Chapter Five
Mornings. I relished mornings. Starbucks in hand, I sat in my usual spot near Drumheller Fountain, more famously known as Frosh Pond. I’d dunked many a freshman in my day, though as a senior, my maturity level had clearly grown leaps and bounds.
The morning mist was chilly—it was always chilly—but I refused to pick another spot.
I was like Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory.
The pond was my leather couch. The space right in front of Bagley Hall, my own personal couch cushion.
“Damn.” Lex yawned loudly as he walked up to me, his own coffee clearly not doing the trick. “It’s early.”
“It’s seven.” I took another sip of my drip Pike Place Roast. “It’s only early if you stayed up all night with . . . ?”
Lex grinned. “Serena. Wildcat in bed. Forgot my name twice. Asked if I believed in unicorns. Has attended Comicon three times, every time as a different character from X-Men. Her strength is her ability to say the ABC’s backward, and when I asked for her number, she cried.”
“Shit.” I let out a low whistle. “Must have had your A game going for you last night.”
Lex rolled his eyes. “I’m never off my game.”
“Right,” I said patronizingly. “So that one time you hit on Gabi was a fluke?”
“I was drunk,” he said defensively. “Can we not talk about Gabi this early in the morning? It ruins my entire day.”
“Sure, whore. Now let me see the schedule.”
We moved over to one of the benches and sat. That was the thing about Wingmen Inc. We never did business meetings in the house, never brought clients to the house. It was an unwritten rule. No mixing business with pleasure. We figured we needed some pretty strict ground rules, especially since the last thing we wanted was for everyone to actually know who was behind the company.
We did all of our work strictly on campus.
Granted, the girls knew once they met one of us.
But they were sworn to secrecy. Basically they signed a contract that said if they uttered one word about Wingmen Inc., we’d sue their asses.
I’m sure you’re wondering how other people on campus haven’t caught on.
It’s easy.
Remember how I said we don’t mix business with pleasure? I’ll repeat it. We don’t mix business with pleasure. So from the outside looking in, it’s all pleasure.
We were players before; we’re players now.
People just assume we date every color of the rainbow; every size, every shape—we don’t discriminate. It’s why we’re also so approachable to every female on campus. One day I’d date a model; the next I’d be helping a blind chick learn how to ride a bike for the first time.
You get the point.
In our world? Every woman is beautiful. Every woman has a purpose. Every woman has one guy she’s been after, one unobtainable piece of man art.
Just think of the two of us as the brokers.
You’re welcome, world.
“So . . .” Lex pulled out his phone and held it near mine. Immediately, an Excel spreadsheet popped up on my screen. “You have Shell for the rest of the week and then an opening before you’re booked for the next two months straight. Two girls a week, starting in three weeks. Can you handle that, or do you want me to take one?”
I scrolled through the names after Shell. “What’s the story on her?”
“Avery Adams.” Lex let out a dark chuckle. “Oh, she’s a fun one.”
“Fun as in, I’ll actually have fun, or I may want to end my life after spending a week with her?”
“The second, I think.” Lex nodded, furiously tapping on his phone, then pulled up a full profile with her age, height, major, favorite foods, hobbies, dreams, dress size, and coffee drinks she liked. Let’s just say our intake form was extensive. It typically took each client a few hours to fill out. “She’s in love with her study partner.”
“Aren’t they all?”
“He’s a chem major, a year younger than her.”
My eyebrows shot up in interest. It was usually the opposite—the guy was older. Younger was a fun change.
“And he’s more interested in ring strain in cyclopropane and cyclobutane, which is exactly what he’s helping her with right now. She keeps pretending not to understand.”
“Well, I’d have to pretend to understand. What the hell is a ring strain?”
“Business majors,” Lex huffed.
“Science nerds,” I countered.
“So she’s failed three times, he’s starting to think she’s stupid, which she isn’t, and it’s clearly affecting her chances at settling down with him.”
“Settling down.” I let the two words roll around in my head a bit. “So this isn’t a quick trip to Bangtown. She wants—”
“Babies.” Lex shivered while I made a face of disgust.
“Great.” For her. “Does anything in his background give us an idea of how open he’d be to commitment?”
“Parents have been married for twenty-five years. Basically, from what I’ve seen, he’s just shy and awkward. And the girl’s kinda cute if you take off her glasses. My guess: he’s intimidated. I put both of their info into my program, and it’s a perfect match.” He scrolled to the bottom of the page. “If they can successfully get past the first date, my data says they have a ninety-eight percent chance of staying together and”—he grunted the next word—“committed.”
“She does know how to kiss?” I took a slow sip of coffee, and it burned down my throat. Not much worse in life than teaching a girl how to kiss. Awkward, time-consuming, and—I shuddered—most of the time they did this weird tongue thing that made my mouth feel like it was being held hostage by an alien.
“Passed that test with flying colors, though she seems to be confused on what her tongue’s supposed to do once the kiss deepens. I gave her an A for effort, C-plus for execution.”
I supposed I could work with that. “Body?”
“All women’s bodies are beautiful.”
And people called us jackasses.
At least we knew that all women had something to offer, regardless of how oddly shaped the package might be. There was always something. Always.
“And?” I prodded further.
“She’s a bit on the short side. So is Romeo.”
“Sexual experience?”
“She’s had two partners and marked both down as bad.”
“That may be a problem if he doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
“We can always make sure to give him a few pointers or conveniently have a conversation while he’s grabbing his daily coffee about how to please a woman. If he doesn’t know what he’s doing, he’ll stay and listen. If he does, he’ll walk off smirking.”
We both nodded.
I squinted as the sun started pushing through the clouds. “She’ll be easy then.”
“Yeah.” Lex scrolled through the next client. “This one actually just popped up on the site this morning, but since your schedule is kinda full, I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to let her apply.”
“Do it.” I didn’t even look at the screen. “I have some time.”
“But—”
“I need to go.” I stood, stretching my arms and my coffee above my head. “Shell has an early class with Douchepants, and I’m supposed to walk her to it while carrying her books, then kiss her on the forehead.”
“Tale as old as time, my friend.” Lex let out a halfhearted laugh. “It’s not the tongue kissing that gets the guy to notice.”
“Nope.” I fist-bumped him and started walking off. “It’s the gentle kiss.”
“It’s always the gentle kiss,” Lex yelled after me.
I had a sneaking suspicion that once we graduated and this shit went viral, Facebook was going to try and buy us out for a billion dollars.