“It’s good,” Penelope Pope murmured, stepping back and taking in the enormous whiteboard that covered the right wall of Hunter’s office. “It’s really good. The question is, will Cassidy go for it?”
“He will,” Hunter and Cole Sharpe replied in unison.
“How do you know?” Penelope asked, turning around.
“Because if he gave a shit one way or the other, he’d have come to the meeting,” Hunter replied.
“And soccer’s his thing, not American football,” Cole added.
Brit looked up from where she was transcribing the notes from the whiteboard onto her laptop as best she could. “Why the clarification?”
“Pretty much everyone outside the United States calls our soccer football,” Penelope said.
“Right,” Brit said, continuing her typing. “I knew that. I think.”
She wasn’t totally clueless about sports, but in this group she was entirely out of her league. Cole Sharpe and Penelope Pope were Oxford’s sports editors.
Their partnership was legendary at the magazine. Cole had been a longtime contractor, and when a full-time sports editor position opened up, he and everyone else had assumed he’d be a shoo-in for the job.
Then Penelope had come along, a fresh-faced tomboy from Chicago looking for a clean slate in New York. Spunky, guileless, and utterly likable, Penelope’s sportswriting skills had given Cole a serious run for his money.
So much so that Cassidy had eventually decided to split the lone sports editor position into two roles. But not before the sports fanatics had fallen wildly, crazily in love.
That’d been a couple of years ago now, but you’d never know it from seeing them together. Cole and Penelope still acted like a couple in the early stages of infatuation.
They were beyond cute together, and individually they were two of Brit’s favorite people.
“You think we can pull it off by the Super Bowl?” Cole asked, tossing a football between his two hands before lobbing it to Penelope, who caught it easily.
Brit shook her head. Both at the fact that there was even a football in the office and that Penelope looked so easy with the enormous ball despite being tiny.
“We’ll figure it out,” Hunter said.
Brit rolled her eyes good-naturedly. Easy for him to say. He wouldn’t be the one who would have to take this plan to the Web-operations team and tell them that their Super Bowl Sunday would be spent managing the elaborate interactive portal on Oxford’s website.
Still, it was a good idea. Most of Cole’s and Penelope’s were. Since they’d taken over, the sports section of Oxford had gone from being a small sliver of sports bites interspersed between Lincoln’s sex articles and the splashy ads for designer suits to being one of the most visited sections of the website.
“So,” Penelope said, dropping into the chair across from Brit and helping herself to one of the M&M’s Hunter kept on his desk. Brit’s idea. Chocolate soothed. “How’s your training in the art of seduction going?”
Out of the corner of her eye, Brit saw Hunter shoot Cole a murderous glance, and Cole lifted his hands with a laugh. “Don’t look at me. I didn’t tell her.”
“No, I told Pen. I’m not embarrassed by my plan,” Brit said with a shrug.
She saw the relief on Hunter’s face that she wasn’t going to get upset that he’d apparently talked to Cole about it, but she wasn’t. Truly. They’d kept each other’s secrets when necessary, but they’d always been very up-front with each other about what was confidential and what was fair game. They were best friends, but they weren’t each other’s only friends.
“I think it’s brilliant,” Penelope said. “Believe me, if anybody understands what it’s like to be always the friend, never the girlfriend, it’s me.”
“Hey!” Cole exclaimed.
Penelope smiled over her shoulder at him, then tossed the football back his way. “You know what I mean. Pre-Cole.”
“Thought we agreed to treat pre-Cole days as though they didn’t exist,” he said.
His tone was teasing, but his eyes were adoring as he gazed at Penelope, and Brit glanced away. Both to give them the privacy of the moment and to hide the stab of envy.
That’s why she was doing all of this. To find someone who looked at her the way Cole was looking at Penelope, someone to make her smile the way Penelope was smiling right now, as though she was warmed from the inside out.
“So?” Cole asked, turning his attention back to Brit with a friendly smile. “Are you a lady Lothario yet?”
“Nearly,” she said, closing her laptop and setting it on Hunter’s desk before crossing her legs. “Hunter helped me go through my wardrobe.”
Cole shot Hunter a sympathetic look. “How was that?”
“Dangerous,” Hunter answered. “Very dangerous.”
“Oh, I love your clothes!” Penelope said to Brit. “Though I guess my opinion probably doesn’t count for much.” She studied her own ensemble, a plain white blouse and gray slacks and black flats. Pretty much standard Penelope Pope attire, but it suited her.
Brit got an idea. “Hey, Cole,” she said. “Do you like my clothes?”
Her friend’s blue eyes went wide in panic and he looked quickly at Hunter, who was grinning broadly. “Yeah, Cole. What do you think of Brit’s clothes?”
“Hey, man, you’re her love coach. Not me.”
“Love coach!” Penelope said. “I like that!”
“No,” Hunter and Brit said at the same time.
“That’s not what we’re doing,” Brit rushed to explain. “He’s just giving me some pointers.”
“On your love life,” Penelope emphasized.
“Okay, yes, but—wait, he never answered the question,” Brit said, deflecting back to Cole.
“Well.” Cole stuck his tongue in his cheek and seemed to think it over. “Truth be told, Brit, I can’t say I’ve noticed your clothes one way or the other.”
“See,” Hunter said. “Told you that wasn’t as big a deal as you thought it was.”
“And yet you seemed to have plenty of opinions.”
“I said I don’t like those weird flowing dresses that drag on the ground and look like maternity wear.”
“Maxi dresses,” a new voice added.
They all turned to see Jake Malone standing in the doorway, a can of Coke in his hand as he eavesdropped unapologetically.
“How the hell do you know what a maxi dress is?” Hunter asked Oxford’s lead travel editor.
“This is what marriage does for you,” Jake said with a shrug.
“Note to self,” Hunter muttered.
“Do you like maxi dresses?” Brit asked Jake.
Jake grinned at her. “Depends. How often do you talk to Grace?”
Grace Malone was Jake’s wife. A pretty, sweet-tempered brunette who matched Jake perfectly in good looks and likability. Grace also worked at Stiletto magazine, in the same building as Oxford, which meant that while they weren’t the best of friends, Brit saw Grace plenty.
“Okay, so maxi dresses are universally hated, apparently,” Brit mused.
All three men nodded.
“It’s too bad,” Penelope said sympathetically. “I can never wear them because I’m so short, but they seem so comfortable.”
“They are comfortable,” Brit said. “And he told me that what men liked more than anything was for women to be comfortable.” She pointed at Hunter, then looked at Cole and Jake. “Do we agree or disagree?”
“Ahhh . . .” Cole tugged at the collar of his shirt as though it was too tight. “Malone, you take this one.”
Jake finished the last of his soda, crushed the can in his fist, and then tossed it into Hunter’s garbage can. “Before I walk into this conversational minefield, why are we talking about Brit’s clothes?”
“Hunter is Brit’s love coach,” Penelope announced.
Brit opened her mouth to clarify, then rolled her eyes and let it go. She supposed love coach was a good enough description for her plan.
“Like Hitch?” Jake asked, leaning against the doorjamb. “That movie?”
“Yes!” Penelope said, snapping her fingers. “I didn’t even see the similarities until now, but you’re totally right!”
Brit scanned her movie repertoire and pulled up vague memories of a fun Will Smith movie where Will played a relationship guide to men whose love lives sucked, only to have his usual smooth moves fail him when he met a woman he actually liked.
“I guess it’s kind of like that,” she said.
Hunter gave a hefty sigh. “Do I even want to see this movie?”
“Definitely,” Cole said. “Eva Mendes is in it. Hot.”
Penelope nodded in agreement. “Super hot.”
“Huh,” Hunter said, then told Brit, “Add it to our list for movie nights.”
“Really?” She sat up excitedly. “You never want to watch romantic comedies when we have movie nights.”
His gaze went panicked, and he looked at Cole and Jake. “You didn’t say anything about it being a romantic comedy.”
“More comedy than romance,” Cole said, stepping toward him and giving a reassuring pat on the shoulder.
“Okay, but for real,” Jake said. “Brit and Hunter are . . . what. Fake dating?”
“No, no,” Brit said quickly. “Well, sort of. We are going on a date tonight.”
She gave Hunter a flirtatious flutter of her eyelashes.
He shook his head. “Hey, student, here’s your lesson for the day. No more of that weird eyelash thing.”
“My inner Marilyn shudders at the thought of retiring the move.”
He stared at her for a moment, then shook his head. “I don’t even want to know what that means.”
“Marilyn Monroe,” Lincoln Mathis said, poking his head in. “Classic. She a role model of yours, Robbins? You could do worse. Though I think I see you more as having a Julie Andrews kind of vibe. Sort of girl-next-door—”
Lincoln broke off at the sound of Alex Cassidy clearing his throat behind him.
Lincoln licked his finger and stuck it in the air without turning around. “I’m sensing a powerful dark force. . . .” Cassidy rolled his eyes. “Do I want to know what’s going on here? Why my editors are discussing Hollywood icons in my operational VP’s office?
“And spare me the bullshit about how it’s a story you’re working on,” he said before any of them could offer up a lame excuse.
Brit knew he was only half serious. As editor in chief of Oxford, Cassidy was their boss, but he was also a good friend. And he had an impressive knack for keeping them in line, both as friend and boss.
Cassidy’s eyes went straight to Hunter and Brit. “Don’t tell me. It has something to do with the two of you and your Hitch plan.”
“There you go,” Cole told Hunter. “Even Cassidy’s seen the movie.”
“Since you guys are all such experts on the topic, maybe one of you could be Brit’s love coach,” Hunter said darkly.
“See, you said love coach too!” Penelope exclaimed with delight.
Cassidy took pity on them. “Okay, everyone out. Even you,” he said to Penelope. “Actually, especially you. You have that look on your face.”
“What look?” Penelope said, standing and pushing in her chair.
“The one where you want everyone to be as grossly in love as you and Cole.”
“Right. Like you and Emma weren’t locked in your office for a long time this morning,” Penelope said, referring to Cassidy’s wife.
He gave her a ha ha look as she exited the office, then pointed Lincoln, Cole, and Jake down the hallway. “You do remember there’s a deadline at five o’clock tonight?”
“I turned mine in early,” Lincoln said. “You must have missed it.”
“I don’t miss shit, and you don’t do early,” Cassidy pointed out.
“Worth a shot,” Lincoln muttered as he too disappeared.
“All good?” Cassidy said, leveling his gaze at Brit and Hunter after everyone was gone.
They both nodded, and Hunter assured him that they’d have an outline for the Super Bowl plan on his desk by end of day.
Cassidy gave a quick nod, started to leave, and turned back to Brit. “For the record, I definitely see a little bit of Norma Jean in you.”
He gave a quick wink and left, and Brit smiled to herself.
Hunter was staring at her. “Who the hell is Norma Jean? And why do you seem so happy about the comparison?”
Brit gave him an enigmatic smile and stood, grabbing her laptop. “I’ll clean up these notes and email you ASAP.”
“Fine. Good. Who’s Norma Jean?”
“As opposed to you later, when you become . . .”
Brit fluttered her eyelashes again. “Marilyn. Obviously.”