Mackenzie
In May, I was back home in New York setting up a sponsorship deal between Jake and the leading mens’ toiletry brand, Chisel. They knew Jake’s story, knew he was being touted as the latest come-back kid and were keen to have him advertise their line of shaving products.
While home, I was also getting in some much-needed catch-up time with Meg and Anna in the form of some seriously fun girls’ nights out. Anna was dating a girl called Violet and a guy named Oscar, and neither had any idea about the other. While Meg was nursing a mildly broken heart over a guy called Boomer, who had wined and dined her for three weeks and then took her home to meet his stepmom. Who Meg suspected was a little more than his stepmom.
“Stepmom was three years younger than him,” Meg had explained. “Daddy is rich and likes them young.”
“But what made you think there was more between the two of them?” I had asked.
“Pretty much when she tongue-kissed him hello.”
“Riiiight.”
After a very awkward half-hour where stepmom and stepson were very touchy feely with one another, Meg had excused herself to use the bathroom, escaped out the front door of the exclusive Upper West Side apartment, and deleted Boomer’s number from her phone.
Now she was absolutely convinced there were no suitable, un-weird single men left in New York.
“Seriously, Mack, that’s the only criteria I have—that they are un-weird!”
Seeing her frustration, I thought of Jake and how lucky I was to have such an incredible man in my life. Love and longing flared in my chest. I hadn’t seen him in almost three weeks and I physically ached for him.
The day before I was due to fly back to Galveston, I was reading over the Chisel contract with a cup of coffee in my hand. Meg was in the shower, while Anna entertained Violet in her bedroom.
My phone rang. It was Macy Carmichael, Daisy’s publicist.
She didn’t waste time with greetings.
“Goddamnit, Macca!” Macy was Australian, and from the very first moment I had met her she had shortened my name to Macca. “Talk some sense into that girl, will you, before I throttle her for being such an imbecile.”
Inwardly, I grimaced, bracing myself. “What has Daisy done now?”
“She’s goddamn gone and dyed her hair blue!”
She did what?
“Goddamn blue!” I could feel Macy’s irritation seep through the phone. “I swear to God, Macca, that kid is doing my head in. You need to reign her in or you’ll be sending my Christmas card to Rikers.”
The moment she hung up, my phone rang again. It was Daisy.
“I hate everyone,” she snapped in my ear. “I hate John. I hate Macy. I hate—”
“Do you hate your one-point-two-million-dollar Bella Dea deal, as well?” I asked abruptly.
I could tell she was taken back. “What?”
“You know, that very lucrative endorsement deal you have with Bella Dea hair products. The one where you tell everyone how you owe your beautiful honey-blonde hair to their Blonde Goddess range. Remember the very famous catch phrase, Daisy? Blondes really do have more fun.” I put on her Nashville accent as I repeated the catchphrase in the renowned TV commercial, and mimicked her famous giggle at the end. Everybody knew the commercial. Everybody knew that giggle. “Do you really think they’re going to want you to do that while your hair is blue?”
“I didn’t think—”
“No, you didn’t. And it’s getting tiring.” I flicked through my business card portfolio at my desk. “I’m sending you a number for a hairstylist in Beverly Hills. He’s expensive as hell but that’s because he is so goddamn good. Phone him. Fix your hair and don’t ever—and I mean ever—do anything to your hair again. Do you understand what I’m saying, Daisy? Don’t make me come to LA and drag you there myself!”
She raised her voice in a final show of defiance. “It’s my hair!”
To which I raised mine back. “No, it’s not, Daisy. It’s Bell Dea’s hair. All one-point-two million dollars of it! So, unless you want to hand back all that glorious cash, fix your goddamn hair.”
Frustrated, I hung up. Seriously, when was she ever going to learn?
Pinching the bridge of my nose I began to mentally count down the hours before I saw Jake again. I was tired and stressed, and I needed him.
The sexts he sent me weren’t enough. I needed my man to fuck me.
A knock at the door made me jump. Mentally sorting out what bottle of red wine I was going to open, I crossed the room and opened the front door and was surprised to see Jupiter casually leaning against the doorframe.
And he was baring gifts of wine and flowers.
Of course he was.
“Jupiter, what a lovely surprise,” I said, rustling up as much enthusiasm as I could on a day like today.
He grinned that charismatic grin of his. “I’m taking you out. Now I know how you don’t like to mix business with pleasure, but technically I’m not on the job. I’m in town on personal business. So how about it, fancy hitting the Big Apple with me?”
I sighed. It was definitely time to let the secret out of the bag.
“How about you come in,” I said, opening the door wider. “I think there’s something you should know.”
We sat on the window seat overlooking the Village. Outside the shadows were growing long as the sun began to disappear into the horizon.
“So where are we going for dinner?” Jupiter asked confidently in that glorious British accent.
I grimaced. “See, that’s the problem.” I sighed, not relishing the idea of letting him down. “Jupiter, you’re so adorable but I already have a boyfriend.”
He looked aghast. “A boyfriend?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
He took a moment to register what I had said.
“Damn.” He sighed. And then asked cheekily. “Is it serious?”
I thought of Jake and my heart sped up. “Yeah, it’s serious.”
Jupiter’s eyes went to town on my face. “Well . . . he’s a lucky guy. My hat goes off to him. He’s found himself a wonderful woman.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “Thank you.”
Jupiter exhaled deeply. “Well, then, this suddenly seems wildly inappropriate.” He held up the wine and flowers. “Perhaps I should be going and we could both pretend this never happened.”
He stood up to leave but I stopped him.
“There’s one more thing . . .”
He looked at me. I had to tell him because when Jake and I went public with our relationship, I didn’t want there to be any weirdness between us.
“My boyfriend . . . ”
“Yes,” he prompted.
“. . . well, it’s Jake.”
It took him a moment to process what I was saying.
“I’m sorry, what?” he asked.
“Jake,” I repeated. “He’s my boyfriend.”
He looked surprised, as if it didn’t make any sense to him. “As in the Sasquatch?”
Again, I nodded. “The one and only.”
He slowly lowered himself back down onto the sofa. “Well, I’ll be goddamned. That sneaky little bugger.”
That was when Meg decided to wander in dressed in a fluffy pink robe with a towel wrapped around her head. She had a white face mask smeared across her skin making her look like something from a Day of the Dead celebration.
“You must be Mackenzie’s hot hockey player,” she said, not at all concerned about how she looked.
Jupiter leapt up. “Not Mackenzie’s hot hockey player, but a hot hockey player, nonetheless.” He grinned and extended her his hand. “James Charles Arbour, how do you do?”
“Meg Brown,” she replied, giving me a quick glance as she questioned why she had just given her surname to this complete stranger.
“It’s lovely to meet you, Meg Brown.”
“Likewise.” My best friend said slowly. And I could see it slowly tick over in her mind that this gloriously beautiful man standing in front of her was not just beautiful and sexy, but quite possibly available. Then she realized that she was standing there looking decidedly unbeautiful and unsexy in her robe and towel.
Her eyes widened and she reached up to touch her face. “Oh, hell.”
But Jupiter was clearly not put off by any of it and that night he took Meg out to dinner. At two-thirty in the morning when I got up for a glass of water I heard some tell-tale noises coming from her bedroom that told me their date was going extremely well.
I grinned as I skipped past her bedroom door on the way back to my bedroom.
Meg had found her suitable, un-weird guy after all.
* * *