I tell Callie about slow-dancing with John on the Bund at night and I tell Franklin that John has literally been fucking me silly. I write my mother to tell him what a perfect gentleman John is being, that his work and colleagues are very interesting, and that we’re eating a lot of good food. I tell Nathan that this John friend of his is pretty great—where has he been hiding him all my life?
Callie writes back that Gracia came back to tidy up our apartment again and made her agua fresca with spring water, limes, cucumbers and watermelon. Callie wants to know if we can keep her and informs me that she will waterboard me with agua fresca if I ever break up with John. Unless we can hire Gracia to continue coming even if things don’t work out for me and him. She has seen me lose interest in so many guys over the past year or so, and maintain an interest in Julian. I think about letting her know that I now understand why she thinks Julian is so gross, but I don’t want to get her hopes up. About anything. So I send her a totally non-committal xoxo which will probably drive her nuts, but she knows how busy people get in NYC, she’ll understand.
Franklin sends me a picture of the guy he fucked silly last night. It’s a body pillow with a printed-out picture of John taped to it. He is not funny.
My Mom asks if John and I would like to stay with them while we’re in Cleveland, that we at least have to go for supper. She says that Johnny invited them to his fundraiser event, but as much as they want to support him, she doesn’t want to leave their puppy alone for that long, and she has promised my father he will only have to put his good suit on again the day his children get married.
Message received, Mom.
Nathan sends back a surprised cat emoji. I drop my phone. That’s when I realize that he is in love with his girlfriend. Nathan has always despised emojis. He hates them even more than he hates the West Coast. He has never responded to anyone’s texts or emails if there is an emoji in it. Katie must use emojis, and therefore my brother now uses them. My whole body feels warm and fuzzy and shocked, like a surprised cat. What do you know? My brother is in love. Miracles do happen. Men change. Heart emoji.
I spend over an hour getting ready for the gala. I bought a special royal blue evening gown for the occasion at a boutique in San Francisco. It’s a sleeveless empire waist with a bodice and full skirt that hangs and moves beautifully. I also got a pair of pale pink Louboutin open toe stiletto pumps that are so beautiful and sexy they make me a little wet, if I’m being honest. I usually wear my hair either up in a messy or tight bun, or down and naturally wavy. Today I bring out the hair straightening iron. I lotion-up every inch of my skin and apply my lipstick with a lipstick brush. I even apply fake eyelashes, because this is Manhattan, I’ll be there representing John, who will be representing his foundation, and there will be some modest red carpet action. And also, I want John to have a non-stop boner as soon as he sees me, is that wrong?
My phone dings and I expect it to be a text from Callie or Franklin, but it’s Julian again. Hey Babe, where are you? Can’t wait to see you.
He has never called me “Babe” before. Ever.
I type: Hi! I’m in town with a friend for a couple of nights only and we have a really tight schedule. Sorry I won’t be able to see you this time!
Friendly without being flirtatious, to-the-point, doesn’t leave much room for misinterpretation or discussion. Send!
Immediate reply. Julian: Cool. Let me know if you have time to grab a drink tonight.
Um. No.
I don’t respond, because John will be back any minute and because gross. Not cool.
When I open the bathroom door, I nearly scream, because John is in the bedroom, and I had no idea he had returned. He didn’t let me know. He’s already dressed in his tuxedo. He shuts the closet door and turns around. I lean against the doorframe, trying to look as casual as possible in fake eyelashes and the most expensive dress and shoes I’ve ever owned.
I completely forget my plan to look boner-inducing, because he is so handsome in a tux that I also forget to breathe and stand up straight. My spine has instantly dissolved. I haven’t felt butterflies in my stomach since I was about eight, and they were always ballet-related. I have to hold onto the doorframe for support.
I barely even register the look on John’s beautiful face. It’s somewhere between ravenous and awe-inspired and I suddenly feel self-conscious. Me. He walks towards me, slowly, his head slightly lowered, eyes wide, like he’s approaching a wild horse. I would move towards him too, but I don’t trust myself to walk just yet.
He holds his hands out over my dress, hovering about two inches away from my body, his hands following my curves without touching them. I swear I can feel him touching me, even when I see the space between us.
“Can I touch?” he whispers.
I nod my head.
He runs his fingers down the gathered straps at the front of my dress. They form a V from my shoulders to the center of my cleavage. I shudder and he lingers there for a few seconds before gently stroking my straight hair, and then pushing it all to one side over my shoulder, stepping behind me and running his fingers down the exposed side of my neck and across my bare upper back. I let out a loud sigh.
“You smell incredible,” he says. “What is it?”
“Chanel.” My voice is husky as usual, but weak. “I wear it on special occasions.”
He stands behind me, lowers his face into the back of my neck, and inhales. “God. I don’t know how I’m going to get through the night.”
He steps back in front of me and I place my hand flat on his chest, slipping it between his jacket and shirt. “If it makes you feel any better, I think I’ve forgotten how to walk.”
He smiles and holds out his arm for me to take it. “Come sit on the bed, I have something for you.” He leads me to the bed and I sit down very carefully. He drags his hand down my left arm, then slides his hand into his pocket, pulling out a slender and delicate diamond bangle bracelet. He takes a seat next to me.
“John, it’s so pretty.” Pretty is almost a ridiculous word for it. It probably cost thousands. But it is. It’s so pretty. I’m not a big jewelry person, but I have no qualms about wearing this feminine little thing.
He kisses the inside of my wrist, where my pulse races, before joining the clasp of the bracelet there.
“Thank you.”
“We need to go,” he says, looking at his watch. “The driver will be downstairs.” His voice is no longer a seductive whisper, it’s a school principal’s sharp order.
Suddenly, I remember how to walk. I prefer to think that this is why he has suddenly and unceremoniously broken the spell—to help me get my head back in the game—but he just really likes to keep to his schedules, probably more than he likes touching me.
So fine. We go.
The Museum of Natural History is not very far from our hotel, but we take a hired limo anyway.
Even I can smell my heady perfume filling the back of the car, and I see that John is struggling to keep his thoughts on raising scholarship funds for women in the fields of science and technology, while simultaneously conquering his erection.
I try to help him out by bringing up a non-sexy subject. “My parents want to know if we want to stay with them when we’re in Cleveland. I know Sanjay made reservations —”
“Yes.”
“Yes he made reservations?”
“Yes we should stay with your parents. I’d love that. If you want to.”
“I do. But I should warn you—they just got a puppy. He sounds very…puppy-like.”
He screws up his face. “I like puppies. I think. I haven’t really been around many.”
“Well, that’s just sad.”
He blinks. “Is it? It is, isn’t it. What about Monty? He said he’d try to make it to my fundraiser with his girlfriend.”
“Yeah, she said he insists on staying at a hotel. My parents haven’t met Katie yet, so, I guess he doesn’t want to overwhelm her.”
“Your parents aren
’t overwhelming.”
I smile. “Maybe he thinks you’re overwhelming.”
He nods. “That makes sense. Actually, I’ll keep the hotel room in Cleveland as an office. So I can get a few hours of work done. I have a lot of conference calls set up. I wouldn’t want to distract you.” He grins at me. I know that I’m the distraction, I know that he knows that it irritates me when he’s so focused on his work when I’m in the room. I’m working on it.
We pose for pictures on the way into the museum benefit, and I am surprised to hear photographers shouting John’s name, even though by now I shouldn’t be. I am his date because he’s an important celebrity entrepreneur, amongst socialites and the wealthy elite of New York. He smiles when he tells a PR person my name, and that I’m a dancer with the Bay Area Ballet. It’s sweet.
Once we’re at the end of the carpet, I hear photographer’s yell out: “Montana! Montana!” and see a thousand flashing camera bulbs out of the corner of my eye. I feel John’s body stiffen. He doesn’t look over, but I do, and all I can see is the frenzy around a very tall woman who’s with a well-groomed man that I recognize from magazines as a fashion designer but I don’t know who he is exactly. John leads me away, shaking hands with people, but he doesn’t stop until we’re at our dining table under a giant fiberglass blue whale that hangs from the ceiling of the Hall of Ocean Life.
The whole enormous room is bathed in blue light and flickering candles. Fortunately, there are about a hundred round tables in this great space, and from what I can see, Montana is not seated anywhere near us. Aside from the body tension and hasty retreat to the table, John shows no signs of nerves about encountering Montana, but I’m kind of dying to see her. I don’t want drama, but I do want to get a sense of where things stand between them. I really want to text Callie that she’s here, but the rich old lady seated next to me seems like the kind of person who’d frown upon such activity at a gala dinner, but then again she’s done nothing but frown since she sat down.
And then, as I look around the room while speeches are being given on the stage, I see her. She is seated at a table across the room and to the right, but she’s facing us and staring. Directly. At me. Glaring, is more like it. She doesn’t flinch when I make eye contact with her. She may have been staring at us like this for a full hour, and I had no idea. I look over at John, who has politely given the speaker on stage his full attention, though he squeezes my hand to acknowledge me. I glance back at Montana, who is truly stunning, in a red dress, and I see her fashion designer date leaning in while she talks into his ear, still glaring at me.
Once we get to the dessert course, people start getting up to mingle, and there is a parade of them coming over to chat with John. He always introduces me, but no one wants to include me in the conversation, and I’m fine with that. They have an agenda, and it doesn’t involve me. I let John know that I’m going to the ladies room. My plan is to stay away from the table for a while, to give Montana a chance to go over to talk to him. I make sure she clocks me as I make my way out between the tables, dodging servers and dealmakers and, I think, one of the Hiltons.
When I open the door of the bathroom stall and go over to the sink to wash my hands, I look up and see Montana Reed staring at my reflection in the mirror. She is leaning back against the wall, her head cocked to one side studying me. She looks like Uma Thurman’s hotter younger crazier sister. I dry my hands and turn to face her. Here we go.
“Who are you?”
“Hi. I’m Olivia. Nice to meet you.” I reach out to shake her hand, but she jerks away from me.
“How did you meet John?”
“Oh, um. I’ve known him my whole life. He’s my brother’s best friend.”
She shakes his head. “You aren’t right for him.”
“Excuse me?”
“He’s Tony Stark.”
“Who?”
“Iron Man. He needs a Pepper Potts.”
“And you’re Pepper Potts?”
“I have the same personal trainer as Gwyneth Paltrow.”
“Oh.” I wait for more of an explanation, but that’s it.
I can’t believe Johnny dated this person. She’s stunningly gorgeous and mildly insane. I am seething with jealousy because I can’t stop imagining him doing those amazing things that he’s done to my body to hers.
That is when Montana and I begin a wordless conversation:
He did that ancient Chinese sex yoga stuff to you, didn’t he?
Yes, and I want to rip my hair out because I can tell he’s done it to you too.
You’re a stunning supermodel! Surely you’ll meet someone great soon. You’ll get over John.
No I fucking won’t! Just wait, you’ll see. Sex with anyone else is boring and I want to die. Also I’m not a supermodel, I’m just a very successful model.
I’m sorry.
No you aren’t fuck you.
I am, I’m sorry. But I love him.
Montana lets out a small sob. Her eyes are damp and she’s shaking. I reach out to hug her, but she swats me away. Two more women come into the restroom giggling, then go silent as they stare at us.
“Just go,” Montana says, her voice weak. “I can’t look at you.”
I nod and leave. I do feel badly for her. But I also feel bad for myself, because that was the first time I’ve admitted that I love John Brandt, and it was in a silent conversation with his ex-girlfriend. I don’t know how or if I’ll ever say it to him.
When I return to the table, John excuses himself from the gentleman that he’s talking to, and puts his hand on my thigh. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, fine. Do you need to give a speech or schmooze or write a check or something?”
“Do you want to go?”
“Do you want to go? Is there anyone else here that you should talk to?”
He grins. “Just you. Let’s go.”
He’s in Mr. Perfect Boyfriend Mode. We go.
17
John
I’m glad I waited until tonight to have sex in the back of a limo for the first time ever, although it’s not so much that I waited until tonight, as I could always wait until later to have sex with other women, but tonight I needed to be inside of Olivia as soon as we had the slightest semblance of privacy.
She’s always beautiful, but she is a goddess in that blue gown and as soon as I saw her in it I wanted to stick my head under that long flowy fabric, feel her thighs squeeze against it and lick her until I made her scream.
So now I can check that off my To Do List.
I hope the footprint indentations she left on the ceiling above the backseat disappear before the next clients get in.
I zip up my pants and tap on the tinted dividing window, telling the driver that he can drive us to the hotel now. It looks like he drove all the way around Central Park a few times after I’d told him to “just drive around for a while,” which is limo speak for “we’re going to fuck in your car now.”
Her silky straightened hair is wildly tousled, and she is using my handkerchief to wipe the lipstick off of her very satisfied gorgeous face. She licks the handkerchief and says “come here,” then wipes around my mouth too. I don’t even think it’s gross. She looks so sexy I’m thinking about asking the driver to go twice more around the park, but our hotel suite is so nice and so expensive, we may as well use it. My business manager will have a lot of questions when he sees my personal expenses for the month, but hopefully by then I won’t have to do much explaining. Hopefully by then everyone will know how I feel about this woman, including Olivia.
After giving the driver a hundred dollar tip, when I help Olivia out of the limo and onto the sidewalk in front of the hotel, she suddenly has a crease in the middle of her forehead, as she stares past me.
“Julian?” she says. She doesn’t let go of my hand, but I loosen my grip on hers.
The famous Julian fucking Bartlett struts over towards us, in the same leather jacket he was wearing two years ago, but instead of syn
thetic musk, he reeks of whiskey. What a delightful surprise. His hair is longer and stragglier, and oh joy—is that a tattoo of a Chinese character on his neck? I’m pretty sure it’s Chinese for “tool.”
She looks at me.
What the fuck?
“I didn’t tell him to come here,” she says.
I believe her.
“Yo, O! I was just leaving the bar. Come on, let’s go back inside.”
“Uh, actually, we were just going up to our room.”
He doesn’t even look at me, he just stares at her tits and holds his arms out for a hug as he prances over to her, drunk eye-fucking her, not using protection, not caring if she comes or not. Fucking prick. Okay, he isn’t prancing, but he is definitely light on his toes and he is absolutely eye-fucking my girl.
“It’s good to see you,” he says as he grabs her and pulls her in. “I’ve been thinking about you all day.”
I let go of her hand to give her a minute to deal with him, and also to keep my punching hand free, just in case.
“Julian, I’d like you to meet John,” she says. He doesn’t release her. His hands move down to her ass. “Hey!” She pushes him away.
“Oh what, did I not squeeze hard enough?”
I start to move in closer to them.
“You need to go home, Julian.”
“You need to respond to my texts when I text you. Don’t you think?” He is belligerent.
I step up between them and get in his face. “I don’t think Olivia needs to do anything she doesn’t want to do.”
The limo driver steps out of the car and asks if I need help.
“Let’s just go in, John,” Olivia mutters.
I stay in Julian’s face while holding up a hand to let her and the driver know that I’m good here. I am only a couple of inches taller than he is, but I stare him down hard.
“Who the fuck are you?”
I position my feet and hips in the best Bruce Lee stance I can manage and raise my hand up one inch from his pretentious face, keeping my wrist straight. “I’m the nerd who’s going to calmly explain exactly what’s going to happen to the bridge of your nose if and when my fist hits it. You ready?”
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