by Kira Graham
And that my brothers will stop laughing about it.
“You guys know I don’t find that funny. It’s not a joke. That chick was fucking nuts.”
“She was,” Zeus says solemnly, before his lips twitch. “For wanting your sperm. What she didn’t know was that you don’t have to wear a condom—that shit swims backwards at even the hint of conception.”
“Ha ha! Shut up, losers. Don’t you idiots have work to do?”
“Meh. Our boss does most of it for us,” Paris drawls, getting a curse for his efforts.
So I’m a little anal about how things go. Sue me. I like to know that the company is moving forward the way it should be, and that these guys are making deals that will benefit Hart Inc. Sometimes, in order to make that happen, I have to run a few plays around them, but it’s all for their own good. I’m just being a good, hardworking man and helping them out.
“About this date…” Achilles laughs, his eyes sparkling. “Put in a bad word for me, huh? Rosie keeps sending me gifts, and not to sound like an ass, but it’s getting awkward as hell, and hard to decline them when she seems to know me so well. She got me a surfboard.” He preens, seeming to like the attention.
Because he’s a diva who enjoys being worshipped. Stupid pussy.
“You don’t surf.”
“But I could! I could be awesome at surfing. I also love cookies, which she sends me all the time, and those caramels?” he asks, piquing my interest.
God, those caramels. I love those caramels and the little chocolates filled with that raspberry jelly stuff. And the peanut marshmallow chocolates.
“She makes those?” I ask, ready and willing to marry that woman right now. Even if she’s a crazy stalker.
Those things are epic. Way too good for Achilles, who doesn’t know how to appreciate something that epically good. I stole a box of those candies out of his office, like a freaking loser looking for his next fix, and he didn’t even know they were gone—while I almost cried when I realized I’d eaten them all. The extra hours in the gym were worth it. What isn’t worth it is waking up in the middle of the night, tweaking for candy.
“Dunno. All I know is that those cookies are phenomenal, and I need more. She won’t tell me where they come from.”
“Wait. You talk to your stalker?” Paris asks, his shock radiating out and turning to disbelief when Achilles shrugs.
“No. I’m not insane, idiot. I text her sometimes when she’s feeling down,” he mutters, his cheeks flushing a dull red when I sputter and attempt not to laugh.
Listen to this freak. He texts a woman who stalks him. When she’s down. Christ. Leave it to Achilles to want to cheer up a woman who could be insane. Not that I give a shit, since I need more of those damned candies!
“You realize that that’s insane?”
“Shut up, Zeus! I’m sure Rose is a wonderful person, and harmless to boot. About those chocolates…”
“Jesus, man, are you pimping out your own brother to a would-be killer, or at least a nutcase, for candy?” Ares asks, his expression disgusted until I mention the candy I’m referring to.
“The dark chocolate with the gooey filling inside? For God’s sake, why haven’t you asked her out, you fool?” Paris bellows, immediately changing his tune when he realizes just what I’m talking about.
I gave him one of the chocolates I stole, and I’m thinking that it was one too many, since I haven’t had one in nearly three weeks. Daddy needs a fix!
Achilles just scowls and shakes his head, giving us pitying looks. As if I care about his judgment. I’m not usually a candy kinda guy. I like man food, as Ma puts it. Throw meat, potatoes, and some kind of beer at me, and I’ll call it a perfect meal. As a treat, I like the odd calamari dish, and if I’m being particularly adventurous, I’ll eat ice cream. But those chocolates and those peanut candies? I’d give away my roadster to know the angel who makes those things.
“We weren’t talking about me, you fucking pigs. We were talking about Addy here, who is going on a date tonight. With Cleo Sweet. A woman Ma set him up with,” he points out, shifting the sharks back in my direction.
Dammit. This is why I put their offices on the floor below mine. They like to gossip, and when that’s not enough, they like to sink their teeth into something bloody. Like me and my life, and the fact that I haven’t dated since high school. It’s no big deal. I just don’t date. I have sex with random women, and I like it that way. That’s all there is to it.
“Don’t start. This is going to be just another blind date that goes badly, nothing more and nothing less. When Ma asks, I’ll tell her the chick skipped out on me again, and we’ll have an hour-long conversation about just what could be wrong with me that all these perfectly good women bail on me. Then I’ll go home, drink, put on some football or soccer, and voilà! Things will go back to normal.”
“What if she likes you?” Ares breathes, mock-horror glinting in his eyes.
“What if you like her?” Paris mimics him, laughing like a lunatic when I scowl and cross myself in defense.
“I will not. When have I ever liked the type that Ma seems to think I should be into? Remember Rebecca Waterson? The redhead with the smoking body and huge…attributes?” I ask, my regret extending only to what I lost out on with that smoking hot bod.
“Oh, yeah! She was the vegan, right? Remember Ma’s face when she wouldn’t eat the lamb and started spouting off about cruelty to animals?” Zeus crows, laughing so hard that he snort-farts, his cheeks flushing when we all laugh harder.
I remember. Ma was so convinced we’d be a good fit that she invited this one over to the house for dinner and ambushed me when I got there. That woman was gorgeous, and when I say gorgeous, I mean the kind of beautiful that makes you stupid when you look at her. That could be because all the blood in my head rushed right to my dick, of course, but it’s a moot point in the end. Ma brought out a truly wonderful garlic lamb that made us all groan so loudly, it was silly.
Until Rebecca shrieked, refused Ma’s food—a huge no-no at the best of times—and then launched into a judgmental rant about murdering cuddly little lambs to feed our savage needs.
All attempts to matchmake that night went out the window when Ma screamed bloody murder and dragged Rebecca out of the house by her hair. In true Greek style, she then yelled every word that came out of her mouth afterward, while her boys ate her lamb—and appreciated the hell out of it to boot. I got two great things that night. Lamb and a whole month free of matchmaking.
Which was great until I got set up with Claire, the fashion designer-environmentalist. This may sound awful, and I get it if you take offense, but screw that hippie shit about natural fibers. Silk is a natural fiber, and I like that fiber in my suits, not some hemp crap that scratches so much that my balls chafe all over.
“Remember how twitchy Ma was after that one? She got so nervous about finding the wrong woman for you that she laid off the rest of us for weeks. Maybe this one will be the same. Just tell Ma she’s vegan—or worse, one of those millennial moms who believe in kids having free will. She’ll hate that,” Ares suggests, grinning when I sigh and shake my head.
“Ma’s friends with Angelica Sweet. If I lie, she’ll know. If I push too hard and this chick tells her mom I was an outright asshole, Ma will find out. This situation is delicate, and not even close to as simple as the other dates. I’ll have to hope she hates me on sight.”
Which I doubt, because I’m good-looking as hell. Don’t sneer and make that face; it’s true. I could be vain about it and say that my dark hair and gray eyes, thanks to Ma, make me one handsome son of a gun, but I don’t let that shit go to my head. I just accept it and live with it.
Sometimes it’s a curse, so don’t go thinking that I’m some preening idiot. I don’t like it when women hit on me just to get in my pants because they like this face, and I hate it that they hit on me because of my bank account.
I guess that’s why I don’t believe in the whole love and marr
iage thing. How would you ever know that a woman truly does want you for you, when the initial stages of courtship involve looks and money?
Whatever, I think, shaking off the cloud of disillusionment that tries to settle over me. There’s no sense in dwelling on something I can’t change. All I have to do tonight is make this woman loathe me so much that money and looks aren’t enough to make her stick.
That should be easy.
Chapter Three
Cleo
“You look like Mrs. Doubtfire. Just younger and a lot less lumpy,” Rosetta titters, her blue eyes twinkling when I top off my look with a pair of thick glasses that I usually only use for reading, and a spritz of some cheap perfume that smells so sweet that it makes my eyes tear up.
I’m wearing a staid black dress that comes to just below my knees, its boxy shape and thick fabric giving me the shapeless look I’m going for. The dark brown cardigan and low-heeled pumps add a drabness that accentuates the thick, almost square waist the dress gives me, and to crown it all off, I’ve gone with a tight bun at the nape of my neck in order to tame the golden glory of my hair, my only really attractive quality, and one I don’t intend to spotlight tonight.
My face is completely free of makeup save for a small smear of nude lipstick, and the matronly pearls that I filched from Mom’s jewelry box finishes off the look nicely, even if I do say so myself.
So, yes, I do indeed look like Mrs. Doubtfire, if she were thirty years younger and blessed with this alabaster complexion.
“Thanks for the help,” I tell my sister and cousins, smiling at my reflection in the mirror with an excitement I shouldn’t feel.
It’s not cool to purposely try to make myself as ugly as possible for a date, and I feel a little guilty that this poor guy is going to get stuck sitting through dinner looking at this all night, trying to think up excuses to split.
My personal favorite is the classic “my dog just got hit by a car,” but since I don’t know this guy, I can’t really hope for that one to pop up tonight. I’m going to guess that he’ll go to the men’s room and just not come back, which is fine by me because I vowed to Dad that I’d stay for all of it and that I would order dessert. Which I intend to do no matter what, anyway, because I freaking love dessert, and I refuse to be shortchanged. Even if he pulls a runner and stiffs me with the bill.
“We’re just excited to see how this plays out! Oh my God, the last time we did this was when you guys were trying to help me break up with Todd,” Sin cackles, her teeth sparkling as she throws her head back and howls.
We all laugh. Hard. And snort a little because the memory is such a good one that I don’t think any of us will ever forget it. Sin was dating this preppy guy in college who just didn’t understand the words “it’s over.” Not that he stalked Sin or anything, because as mild-mannered as my dad can be, no one messes with his girls. No, what Todd did was even worse. He took advantage of Sin’s extremely inflated guilt complex and used his pathetic clinginess to make it almost impossible for her to just put her foot down and demand that he screw off.
That’s when the rest of us stepped in and said, “Hell no, this cannot continue.” The plan was simple. Fake an STD so gross, Todd wouldn’t be able to avoid running.
That day was one I won’t ever forget, and one that is even now sitting in one of Mom’s albums, taking pride of place in what Mom likes to call “The Shenanigans.”
We dressed Sin up in a sexy cocktail dress that put her boobs on display, did her hair so that the soft, golden-red tresses fell down to her pert ass, and then used my cake decorating skills to paint a picture so stark and undeniable, it should have made national news.
And so Sin set off to go out for her eight-month anniversary with Todd Buchanan, the boy who just wouldn’t let go. With cold-sore-riddled lips and splotchy everything else, she reminded me of Rene Russo when her character got infected with Ebola in that movie Outbreak. She played the adoring girlfriend so well that Todd sat through two courses, dumbstruck and gulping air, until I guess the poor ass couldn’t help himself anymore. When he asked her, “What’s that on your face?” and Sin answered with an “I don’t know, pookie bear, but the doctor said we should know by sometime next week,” it was all I could do not to laugh hard enough to blow our cover from where we were sitting, three tables away, wearing sunglasses and detective hats, of all things.
I dunno why, guys. What can I say? The Sweet girls have a flair for dramatics, and fun is always welcome.
Needless to say, Todd started to look exceptionally green around the gills when Sin leaned in to tongue kiss him, and he turned positively gray when she licked her lips afterwards and started in on an explanation of her fourteen-day antibiotics course.
Game over.
Todd transferred out of college the very next day and moved somewhere out west, where, according to Rosetta’s many friends around the country, he now washes his hands to the point of madness, takes so many vitamins that he should be glowing like a radioactive nuclear landmine, and is obsessively paranoid about whom he dates.
Not that we blame ourselves. Todd brought it on himself when he refused to let Sin break up with him even though he was seeing two other girls. I say he got what he deserved.
Hilariously, the story of Sin having an STD was all over campus the next day, and we’d have laughed and shrugged it off if not for the fact that she had an allergic reaction to the makeup we were using, and really did look like a walking billboard for an STD. People didn’t believe her protests at all, and, to be fair, it’s not as if the rest of us argued her case, either. It was just too funny, and Sin spiraled into more and more of a tizzy the longer we let it play out.
Served her right for being too soft, I think, checking my appearance again.
“Okay, so the plan is to just be anyone else but yourself,” Tee reminds me, making me roll my eyes.
“I don’t need advice about how to end a date—”
“Uh, yes, you really do. Remember Puke Fish?” Alex grumbles, gagging at the mention of that date.
“Like I could forget. People thought I had herpes.”
“I’m not talking about that! That was gross enough, but if you looked hard enough, you could see that you had bruising. No, I’m talking about the fact that you felt so bad for the guy, you let him kiss you. After he’d puked.”
“He gargled with mouthwash from my purse!”
“Keep telling yourself that so you can sleep at night, Cleo, but the guy really didn’t. Your bag of doom holds a lot, but it didn’t have mouthwash in it that night. I remember. That’s why you started carrying a gallon bottle of minty freshness,” she points out, making me sweat and shove back the memory.
It happened like I said it did. There was mouthwash involved!
“And Frank Wallowitz?” Rosetta titters, her eyes sparkling evilly. “You let him take you to that rodeo even though you’re terrified of clowns. You peed yourself halfway through the first ride and didn’t say anything for an hour.”
“I was waiting for my pants to dry so I could leave!”
“And Harry Barry?” Sin scoffs, chortling when I blush deeply enough for my cheeks to turn pink despite the thick makeup I’ve used to turn my skin sallow.
“That wasn’t my—”
“Face it, Cleo. You’re too nice, no matter how many times you tell yourself you’re a badass. None of those dates ended so badly that those guys didn’t call you for a second, or a third. How many times have you changed your number now?” Rose asks tauntingly, receiving a death glare from me for her efforts.
Goddamn assholes.
“Seven? Eight?” Alex presses, grinning when I growl and mutter the real number under my breath. “What was that? I didn’t hear you over your bleeding heart!”
“Eleven!” I screech, plopping onto the bed with a groan while they shriek with laughter behind me. “It isn’t funny.”
“It totally is. One guy puke-kissed you, one smelled like pepperoni and sour nuts, and the others a
ll shared a varying degree of grossness, and you still couldn’t bring yourself to turn them down. To the point that you’ve had eleven different numbers in the last three years.”
“Well. I mean, if you’re going to freaking nitpick—”
“We are going to nitpick, Cleo. Mom keeps setting you up with these gross losers, and you’re so leery of hurting anyone, you just go along with it. If not for us, you’d be married to Sour Nuts with two kids under your belt and another little pizza delivery on the way.” They laugh harder, and I cast Alex a fulminating glare that tells her just what I think of her jokes.
At my expense. Like always.
I’ve had a really bad day, one for the books, as Dad always says, and I don’t need them making it worse. This was supposed to be fun and a nice distraction from the fact that my sugar supplier served me with a thirty-day notice for unpaid bills. Along with the dairy guy, and don’t even get me started on the chocolate people, who are selling out and expect me to settle things before they’re officially bought out by some big conglomerate of fat cats who don’t understand mom-and-pop businesses like ours.
I’m not in the mood for ridicule right now, and, if I’m being honest, I would rather cancel this date and stay home to plan how to bomb that chocolate factory. I’ll need to, if I want any hope of recovering from the last six months. If I could just put them out of business, I could at least try to make a go of CandyCane’s. Dammit!
“Would not! I told you, I let him down when he asked—”
“Oh, please! He showed up at the store with a bunch of flowers, a box of store-bought chocolates, and stars in his eyes. Heck, I bet that guy thought he’d hit a home run with you…”
“We didn’t sleep together!” I screech, swallowing bile at the thought.
Not that he didn’t try. Or get a little too far for my memory to keep comfortably chugging away. He got pretty far, but since my nose was still working just fine…I don’t even want to think about it. The last time I thought about it, I lost two pounds because I couldn’t eat for a week.