“You boned him!” Amanda shrieked into my ear. “You boned Dr. Erotic! This is almost too much to comprehend right now!”
“Would you stop yelling? I’m at work right now,” I whisper-yelled into the phone as I hopped to my feet and quickly shut the door to my office. Well, my shared office with another Gossip columnist. Since, I did most of my work from home—well, usually my favorite coffee shop up the street from my apartment—I wasn’t in the offices more than one or two days a week.
Thankfully, my office mate Fiona, was enjoying a nice reprieve in the Bahamas.
But it was more than clear I’d made a huge mistake on dishing the dirty details to Amanda while I was at Gossip’s offices. The last thing I needed was for my coworkers to hear I’d been rendezvousing with Scott Shepard. It was one thing to work with nosy people, but it was a whole other ball of wax when being nosy paid their fucking bills.
Unfortunately, it was either now or a six a.m. phone call East Coast time, thanks to the six-hour time difference my stupid jet-setting friend had created. And Lord knows, I was not a fan of waking up before the sun rose.
“Like, in your office at work?” she asked. “Or just sitting around in your underwear inside of your apartment at work?”
“In my office, smartass.”
“Are you wearing pants?”
“Obviously,” I muttered. “My boss would stab me in the vagina with her stiletto if I was just strolling around the offices flashing my beave to everyone.”
“So you’re a crotchless panties kind of gal?” my best friend questioned with a smile in her voice. “Go figure. I never would’ve guessed.”
“Oh, yeah,” I retorted. “I just love wearing underwear that literally serve no purpose. It’s my favorite.”
She laughed. “I still don’t understand the point in them. Like, either just be naked or wear underwear. Why do the halfway thing?”
“For some reason, a lot of guys dig it.”
“Mateo would just want me bare.”
Wait…what? Did she just say Mateo?
“I mean…” she stuttered. “I’m pretty sure Mateo is the kind of guy who doesn’t—”
“Who doesn’t what, Amanda?” I questioned. “He’s the kind of guy who doesn’t like fucking you when you’re wearing crotchless panties? Because you’re totally boning your client and you said you’d never do it, but you totally are having sex with that Spanish piece of meat! Oh my God! You little floozy! Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Fuck,” she muttered. “I just… It just kind of happened…”
I grinned. I’d fucking called this one since before she’d left to run Spanish Adonis’s PR tour. “Is this the point in the conversation where I say I told you so?”
“Like you should talk,” she snarked. “Two words. Scott motherfucking Shepard.”
“Pretty sure that’s three words.”
“Whatever,” she retorted. “And I’d say it looks like we’re both having an I told you so moment, huh?”
She had a point. “Touché.”
“But in all seriousness, this whole thing with…yeah…with him…it needs to stay on the down low, okay? Like, no one else can know it happened or else I could lose my job with the firm.”
“I’m not going to say a word. Promise.” I might’ve been a gossip columnist, but I had boundaries, and my best friend’s life was definitely a hard limit for me.
She sighed. “Sometimes it’s a little unnerving that my best friend writes a goddamn gossip column.”
I laughed. “You mean, it’s unnerving when you’re actually in the middle of something completely hot that is totally gossip-worthy, but that I would never in a million years write about?”
“Exactly,” she responded, amused. “Okay, I gotta go now, but you bet your sweet ass we are revisiting the whole you having sex with Dr. Erotic conversation later. I need to know details. Lots and lots of dirty details.”
“Ditto. I’ve heard Spanish guys are really good with their rhythm, and I really need you to confirm that it isn’t a case of stereotyping. And I sure as fuck would love to know if you’re ever going to come back home or if you intend to run away with your new boyfriend.”
It felt like it had been a year since I’d last seen my best friend. Sure, it’d only been about a month, and the PR tour that was supposed to be a month had only been extended to two, but still. I was half tempted to catch a flight to Europe just to make sure she was okay and not living against her will in a random cult inside of a remote village.
She scoffed. “He’s not my boyfriend, Low. And I’m not sure of the exact date I’ll be back. The PR tour is prolonged because Mateo is getting such an amazing response everywhere he goes.”
“Okay. Fine. Your Spanish lover,” I corrected. “And by amazing response do you specifically mean the response he receives from your vagina?”
She snorted. “Shut up.”
“Give your Spanish lover a tongue kiss for me. Loveyoubye!” And before she could toss out a sarcastic retort, I ended the call and got back to work.
And by work, I meant research.
And by research, I meant browsing the internet for funny GIFs and taking BuzzFeed quizzes.
In my defense, though, sometimes it’s these very GIFs that inspire the next column.
Generally, it’s the GIFs where hot male celebrities are shirtless, but still.
Inspiration is inspiration, right?
And in my opinion, nothing says inspiration like Ryan Reynolds and Chris Pratt shirtless…
“Harlow,” my boss’s voice pulled my attention from my laptop. In all of her power-suit glory, with the door now opened, she stood inside of the doorway of my office space.
I cleared my throat. “Yes, Stella?” I asked as I quickly clicked out of the BuzzFeed quiz I was taking and sat up straight in my chair.
She strode across the hardwood floor, her stilettos click-clacking with each step until she reached my desk. Stella McCarthy—my boss and the editor in chief of Gossip—was a real-life doppelgänger of Miranda Priestly from The Devil Wears Prada. When she said jump, everyone in the office asked how high. And when she actually took the time to stop by your office, you’d better make damn sure you weren’t fucking around.
I took a quick glance at my laptop screen to make sure only my Word doc was visible. The last thing I needed was for Stella to see me taking a Guess My Age Based on My Olive Garden Selection quiz.
“I need you to cover an extra piece this week.”
Goddammit, Cruella de Vil. I’ve already taken on two extra pieces this week!
“Okay.” I forced a smile. “What’s the piece?”
“That popstar, Smiley Walrus.”
Not only was Stella a pain in the ass to work for, the woman never got celebrity names right. Like, ever. It was honestly a fucking conundrum considering she was the editor in chief for a gossip rag.
“Do you mean Miley Cyrus?” I asked, and she raised a pointed brow in my direction.
Another thing about Stella, the woman refused to admit any mistakes or faults. She was literally the world’s worst human being to work for.
“That’s what I said, isn’t it?” she questioned in irritation.
Um. No. I’m pretty sure you said Smiley Walrus…
“Yep,” I lied.
“I want a piece about her budding relationship with that Holmsmore brother,” she instructed, and I had the urge to say, Hemsworth brother, but I bit my tongue. The last thing I needed was Stella’s wrath on a Tuesday morning.
Generally, if you got on her bad side for the week, she’d take pleasure in giving you a month’s worth of work with a deadline of twenty-four hours. And the sickest part of all was that most of the time, she didn’t even use the extra assignments.
“Okay.” I forced a neutral expression even though the urge to glare was strong as a motherfucker. “No problem.”
“Finish it by tomorrow so it can go on the site by Friday.”
Ugh.
“I’ll start working on it now,” I said, and she strode back out of my office without another word. When the sound of her stilettos click-clacking down the hall disappeared completely, I sagged into my desk chair on a deep and heavy sigh.
It was times like these that I wondered how I’d gotten so off track in my life. When I’d started my freshman term of college at NYU, I began the year with the intention of going pre-med. And by the time I’d reached my junior year, I’d been ahead and finished all of my prerequisites. Hell, I’d even been accepted for a summer internship with one of the country’s top specialized surgeons.
But then, I’d met Brent. And my life had taken an abrupt turn and headed in the exact opposite direction of where I’d intended.
I’d lost a lot during that relationship. I’d lost myself. I’d lost my priorities. I’d lost some of my closest friends. I’d lost everything that was important to me. And it would always be the one example—the most important reminder—of why another long-term relationship was not something I’d ever try again.
Unless I happened to have already met the right person.
Good God, not this thought process again…
No. No relationships. Not with Scott or any other man for that matter. I’d promised myself that, and I was sticking to that fucking promise. I loved myself too much to let myself get lost again like I had with my ex.
Before the painful memories of my relationship with Brent—or the ridiculous and scarily recurrent thoughts I’d been having about Scott—could find their way inside my head, I moved my focus to my laptop. I was on a deadline, for fuck’s sake. I didn’t have time for bullshit. I had to find my goddamn center and finish this feel-good column about current celebrity relationships that overcame all of the odds—for a couple years, at least—along with the added piece about Smiley Walrus and her Holmsmore fiancé.
Sigh. Just find your writing mojo, Harlow…
Twenty minutes later and my brain was void of depressing thoughts and solely focused on my work tasks. Writing gossip columns wasn’t exactly my dream job, but it paid the bills, and often, I did enjoy making Gossip readers laugh with witty one-liners and quirky anecdotes.
“Knock. Knock.” The unexpected voice stopped my fingers’ progress across the keys and pulled my gaze away from my laptop screen. A young guy, probably college age, stood in the doorway holding a brown paper sack in his hands. “I have a delivery for you.”
“A delivery? For me?” I questioned in surprise. I wasn’t expecting any deliveries.
“You’re Harlow Paige, right?”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “That’s me.”
“Yep,” he said and walked into the office. “This delivery is definitely for you, then.”
“Do you know who it’s from?”
“Uh…” He set the brown paper sack on my desk and scanned the Blackberry in his hand. “It’s from a Dr. Hickey?”
“Dr. Hickey?” I asked, horrified. Of course, I knew the sender’s real identity.
Scott Shepard. Only a self-righteous, sarcastic bastard like him would go to the trouble of calling himself something horrendous like Dr. Hickey.
I bit my lip to fight my smile, but it was a lost cause. My cheeks stung from their abrupt, puffed-out, happy state.
Jesus. Why am I smiling like a lunatic?
It was a mindfuck, to be honest. Scott Shepard should have annoyed me, not made me goddamn giddy and grinning like I was one antidepressant away from stripping off my clothes and dancing naked in a field of daisies.
“Just sign here,” the delivery guy said and held out his iPad and stylus pen.
I followed his instructions and quickly scribbled my electronic signature across the device.
“Have a nice day,” he said with a wave and left my office.
As I unrolled the top of the brown paper bag, goodness assaulted me. Mmm. Sweet and sugary, there was no mistaking the scent of maple syrup. Food. Tasty, high-calorie food was inside this bag.
I pulled the white takeout box out of the bag and popped it open to find a large serving of the most irresistible looking pancakes I’d ever seen in my life. Nutella, bananas, whipped cream—Jesus Christ, it was heaven in a box.
I was all set to dive in face first, when I spotted the small envelope attached to the back of the bag. My name was written neatly across the front, and inside sat a little note.
I know you can’t resist these. Or me.
Enjoy.
Dr. Hickey
I shook my head.
That cocky bastard.
Why I was smiling was still a mystery, but I decided to blame it on the pancakes. I mean, no human being in their right mind could frown when looking down at this pile of sugary goodness. Before I ate myself into a carb coma, I pulled my cell phone out of my purse and called the pancake culprit.
“Harlow,” he greeted on the second ring, a smile apparent in his voice.
“Dr. Hickey?” I asked, and he chuckled shamelessly.
“Did you taste them?”
“Hell no.” I feigned annoyance. “I never eat food sent over by people I don’t know. I trashed them.”
“You’re so full of shit,” he refuted. “I bet you’ve got a greedy fork within an inch of digging into them right now.”
I totally did.
Wow. I don’t even remember pulling that fork out of the plastic.
But he didn’t need to fucking know that.
“Nope,” I lied. “I had the delivery guy reroute them to the dumpster behind the building.”
“You know what’s crazy?”
“What?”
“I just got off the phone with Tim, the delivery guy, and he said you accepted the delivery.”
Fucking Tim.
Wait…how did he know the delivery guy’s name?
I raised a skeptical brow. Something was fishy about this scenario, and it wasn’t the fucking pancakes. “How in the hell do you know the delivery guy?”
“He’s actually one of the techs in the ER,” he explained. “I gave him some extra cash to act like a delivery guy.”
“What the hell?” I all but shouted. “He even had a fucking iPad and made me sign for the goddamn pancakes.”
Tim was a total con man and almost as big of an asshole as Scott.
Too bad you don’t really think Scott’s an asshole…
Ugh. Stop with the friendly thoughts!
Scott chuckled softly in response, but he didn’t say anything further about Tim the Trickster. “Take a bite, Harlow,” he demanded, and every cell in my body agreed that it was the best idea they’d ever heard.
But despite the drool at the corner of my lips, I stayed strong. “No,” I spat. “Not doing it.”
“Just take a bite,” he whispered. “You know you want to.”
“Nope.”
“Do it, Harlow.”
But God, they look so good… I couldn’t stop my tongue from licking across my lips in anticipation.
“Will you leave me alone, then?”
“Sure.”
“Fine,” I agreed and dug in with my “at-the-ready” plastic cutlery. My taste buds danced with the delicious flavors of freshly made pancakes covered in the world’s best ingredients.
Holy Moses, they were amazing. I moaned before I could stop myself.
“That good?” Scott’s amused voice filled my ear.
“Shut up,” I retorted over a mouthful of pancakes and Nutella.
“God,” he purred into my ear. “I fucking love that moan of yours.”
“I’m not having phone sex with you.”
A barking laugh left his lips. “Have real sex with me, then.”
“Nope,” I refuted, even though, for some insane reason, I secretly wanted to shout, Hell yes, fuck me stupid, and then feed me these pancakes again in the morning!
“Go on a date with me,” he demanded—something he’d been doing more and more since the day after penetration.
“Nope.”
“Come on, Harlow,” he cajoled.
“I don’t date.”
“Just one date,” he persisted.
“Not happening.”
“Dr. Shepard!” A panicked voice filled the background. “We need you in exam room eight!”
My brow furrowed. “Uh… That sounds important… I better let you go…”
“Nope,” he refuted. “You have to agree to a date with me first.”
“Dr. Shepard!” the voice called again, even more anxious this time.
“Holy hell, Scott!” I shouted into the phone. “Now is not the time to talk about dates! Go to exam room eight!”
“Dr. Shepard!”
“A man’s life is on the line here, Harlow,” Scott added. “You should probably just agree to the date so I can go save his life.”
“This is so fucking dirty!”
“Uh-oh…” Scott whispered, and my eyes went wide.
“What?”
“Nothing…” He paused and then a shocked gasp left his lips. “Oh God, that doesn’t look good…”
Holy hell.
“Jesus Christ! I’ll go on a date with you!” I yelled into the phone. “Just go help that man!”
“Fantastic,” he responded immediately. “Tomorrow night at seven.”
“Fine,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Where do you want to eat?”
“Oh. My. God!” I shouted in exasperation. “I’m hanging up. Go save that guy’s life.”
“Am I done?” a voice whispered in the background, and Scott responded back to whoever it was with ease. “Yep. Thanks, Cal.”
And miraculously, the earlier panic and chaos completely disappeared from the background.
“Wait a minute…” My jaw dropped in shock. “What’s going on, Scott?”
The line stayed quiet.
“Scott.”
“Yeah, Harlow?”
“You owe me, dude.” The voice was in the background again, and just like before, Scott responded to him, “Eighteen holes next weekend? I’ll buy?”
“Hell yeah,” the voice agreed.
That motherfucker.
I pulled the phone away from my ear and sent a FaceTime video request Scott’s way.
Within seconds, his handsome face filled my screen.
“Miss me that much?” he asked with a sexy smirk.
“Where’s the emergency?” I questioned while my eyes scrutinized his current location. There was no hustle and bustle, no nothing. Just a fridge and a microwave sitting behind him.
The jerk had been sitting in a goddamn break room the whole time.
“Oh. My. God. Did you have someone pretend to be dying just so I would agree to a date with you?” I questioned, and he nodded without shame.
“See you tomorrow night, Harlow,” he said, and I flipped him the bird before hanging up the phone.
Too bad, after I’d hung up the phone, my entire fucking face was smiling.