Chapter
Thirty-Five
Ian? Are you even listening to me? We kissed. It was amazing . . .”
Hell, even if it was the worst kiss of her life, it would have still been amazing, because when you’re in love or when you really like someone, you can damn near justify anything.
Well, of course he had coffee breath. He works at Starbucks! Duh, he drinks coffee!
Silly Ian. Oh, no, he meant to hit my teeth!
He said he’d been pining for me for years. Years! Can you stand it?
No, I really can’t. Please stop talking.
Or my personal favorite: He said more spit makes things better, because a dry mouth can kill you during oral. I swear.
Right, and balls fall off if you don’t have sex before forty.
No, really. Look it up.
“Ian!” Vivian snapped her fingers in front of me. “After the kiss, how do I still keep him interested?”
Yeah, I needed to stop daydreaming about a certain girl and a certain guy who I could see were currently walking hand in hand toward the HUB.
“You . . .” Frantic at the sight, I reached for Vivian’s hand. “Shit, Vivian, one kiss is fine, but the second kiss is the one that tells them the first wasn’t a fluke. So this time, let him kiss you, but give him some mixed signals. It can’t be too easy.”
“Okay.” She frowned. “So maybe sit farther away from him?”
David laughed at something Blake said. She was wearing jeans and a short top that showed off her tan skin, damn it!
“Ian,” Vivian growled.
“Right.” Without thinking, I pulled Vivian into my lap, blocking my view of David and Blake. “Get playful with him, and when he leans in, pull back, like this.” I leaned in, she pulled back and smiled.
I felt hollow. Empty. “Good job, Vivian. Just make sure that it’s a playful kiss, and then it can turn passionate. But don’t make out—that’s not for the second kiss or even the third. Keep him wanting. When do you see him again?”
“Well.” Vivian squirmed on my lap. Damn, her butt was bony—give the girl a cookie or something. I love women’s bodies, but eat, for God’s sake. “We’re supposed to study tonight.”
“Public place. Then go somewhere for drinks afterward, tell him you need a break.”
“Got it.” Vivian squirmed more.
Blake and David must be gone.
“Okay, off you go.” I heaved her off my lap and stood just as David and Blake turned toward me. By the looks of her mouth, he’d been kissing her, or trying to pry her lips from her face. But she didn’t look satisfied; if anything, she looked pissed.
You’re welcome for giving you your heart’s desire, princess. Now stop glaring at me.
“Old client?” Vivian nodded over at them.
“Sort of.” I frowned and grabbed my phone. “Text me with the location tonight, and I’ll hang out in the background to make sure you don’t need a wingman.”
“Hah.” Vivian nodded. “You really take your job seriously, don’t you?”
David gave me the finger behind Blake’s back. I knew there was something wrong with that bastard!
“You have no idea.”
“Thanks, Ian!” Vivian skipped off while I made a mental note to cut David’s brakes, you know, when Blake wasn’t in the passenger seat. I wouldn’t harm a hair on her head. But David? Let’s just say I wanted to rip him limb from limb.
“Blake paid us,” Lex announced when I walked into the house and set all my school stuff out on the table.
“I did the right thing.” I was saying that a lot lately. In my head while showering. Right before bed when I still smelled her on my sheets, regardless of how many times I washed them. Before class, after class. So basically it had become my new mantra. I did the right thing.
Exactly seven hours later, I was still repeating that to myself as I lay across the couch and wondered how much pizza one man could consume before he actually ate himself to death.
Would it be less painful than drowning?
Would Lex mourn me? Or simply cash in on the fact that I’d overdosed on pizza and get Domino’s to name a pie after me?
Deep thinking. That’s what my life had turned into. Well, that, no showers, overeating, and Game of Thrones reruns.
In a moment of complete pizza-drunk weakness, I sent a text to Blake.
Ian: I miss you.
She texted back right away.
Blake: You dumped me for my own good and rejected me when I said I loved you. Go. To. Hell.
She punctuated the text with a smiley face.
A smiley face meant there was still hope. Right?
Oh shit, and the teacher becomes the student. I always tell my clients a smiley face does not mean “I want to have sex with you”; sometimes a smiley face just means “I’m happy.”
Did that mean she was happy for me to go to hell?
I frowned as yet another main character on GoT was slaughtered in front of me.
And I felt nothing.
Shit, life was bad when you felt nothing after the death of one of your favorite characters.
“Get up,” Lex barked.
With a very solid double middle-finger salute, I let him know my opinion of that suggestion and continued watching as blood poured out of the dude’s chest.
Huh, maybe I should become an actor and get myself killed. Better than death by pizza. I didn’t want to smell like pepperoni in my casket.
I reached for the bottle of Jack Daniel’s. Not a drop rolling around the bottom. Well, damn.
Lex snatched the remote from the table and turned down the volume. “Seriously, get the hell up and stop moping around. It’s scaring the shit out of me. Let’s go to a bar.”
“No.”
“Dude.” Lex fell onto the couch. “You’re seriously killing me here. The stats for their relationship success don’t lie, fine. The fact is, they have a higher success rate. BUT SHE LOVES YOU!”
“Must you shout?”
“Please, that empty bottle has been sitting there since ten this morning. You’ve been drinking water and eating pizza—that’s how you deal. Pizza. You disgust me.”
“Pagliacci delivers, man. Can’t beat that. And no hangover.”
“Look.” A thick folder landed in my lap.
“What the hell is this?”
“Your background info against hers.”
“Lex.” I growled his name like a curse. Sure, grab some salt and pour it into the gaping hole that is my heart. Really, I’ll just sit here and take it. “I don’t want to get more depressed.” I shoved the folder away.
Lex sighed loudly. “I love you like a brother. But this folder is ruining your life. I want you to see the stats. The real stats.”
“Real stats?” I repeated, sitting up straighter, interest suddenly piqued. “What do you mean real stats?”
“Look.” Lex held up his hands innocently in front of him. “I may have . . . tweaked the numbers a bit . . .”
“‘A bit,’ meaning you rounded up instead of down?”
Lex coughed into his hand.
“Lex!” I lunged for him, but all the pizza made me slow and sluggish. “What the hell did you do?”
“What I had to do,” Lex shouted. “You are seriously such an idiot.”
“Thank you?” I shook my head. “And I repeat, what the hell did you do?”
“I know you.”
“I know me too, thanks.”
“No, I really know you.” Lex ran his hand over his buzzed head. “You slept with a client. A client, Ian. Our business is based off your ability to, first off, not do that, but also to be damn good at what you do. Remember when we first started? What’s the oath we both took?”
I swallowed the bitterness in my throat. “Never fall in love.”
“Right.” Lex nodded. “And on that same drunken night, what did you make me swear to you?”
I didn’t answer.
“Ian, damn it! What did you force me to do?”
“I made you promise not to let me.”
“And why is that?”
“Because I was tired of losing shit . . . I lost my ability to play, and I moved on, but I didn’t like the emotional pain. Hell, who would? So I told you to always have my back.”
“So”—Lex opened the folder—“I did.”
I glanced down at the sheet and nearly tackled him to the floor. “Holy shit! How is this supposed to make me feel better?”
Lex burst out laughing. “I couldn’t do it. I changed the numbers by five points, man. Five whole points. And it was enough to ruin you. Don’t you get it? Fifty percent? Fifty-five percent? It doesn’t matter. Numbers can lie. The heart—”
“Damn poet. That’s how you get so much ass,” I said in an irritated tone.
“I rarely have to use my words, Ian. Rarely.”
“So she’d still be settling with me.”
“Only one way to find out.” Lex stood and offered his hand. “I know for a fact where David’s partying tonight, and word on the street is he’s at it alone while Blake hangs out with Gabs. Care for a drink?”
My eyes narrowed. “What? You think Mr. Goody Two-Shoes Oh Look a Butterfly Let’s Rescue It Then Go Hug a Tree is actually as bad as I wish he was? Believe me, I wish that were the case.”
Lex shook his head. “No, man, because you look like shit. I highly doubt you could even board an airplane without hitting the weight limit.”
I lifted my shirt. “Six-pack, you were saying?”
“Stop flashing me.” Lex looked away and covered his eyes. “Where the hell do you put it?”
“You know, a girl asked me that once. I didn’t answer, just shoved my giant—”
“Clearly you’re feeling better.” Lex held out his hand again. “Let’s toss you in the shower and get some ‘sex me’ clothes on. Remember one of the most important stats? Guys typically mess up within the first two weeks of a new relationship. And why is this?”
“God complex sets in,” I grumbled. “They finally won the lottery, and they want to buy everyone a drink.”
“God complex.” Lex nodded. “Translation: I stole a sexy piece of ass away from Ian Hunter, which means I could have any chick I want, so come hither, my little pretties, and let me show you what a real man can do.”
I made a face. “Please, like they’d even feel him.”
“Hah.” Lex nodded. “Alright, my work here is done. Go get your shit together. We leave in fifteen.”