My phone chimed while I agonized over the last sentence of my article that was due in twenty-three minutes. Not the ideal time to let myself get distracted.
Checking the screen, I squashed my smile before it formed. The message from the mysterious DC (two guesses what that stood for) read: How would I know you were lying?
It was his turn to ask the next question after he’d answered mine last night. I’d asked if he had any food allergies so I could, naturally, make sure to include that in the next meal I made for him.
I considered ignoring his question until I’d finished my article, but now that I was thinking about it, I couldn’t turn it off. Swiveling around in my chair, I considered my answer. How did I act when I lied? What did I do? How did I look?
Of course I realized he was asking so he could call me out if he caught me lying to his face. So maybe I should have kept my answer vague . . . but that flew in the face of our Q&A’s one cardinal rule: be honest.
I typed in a quick response and reread it before sending. My voice gets a little high, and I can’t make eye contact. I throw in more ums and yeahs than usual too.
A moment later, I heard a chime from the cubicle in front of me. We never asked our questions out loud when we were at work; we relied on email and texts. In the evening when we were at his place, we could spew as many verbal questions as we could fit in before we crashed for the night, but here we had to keep a careful distance.
A minute later, Brooks rose from his chair. “So you must think I’m a pretty amazing guy by now, right? A real catch? One in a billion?” He adjusted his tie, giving me a burning look I managed to play ignorant too.
“Um, yeah, sure,” I said, pitching my voice a few notes high. “I’d, um, agree. Yeah.”
“That’s what I thought.” He chuckled as he wove out of his cubicle. “You want a coffee?”
I nodded as I got back to my article.
“Extra cream, extra sugar?”
“You always ask that. Do you assume one day I’m going to change how I like my coffee?”
“I don’t assume. I just want to allow you the option of changing your stance on how you like your coffee.” His light eyes sparked. “Or anything else for that matter.”
“Wishful thinking,” I called after him, loud enough a few heads turned my way.
Brooks and I already drew enough attention as it was in the office, thanks to the increasing popularity of our dating experiment, and I knew neither of us should be giving anyone more reasons to speculate in whispers in cube alcoves.
After getting back to my article and feeling confident I’d stiff-armed that last sentence into shape, someone stepped into my space.
“That was quick,” I said before spinning around to discover it wasn’t the person I thought it was.
“What was quick?” Quinn asked, stabbing her pencil through her messy ponytail.
“Sorry. Thought you were someone else.”
“Nope. Just your uber awesome best friend here with a friendly reminder that the cafeteria downstairs is closing in fifteen minutes.” She tapped her wrist where a watch might have been if she wore one. “Time to scavenge what we can before it’s another meal compliments of the vending machines.”
“Perfect timing,” I said as I hit Send on my article to Mr. Conrad.
“Perfect timing would have been twelve thirty for lunch instead of two forty-five.” She wove her arm through mine and steered us toward the elevators.
Most days we scored lunch from the cafeteria on the second floor. Quinn usually got something from the fried section while I scouted the grilled section, then we shared our loot. With how busy I’d been the past six weeks, our lunch dates had been infrequent at best.
Plus with my new living situation, the subway no longer spit me out at the stop right by Flour Power. Quinn had been gracious enough to snag my morning sustenance and bring it into work for me, but I missed my breakfast dates with her.
“How’re you holding up?” Quinn asked as we waited at the elevators.
“Not too bad. You?” I fired off a quick text to Brooks letting him know I was grabbing lunch but he could leave my coffee on my desk. I might have angled my phone so Quinn couldn’t see it, since she was still convinced he was one of Stalin’s blood relatives.
“You don’t have to keep up the façade with me. It’s got to be exhausting going on all of those damn dates, having Conrad pull your strings while millions of people are watching you live. And having to keep up with your duties here as an actual writer on top of it all . . .”
I patted her hand as we stepped onto the elevator. “Considering everything, I’m doing good. Real, non-façade answer. I swear.”
“Oh my God, and your apartment on top of it all. It’s taking forever for them to get it fixed up.” Quinn’s head fell back, patting my hand faster. “Having to endure breathing the same air as him in that sterile haunt he calls home.”
“Actually, it’s not his home. He’s just renting the place.”
Her head whipped back into place, those dark eyes narrowing on me. “You’re defending him.” Her face got in mine. “Why are you defending the demonic parasite?”
“I’m not.” I internally cringed when I registered how high my voice was. “I’m just stating that he’s only temporarily residing there until I prove my point and become editor in chief. I’m sure his real place in California is much worse. So sterile you can actually smell the joy being sucked out of you.”
Quinn pinched my cheek. “There’s my girl.” After I swatted her hand away, she hip-checked me. “How many more days until you can move back into your place?”
“Andre called this morning and said the cleaning crew is almost done and I should be able to move back in by next Monday.” My shoulders slumped for some strange reason. Why wasn’t I psyched about getting to move back into my own space and out of Brooks’s soulless dwelling?
“Any way they can speed things up? It’s practically been a month.” Quinn led the way off the elevator when the doors chimed open on the second floor, toward the smell of fried food that had been wilting beneath heat lamps for hours. “Your landlord should compensate you for having to move out, or at least give you a break on your rent. Not to mention toss in some Benjamins for the therapy you’re going to require after spending all that time with a turd like Brooks North.”
“Yeah, not sure they’re going to go for that, but thanks for looking out,” I said as I steered toward the grill while Quinn sauntered to the fryers.
“Eh. Anything look edible over there?” Quinn tapped her foot as she inspected the selection of goods under the heat lamps.
“This coming from the woman who ate half a hot dog that I’d forgotten in my purse the day before?” I touched the wrapper of one of the few burgers left out, confirming the bun was about as hard as a Frisbee. “Think we’re going to have to settle for the salad bar or risk breaking a tooth biting into one of those things.”
“Salad bar? Did those words just come out of your mouth?”
I felt Quinn’s hard stare aimed at my back. “Just an idea.” I touched the wrapped chicken sandwiches. Instead of rock hard, the buns felt soggy.
“People die from eating at salad bars.”
“Aren’t fresh vegetables good for us?”
“Not if they’re packed with E. coli.” Quinn held up a tray with a couple of corndogs that were cracked from spending hours under a heat lamp. Taken as a whole, a questionable meat substance wrapped in dried-out corn bread was the best option.
“Works for me,” I said, snagging a few packets of ketchup before paying for our just-edible lunch. After we’d selected a table, I squeezed my ketchup into a blob on the tray. “So I’ve been waiting for you to bring it up, but since you don’t seem in a hurry to . . . what’s the latest Justin news?”
Her failure to make eye contact alerted me something had happened. “We went to that basketball game.”
The noise my corndog made when I dropped it sounded like it was made of wood. “When?”
Quinn shifted. “Last night.”
My mouth fell open as I lowered my head toward hers. “And you were going to tell me about this when?”
Quinn swirled her corndog into her mustard. “There’s nothing to tell. He got some tickets, asked if I wanted to go, we went, that’s all.”
My fingers rolled across the table. “That’s all all?”
“I don’t speak Ms. Romance.”
A sigh escaped me. “No long stares, no arms draped over shoulders?” The corners of my eyes creased. “No good night kiss?”
“No. Definitely no.” Quinn gave me a look that suggested she was offended by my question.
“Why definitely no? Don’t you want him to kiss you?”
Quinn tore off a bite of her corndog. “Maybe.”
“So why act like I’m criminally insane for speculating there might have been a good night kiss?”
“Because he’s not into me like that,” she said, still chewing like the lady she was. “He sees me more like some other dude than a chick you make out with.”
Clue. Less.
For ten thousand please, Alex.
“What makes you think that?” I asked, realizing if Quinn was incapable of picking up Justin’s signals, she was going to die alone.
“I don’t know. I just don’t seem like his type?” She shrugged.
“The sports aficionado who has so much to offer it makes heads spin and is a beauty that doesn’t require the aid of face spackle and paint to make her so?” I waved at my best friend, wondering on what planet she didn’t consider herself a high-ranking candidate to just about every straight, red-blooded male out there.
“The Justins of the world end up with the Jessicas.” She twirled her corndog like it was a wand before ripping off another bite.
“The Jessicas?” I slid my lunch aside because no amount of hunger could get that brick down.
“You know, the hair-flipping, eye-batting girls who came out of the womb with the talent to accessorize and abstain from anything containing sugar.” She frowned. “The Jessicas.”
My hands flattened on the table. “Justin is not looking for a Jessica.” I blinked at her, wondering when her wires had crossed. “Justin is looking for a Quinn Rivers, a.k.a. you.”
Half of her face pulled up with a doubtful look, which left me flabbergasted. How could she be so blind to the obvious? To what was literally right in front of her, practically flashing in neon lights?
Suddenly, her eyes focused on something over my shoulder. “Um. Fan club alert.” She cracked open her can of Sprite after finishing her last bite of corndog.
“Fan club?” I repeated, twisting in my seat.
It took me a moment to process what I was seeing through the windows of the cafeteria. A group of people had their faces pressed to the glass, phones raised, chattering excitedly to one another. They were tourists—the comfortable walking shoes, backpacks, and newly done nails gave it away—but I couldn’t figure out what they were doing standing outside this building instead of the one where the Today show was filmed.
“Those shirts are new. I’m going to have to pick myself up one of those.” Quinn waved at the spectators with Sprite in hand.
“‘I’m With Her’?” I read.
“Except for that chic. She’s with him.” Quinn’s pinkie finger indicated one of the younger woman whose shirt was a different color—blue, and it had exchanged the her for him.
“People still hanging onto those after the election?”
Quinn shook her head at me. “Those have nothing to do with politics. At least not the governmental kind.”
Someone might as well have clocked me across the face for the realization I had then. “They’re talking about us, aren’t they?” I gaped at the shirts. “‘I’m With Her’ means they’re with me, and ‘I’m With Him’ means they side with Brooks.”
Quinn banged an invisible drum. “Next, the street vendors will be selling dolls with a lifelike resemblance to Ms. Romance and Mr. Reality, and let’s not forget about scrapbooks for signatures and photos taken in the same locations you two had your dates.”
Silence settled in, winding deep. I’d been kept abreast of the rising number of viewers and advertising spaces being sold thanks to Conrad’s manically gleeful updates. I’d even been recognized a couple of times on the subway, though one person thought I just looked a lot like Ms. Romance and wasn’t really her.
My life had taken no direct hit due to the show, other than having to carve out the time—and dignity—to attend the dates.
Until now.
When a dozen tourists with shirts showing their support watched me pick at a rubber corndog across from my best friend, whom I’d been lecturing on her own love life disasters.
“I don’t know what to do,” I whispered to Quinn, as though they could hear me through the glass.
“I don’t know. Just smile, wave, and evacuate the premises.” Quinn’s chair screeched across the tile floor as she rose.
Doing as suggested, I plastered on a smile and moved my hand back and forth in a way that made a robot seem personal before following her out of the cafeteria.
“Might I suggest evacuating swiftly?” She nudged me as her pace picked up. “Before those fangirls bust into the building to tackle you. That one chick with the feather earrings is tipping the stalker scale of considering skinning you to make into a handbag.”
My heels had no problem keeping up with her sneakers after that warning. “I’m a writer, not a celebrity. If I wanted fame and phones in my face, I wouldn’t have gone into a career where I get to hide behind my computer screen for a living.”
“Better get used to it.” Quinn punched the elevator button a few more times, eyeing the front entry doors. “Because I don’t see viewership going down anytime soon.”
“Now every time I leave the house, I’m going to be paranoid I have lipstick on my teeth or my dress tucked into my tights.”
When the elevator doors whirred open, we both jumped inside.
“You’re going to have to hire one of those big, beefy security guys with a dark suit and sunglasses. The kind of guy who can crush you with his stare.” Quinn chugged what was left of her Sprite. “My best friend is a celebrity, tearing up the Twitter trending models.”
“Your best friend is not a celebrity, and the only thing I’m tearing up is the Chinese takeout menu at Lee Ching’s tonight to self-soothe my anxiety.”
I trudged out of the elevator, feeling overwhelmed. Brooks aside, the real dates, the fake dates, all of that I’d figured out a way to deal with. In my own quirky way. But this? The public scrutiny and not being able to go out for milk in my jammies at midnight without fearing recognition made me downright spastic with stress.
“Don’t freak. You’ve got six more weeks before you prove to the world love lives, slide into your dream job, and say goodbye to Brooks Who? forever.” Quinn made a face in the direction of Brooks’s cubicle. He wasn’t there, but I could make out my coffee resting on the cube wall between us.
“You sound so certain it’s all going to work out,” I said.
“That’s because it is going to all work out. This is you we’re talking about. You set your mind to something, I fear the person who tries to stand in your way.”
My neck cracked. “What if—”
“Don’t you even think about dropping a what if on me. That’s the gateway to failure.”
“What I was going to say before you jumped in is . . .” I paused to see if she was going to be so bold as to interrupt a second time. “What if we’re both right? What if he has a point as much as I do?” My teeth worked at my lip from hearing myself out loud. “You’ve said so yourself a few times.”
Quinn tossed her Sprite can in the closest garbage can before grabbing my shoulders and giving me The Look. “I’ve changed my mind. Taken a total one-eighty in light of new evidence brought to light. If you’re right, he can’t be right. If he’s right, you can’t be right. One person can’t say the sky is blue and another claim it’s orange and both of them be right.”
I sighed, feeling more confused than I had before this conversation. “But depending on the time of day, the sky can be blue. Or orange.”