck—every swirl of his tongue on the sensitive flesh under my ear—and, oh God, that bite on my neck—made me absolutely dizzy with desire for him. No matter what I babbled to Ryan about wanting to “take things slow,” I’m certain if we’d wound up going out on our dinner-date as planned, I would have wound up naked and spread-eagle in that man’s bed for dessert, the city-tour he’d promised me be damned.

  “…a part of each person’s individual but universal quest to find the ideal version of himself...” Jonas says to the rapt crowd, eliciting enthusiastic applause.

  I rub my forehead. Crap. I’ve got to stop thinking about Ryan. What’s the freaking point? As I so jarringly found out last week at The Pine Box, he has a girlfriend—a very blonde and “Extroverted Barbie” girlfriend (!) who’s my physical opposite in every way. Plus, as his charming girlfriend so eloquently informed me when she stormed into the bar, it seems Prince Charming hit on a blonde during a dinner date with her earlier that same night, the very second his raving bitch of a girlfriend got up to use the bathroom. Oh, but that con-artist-player didn’t stop there. Oh, no. He then proceeded to head out to a meat-market-bar later that same night all by himself (yeah, sure, he was waiting for a friend who never showed up!) to hunt for yet another blonde to fuck behind his girlfriend’s back (and then, when no blonde presented herself, apparently decided instead to settle for hitting on the dark-haired idiot in a flight-attendant uniform).

  Good God, why do men like Ryan (and my ex-boyfriend, Stu) even bother having girlfriends if they’re simply going to compulsively cheat on them? I don’t get it. Do they have raging Madonna-whore complexes—they love having a good girl at home on standby while they fuck their hidden fantasies on the down-low every chance they get? (Although, I must admit, Ryan’s girlfriend didn’t strike me as anything close to the Madonna by any stretch of the imagination, so maybe scratch that particular psychoanalysis.)

  Well, whatever the motivation for Ryan and men of his ilk, the bottom line is they’re all scumbags. It makes me physically ill remembering how Ryan so expertly wooed me that night at the bar, the same way he surely wooed the blonde in the restaurant earlier that same night. I could scream when I think about Ryan flashing that panty-melting smile at me and coaxing me to reveal more and more of myself to him (in the name of fostering “true intimacy,” of course!), not to mention the way Ryan snowed me with complete bullshit-lines like, “I’m looking for something real” and “Put you in a room with a million Extroverted Barbies and I’d go straight for you like blanco on arroz every time.” Asshole.

  “And that’s why Climb & Conquer is all about reachi
ng higher than you ever thought you could reach, literally and metaphorically,” Jonas says from the stage, his face aglow. “It’s about becoming better than you ever thought you could be.”

  The crowd erupts into enthusiastic applause and I join them, partly because I’m hoping the physical act of clapping my palms together will somehow miraculously trigger my brain to stop thinking about Ryan from The Pine Box; and, also, even more so, because I’m genuinely inspired by Jonas’ obvious passion for what he’s saying.

  After watching Jonas for a moment longer, my gaze drifts from him to his gloriously handsome brother and then grazes across the backs of all the heads in the large crowd. Oh, hey, I think the back of that one guy’s head in the middle of the pack belongs to Josh’s longtime hacker-friend, Henn.

  Hey.

  An idea pings my brain.

  Maybe I should ask Josh if it’s okay to ask Henn to help me track down Ryan? I know it’s stupid for me to want to contact Ryan, seeing as how, one, he’s a lying cheater-player-douche, and, two, I’m the one who fled the bar without a backward glance when his girlfriend showed up and started reading him the riot act (and calling me a ‘cunt’); but, for some reason, I haven’t been able to stop fantasizing about contacting Ryan and, at least, getting the chance to give him a piece of my mind... and also, maybe, hearing him out?

  The truth is, now that I’ve had a week to process everything (I always do my best thinking after having a bit of time to process), I deeply regret not sticking around for at least a couple minutes outside the bar that night, just in case Ryan maybe came outside and wanted to talk to me. I mean, obviously, there’s nothing Ryan could have said in that moment to Febreze-away the stench of his two-timing-assholery, but, still, I can’t help wondering what he might have said if I’d stuck around long enough to hear it. I mean, crap, at the very least, I should have given myself the opportunity to tell the guy he’s a complete asshole, right? Maybe then I wouldn’t feel this almost desperate need to talk to Ryan again.

  So, okay, that’s what I’ll do, then: I’ll ask Josh if it’s okay for me to pull Henn aside during this party and... Wait. No. Am I stupid? I can’t ask Josh for Henn’s help to find Ryan! How the heck would that conversation go? Well, Josh and Henn, there’s this guy named Ryan I met last week at The Pine Box and I’m desperate to find him and ask him if every single word out of his mouth was a lie, or only some of them. Why do I need your help to find Ryan, you ask? Oh, because Ryan never told me his phone number or last name because his girlfriend burst into the bar and started calling him a “fucking cheater” and me a “cunt” before we’d exchanged our contact info. Isn’t that awesome? Believe me, it was super-duper awesome!

  Yeah, obviously, I can’t breathe a word about my encounter with Ryan to Josh and Henn.

  Ah, who am I kidding? Even if I could enlist Henn’s assistance, he wouldn’t be able to find Ryan, anyway, not based on what little I know of him. What hacker, no matter how talented, could possibly find a guy named “Ryan” knowing only that he’s twenty-eight, a Taurus, has three brothers and a sister; was born and raised in Seattle, makes amazing guacamole, and can fold a fitted sheet?

  “And as part of our genuine commitment to extraordinary aspiration,” Jonas continues from the stage at the front of the gym, “Climb & Conquer has identified certain designated charities we’ll be supporting with a portion of our proceeds.”

  My eyes continue skimming the backs of heads in the packed crowd. The place seems to be filled with lots of twenty-something-year-old fitness types (as I would have expected), but there also seems to be a surprisingly large number of families and older—

  Oh my fucking God. My brain freezes mid-thought. My heart stops mid-beat.

  I put my palm over my mouth.

  The back of that guy’s head way over there in the middle-front of the packed audience looks like it belongs to Ryan from The Pine Box!

  I clutch my chest.

  Could it be?

  I crane my neck, trying to get a better look—but, damn it, the crowd is too packed for me to make out the guy’s build or see if his arms are covered in tattoos.

  Oh my freaking God.

  It’s not a crazy thought, is it? I’m not hurtling into some sort of psychosis? I mean, it’s perfectly reasonable to think the one man on earth I’m thinking about at this very moment, the man I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this entire week, might be one of the four hundred or so people (in a city of three-and-a-half million) who happens to be standing in this room right now?

  I close my eyes and take a deep breath.

  Motherfucker.

  I’m doing it again.

  I’m glimpsing yet another “Ryan” in yet another crowd, the same way I’ve done at least ten times this past week. On Monday morning alone, I spotted Ryan three different times—once at the gym, another time at Starbucks, and a third time sitting in the adjacent lane in traffic; and, of course, none of those “Ryans” turned out to be Ryan from The Pine Box. At Starbucks, for instance, “Ryan” turned out to be an attractive man of about forty, holding a toddler. And on Tuesday, when my pathetic brain spotted “Ryan” walking into a bank, that guy turned out to be a black man. (A highly attractive one, I might add, but most definitely not the man I’m currently obsessed with.) And so it went all week long—Ryans, Ryans, everywhere, and not a drop to drink (or kiss or suck or lick). And, on top of all that, don’t get me started on how many times I suddenly heard “Sex on Fire” playing in banks and grocery stores. Gah!

  “Miss Rodriguez?” a female voice says, drawing me out of my rambling thoughts. “Clarissa Taylor, Channel Seven News.”

  “Yes, of course,” I say, shaking the woman’s hand. “I’m so glad you could make it.”

  “My pleasure. The mission statement of Climb & Conquer is inspiring.” The reporter smirks. “Plus, the Faraday brothers are what we in the industry like to call ‘easy on the eyes.’” She glances appreciatively at Josh and Jonas onstage. “They’re definitely gonna make for good TV.”

  I follow the reporter’s gaze to the guys onstage. “They look like superheroes up there, don’t they?” I say. “Superman and Thor.”

  The reporter chuckles. “I like that. I think I’ll make that the theme of my piece: ‘Seattle’s own Superman and Thor, climbing indoor mountains in a leap and a bound.’”

  “Oh, that’s great. The guys will love it. Do you have everything you need for your story?”

  “Almost. We’ve got footage of the gym and the crowd and the guys’ speeches, but I’d love to get an up-close-and-personal interview with both brothers—something where we can clearly see their pearly whites and baby blues.”

  “Sounds good. Let’s wrangle them as they come offstage. Follow me.”

  I lead the reporter and her cameraman toward the stage at the front of the gym, working my way along the left periphery of the crowd, weaving in and out of protruding rock-climbing walls and packed people, until we arrive at the side of the stage.

  Finally, after Jonas and Josh have given their concluding remarks, posed for a flurry of photographs, and stolen a few private moments with their beloved women (all while the band plays a rousing rendition of “Shout!”), I usher the guys toward the reporter. Phew. I think my work here is done. Time to hunt down the latest “Ryan” (only to discover he’s actually an eighty-year-old man with a walker, I’m sure), and then head home to crash with a bottle of wine, a smutty book, and my battery-operated-boyfriend (the only boyfriend in the past three years who hasn’t been a real dick to me).

  But, what the fuck, no! My ever-unpredictable boss isn’t following me toward the waiting reporter. To the contrary, with a cocky smile and wave to Jonas and a mischievous wink at me, Josh takes a hard left and strides with great purpose into the crowd.

  Okay, now I’m pissed. I’ve worked tirelessly to get top-notch media to cover this event for Josh (and Jonas), and now, when the most popular TV reporter in Seattle wants to conduct a double interview for her Tho
r-and-Superman-themed story, Josh can’t be bothered? “Josh!” I yell, trying to get my rogue boss’s attention. But it’s no use. He’s gone.

  Motherfucker.

  For several minutes, I hang around watching Jonas gracefully answer the reporter’s questions, and when it’s obvious the reporter is putty in Jonas’ hand, I turn to leave, eager to do a quick lap of the gym in search of Ryan Number Eleven and then head out for the day.

  But I’ve no sooner taken two steps away from Jonas than he politely calls my name. I turn to look at him, eyebrows raised.

  “Could you please find my brother and ask him to join the interview?” Jonas asks. His tone is calm and in control, but his eyes are burning with intensity. “Make sure you tell him I said please?”

  “Sure thing, Jonas,” I reply, my stomach knotting up. Poor Jonas. I don’t know him nearly as well as I know Josh, but it’s no secret to me the guy would rather gouge his eyes out than give any kind of speech or interview. “I’m on it.”

  I spot Josh in an alcove behind one of the more challenging rock-walls, talking to a fifty-something blonde I instantly recognize as Kat’s beautiful mother. I met Mrs. Morgan at Jonas and Sarah’s wedding last month and fell in love with her after we’d struck up a conversation while waiting in line for the bathroom (and then continued chatting for another twenty minutes after using the facilities). I don’t remember everything about my conversation with Mrs. Morgan that night (as I recall, we were both pretty buzzed on champagne and the band was cranking), but I most certainly remember two things about our encounter: one, I couldn’t stop giggling with Mrs. Morgan as she told me the secrets to her own happy marriage (“laughter, forgiveness, and lots of hanky-panky”); and, two, I walked away from Mrs. Morgan thinking, “That woman is the human equivalent of chicken noodle soup.”

  I stride toward Josh and Mrs. Morgan, determined to physically drag my wayward boss to his camera-shy brother if need be, but I stop short when I realize the pair seems to be enjoying an intimate moment. Specifically, it appears Josh is peeking into a ring box while Mrs. Morgan looks on excitedly.