by Monroe, Max
“Right, right, of course,” I push out through a dry and scratchy throat. “I just need your library card.”
“I don’t have my library card.”
I scrunch up my nose. “I…uh…I can’t make copies for you unless I have the card.”
He is undeterred. “My assistant, who is otherwise occupied having a baby right now, has my card. But I know the number.”
His assistant. So, hot-stranger-man is important enough to have his own assistant…
I shake off the questions that start popping into my brain. Even though I kind of want to know more about this guy, my gut instinct is telling me I do not want to know more about this guy.
“Okay. I guess that should work. What’s the number?” I ask, and I finally find a reason to use the pen I grabbed earlier to jot it down.
He rattles off the twelve-digit code with surprising ease.
I record it on a small yellow Post-it note, grab the folder from his hand, and head for the back room before remembering something and turning back. “Just, uh…copies are fifteen cents a page. That okay?”
“Are you sure I don’t get some kind of friends and family discount?”
I draw my eyebrows together. “Friends and family? But I don’t know you.”
“No?” he asks with a smirk. “After our introduction, I feel like you should.”
And he doesn’t give me time to respond before adding, “Or maybe Sergio and Catarina could help me with that discount? We all feel like real good buddies now.”
Good God. If I could burrow myself into the ground and end up in China, I’d do it.
My stupid cheeks bloom again, a whole fucking garden of blood-red roses this time. “Yeah, well…” I don’t know what to say to best disarm his nearly offensive charisma, so I blather the first thing that comes to mind, and I do it almost petulantly. “I don’t really have the authority to make a decision about a discount like that. And Sergio and Catarina are otherwise occupied.”
He laughs, completely unfazed by my standoffishness and sarcastic retort, and leans his arms into the counter. “All right. Fifteen cents per page is fine, but I’m going to count, just to make sure you don’t overcharge me.” My heart jumps to triple its normal pace when he finishes with a wink.
“I wouldn’t expect anything less.” I turn back to the copy room and step inside before my cheeky reply really hits me.
Holy shit, where did that come from?
I have plenty of dating experience, but this kind of guy—this kind of outright cockiness—is not my type.
I like the guys who let me off easy. The ones who do what they say and call when they should and don’t take too much effort. I don’t want a wallflower, but this guy has high-maintenance player written all over him, and I don’t have the time or stamina to get dragged into the deep end of that pool of hot mess.
With those dimples and charm and seriously ruggedly perfect jaw? Cheeky responses should be far, far away, enjoying a vacation somewhere on a trek through the rain forest at this point.
I take the files out of the folder he’s given me and put them into the feeder of the copy machine. I type in his twelve-digit code and use a Herculean effort to avoid seeing the name tied to his account. I do not want to know this guy’s name. I just want to make his copies and get him the hell out of here.
Thanks to Sergio and Catarina’s moans of delight, our awkward introduction needs to vanish straight from the present and be locked away in the very distant past.
A memory I prefer to eventually forget entirely.
I type in the commands and then stand patiently as the bulky machine starts to whir. There are quite a few pages, and watching a copier is about the same as watching paint dry or water boil, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to go back out there and give myself more opportunity to be a train wreck.
Of course, someone thought ahead—assuming you might end up in the copy room while patrons approached the desk—and hung a mirror on the wall with a perfect view.
I watch surreptitiously as insanely-hot-bad-news-bears-stranger-man takes out his phone and scrolls through something, types out a message, and puts it back into his pocket before running a hand through his perfectly coiffed hair.
I’m just about to lull myself into a vividly dangerous daydream where he is Sergio and I am Catarina when the machine stops churning and spits out the final paper of his copies.
Good God, snap out of it, Ruby!
I grab the stack along with the papers from the original file and walk back to the desk where he’s waiting.
He smiles as I set the stack on the counter in front of him and push it over with a shove.
“Go ahead,” I direct. “Count them. I’ll get the original file organized again.”
Apparently, I’m a glutton for punishment because I watch raptly as he takes the tip of one long finger and licks it before using it to count the corners of the stack.
I peel my eyes away from a guy who has way too much sexual charisma for his own good—or certainly, at least, mine—and slide the papers from the case folder back inside. I loop the metal brads through the holes to secure the pages again, check the tag for the case number and enter it into the computer under my username before tossing the file onto the stack to be put back in place on the shelves.
He watches me—I can feel the weight of his eyes—but waits to speak until I’m done with all of my busywork and once again turn my eyes back to him.
“Seventy pages,” he says. “I guess that means I owe you $10.50.”
I jerk my head back and then narrow my eyes as his smirk grows. I grab a calculator from the shelf at the side of the computer and do the math he obviously did in his head.
$10.50.
Well, well. The charming, model-looking man also has a brain. Evidently, a big one.
“Yes. $10.50.”
“What?” he remarks good-naturedly. “You didn’t trust my math?”
“Just double-checking,” I say, and he laughs.
“I wouldn’t short you, honey. Wouldn’t want to put your job in jeopardy.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him that this isn’t really my job—that I’m just filling in for a friend. But then I remember that this man is a stranger—a really good-looking one, sure, but a stranger, nonetheless. He has no business knowing the details of my personal life, and I shouldn’t feel obligated to give them to him.
“Thanks,” I say instead before glancing at my watch. “Looks like it’s about closing time.”
Unsurprisingly, he takes my hint. If the guy’s brain is big enough to do multiplication like that in his head, he should be able to tell when an exchange is over.
“Well, thanks,” he replies with a laugh and a stare. I flounder under the attention a little, but I somehow manage to keep it inside. When I raise an eyebrow at his less-than-subtle inspection, he smiles. “I might have to run my own case errands more often. And what did you say your name was again?”
“I didn’t.” And I’m definitely not going to.
He chuckles at that, but he doesn’t offer any other retort than a smirk and a wink as he pulls his wallet from his pocket and tosses a ten and a one on the counter. I take them and step to the side, ready to get his change, but he stops me with a gentle tap to the counter with his now-curled roll of case copies. “Don’t worry about it. Keep the change. And I look forward to seeing you again.”
Look forward to seeing me again? Um, no thank you, buddy. After this traumatic exchange, this will be the last time I ever agree to pick up one of Kevin’s shifts.
Sorry, Kev. But you’re going to have to find someone else to do your library dirty work.
But I can’t deny that I watch avidly as the far too handsome, nameless stranger heads for the front door without looking back.
His gait is smooth and his stride long, and the way his pants hug the muscled backs of his thighs and ass is seriously reminiscent of a statue.
I’d like to say that I turn away as he pu
shes open the door and that there isn’t a drop of drool at the corner of my mouth, but I’ve never been much of a liar.
Sergio and Catarina got my fantasies started today, but I have a real sneaking suspicion someone else—someone with eyes the color of brown sugar and dimples and a smart little smirk—will be finishing them.
But then, I’m going to forget all about him.
Cap
Errands officially run and work and Hell-ary’s margs with the girls out of my fucking head, I settle into poker night with the guys.
This, right here, is exactly what I needed.
Just the guys, smoking cigars, and playing poker.
Smoke swirls above the green felt of the table as Thatcher Kelly knocks the ashy end off his cigar, puts it back in his mouth, and deals a round of cards.
I catch them under my hand as he throws them, placing them one by one into the palm of my other hand and studying what luck has dealt me.
This hand gives me a queen, a king, and a trio of shitty other random cards, but in my actual life, it’s a whole lot of really good shit.
I’m a happy guy with a job he loves, friends he can count on, and more money than I’ll ever know what to do with.
I don’t have to worry about making the mortgage every month, I don’t have a sordid past with demons to conquer and wounds to heal, and I get more pussy than the SPCA.
There are occasionally stressful situations that come with being the top corporate lawyer for nearly every muckety-muck in the country, but I thrive off the pressure. It feeds my need for adrenaline and puts a nice layer of padding on an already swollen ego.
Which is, frankly, just how I like it.
Confidence keeps my life balanced. If I weren’t confident in my abilities at work, I’d be spending this time poring over files instead of enjoying a game of poker with my rarely available, pussy-whipped friends. But I know myself, I know my tenacity, I know my willingness to work an all-nighter, and most importantly, I know a little free time for pleasure does the business part of my mind a whole lot of good.
Kline Brooks, Thatcher Kelly, Wes Lancaster, Milo Ives, Trent Turner, and Harrison Hughes sit around the table in front of me, arranging their cards and smoking their cigars in comfortable silence. Quincy Black and Theo Cruz couldn’t make it tonight—something about a baby and a new hip nightclub respectively—but as I understand it, they have a standing invitation to poker night as well.
When the last card is dealt, Thatcher Kelly, a numbers genius, friend, fellow billionaire, and client of mine, places his cigar in an ashtray and shoves back in his chair to make his massive frame look even bigger. Frankly, I’m the only one in this group of guys who even comes close to his size, but I’m still not a giant like him. At six foot three and just over two hundred pounds, I’m leaner, but I can still pretty much guarantee I’m the stronger of the two of us.
“Welcome, motherfluffers…to the official Thatcher Kelly Poker Night, trademark.”
I roll my eyes at his theatrics, and trust me, I’m not the only one. Thatch has been trying to get a poker night going for our group for months, and now that it’s finally happening, I’m not even a little surprised he’s treating it like the first night of the Olympics. “What happens here, stays here, locked away from the women, the men, the children in your lives. This is a sacred table, a sacred ritual, a sacred game, and you will respect it.”
“Jesus,” Kline Brooks, another client of mine, CEO of the popular dating app TapNext, and Thatch’s best friend in the whole world, mutters.
Thatch carries on, unaffected. “I know you have other things in your lives, and I’ll allow it, but from here forward, this biweekly game is to become your priority.”
“No,” Wes Lancaster, owner of the New York Mavericks and another one of Thatch’s best friends, remarks. “I’ll be here when and if I have time. Fuck your sanctity. And, for the sake of everyone’s sanity, let’s keep your text reminders of poker night down to one in the future.”
“You’re disrespectful and disappointing, Whitney. You should be happy I allowed you, a woman, to participate.” Thatch smirks. “This is supposed to be boys only.”
Wes holds up his middle finger and takes a puff on his cigar, and I jump in as a colorful referee.
“Relax, guys. I think what Thatch is trying to say is that he misses you guys. You’re all so busy with your pussy—”
“Hey!”
“Yo!”
“What the fuck?”
“I’d tread lightly…”
The chorus of responses is loud and overwhelming, but I shush them with a hand and continue. “That we never really get to hang out anymore. This is a chance to bond like men. To talk about things you can’t talk about at home. To relax and play poker and not give a fuck about anything else.”
“I’m pretty fucking relaxed at home,” Milo interjects, and unfortunately, the rest of the band of misfits nods in agreement.
“Well, fuck you guys very much,” I say with a sour laugh. “Do it for me, then.”
“Technically, they’re doing it for me,” Thatch corrects. “And I’d keep your voice down. If Cassie hears you say some of this shit, I’m not gonna hold her back for you.”
“Your wife is here?” I question with a groan. “I thought this was about the guys. A sacred ritual locked away from the women and children in your lives—”
“It is, it is,” Thatch interrupts with a sigh. “But Cassie wouldn’t let me come into the city to have poker night at our Manhattan apartment and leave her with the kids at the New Jersey house, so she got a sitter, and the girls are having a meeting in their space, all the way on the other side of the apartment. Don’t worry. This is the guys’ space. They know that.”
Manhattan apartment. New Jersey house. Talk about first world problems.
Thatcher Kelly has more houses and apartments than he has members of his family.
Not that I can’t say the same for myself, but that’s minor details.
I roll my eyes at his pathetic words. Cassie Kelly wouldn’t follow a directive given by her husband if it literally saved her life. She wears the pants in their relationship, and Thatch usually doesn’t deny it. Instead, he just presents her tits as evidence.
They’re great tits, I’ll give him that, but I play with my fair share of great fucking tits, and I do it without having someone holding my balls hostage in exchange.
“So, we should expect her to pop in within the next ten minutes, then,” I remark, and even Kline, the most adult of the entire group, snickers behind a hand.
“She’s not gonna pop in, okay?” Thatch booms. “Fluffing hell. It’s like you don’t trust—”
“Yoo-hoo!” his wife interrupts appropriately, peeking her head around the door of the smoky room. “You guys hungry, or are you too busy punching one another in the dick?”
Thatch sighs and closes his eyes as I give him a hard glare. The rest of the group breaks out in smiles. Thatch places his cards on the table and turns to look over his shoulder so he can meet his wife’s startlingly blue eyes.
“Honey, I thought we talked about this. Poker night needs separation from ladies’ night. Like church and fluffing state.”
“Well, excuse me,” Cassie replies pseudoangrily, opening the door fully to step inside, “for fluffing checking on the status of your big, ogre stomach. From here on out, I’ll let you starve.”
I bite my lip and lower my cards to the table before letting my head drop back as Thatch jumps up so they can bicker in closer proximity.
“Christ, woman! Did you get your annual exam today, or are you just raging for no reason?”
“Your exams are gonna be reduced down to annual if you don’t cool your fluffing jets.”
“My jets are cool!” Thatch shouts, and the rest of us groan as Cassie lunges forward and punches him…right in the dick.
Ah hell.
As annoyed as I am at him, my crotch throbs sympathetically.
Cassie storms off, and Thatch,
hunched over in a ball of agony, turns back to the table. “I’ll be right back.”
Still almost fetal, he waddles through the opening at a surprisingly brisk pace.
As the door closes behind him, the other guys start to chatter.
“The rest of our lives, guys. It will be this way for the rest of our lives,” Kline mutters, and Wes laughs.
“Not if we cut him out of the friendship circle.”
Kline smirks but simultaneously rolls his eyes. “Like that’s possible. Try to cut that fucker out, and he’ll end up shadowing you during your colonoscopy.”
“I’m not scheduled for a colonoscopy,” Wes refutes with a laugh.
Kline clucks. “Ah, but you will be. That’s how ridiculous his power is. You won’t even know how it happened until he’s snapping on latex gloves and suiting up.”
Harrison Hughes, a longtime employee of my father’s media company HawCom and friend of ours, laughs. He’s a little older than I am, but I’ve known him long enough that it doesn’t feel like there was a time when we weren’t friends. He also played rugby with Wes, Kline, and Thatch for a while, and he still throws his old, dilapidated ass into a game in the park every now and then. But, as the only single guy left other than Theo and me, I’m fairly certain he does it all just so he has a way to impress the ladies. “Wait. He’s the doctor now? What the fuck?”
Kline shrugs and chuckles. “Trust me. After this many years of friendship, I don’t put anything past that guy.”
Wes nods begrudgingly. “He’s surprisingly adept at making just about anything possible. That’s how Lexi ended up interning for fucking Hugo Clouse. She’s a teenager, and he’s basically the Wolf of fucking Wall Street, without the cocaine and hookers.”
I laugh. “Geez. Where’s the fun in that?”
They all ignore me.
“How’s she liking it?” Kline asks.