“Look on the bright side,” Conor says. “She can’t be worse than the last one—nothing can be worse than Maryanne!”
I was hoping her name wasn’t going to come up. I haven’t thought about her in a few months, and for me that’s a record. She was a mistake—the first and only time I’ve ever mixed my personal and professional lives. That story I mentioned to Tori—let’s just say she’s the author of it. “Remember the last time you let your dick choose your books for you? How’d that turn out?”
They both laugh. It’s funny if you’re not me. It’s funny if you didn’t almost lose everything because of a fling with an author. A fling that became a relationship. A relationship that ended when I realized she was using me to get a publishing deal.
The crazy part is, I would have published her anyway. Maryanne’s a great writer. Me and the partners were unanimous right away about publishing her debut novel—the first in a long detective fiction series. That book was a hit. Not just a hit in the literary world—it was a crossover hit. She made her career, and our company made a lot of money. We published the next two in the series, and each did better than the last. Netflix is shooting the limited series now. Unfortunately, Maryanne isn’t with us anymore.
After the third book landed her on the New York Times bestseller list for six weeks in a row, it was time to renew her contract. We offered her a great deal, and at the time she was still my girlfriend. After we offered her the terms for a new contract, she took me out to dinner, broke up with me, and then had her agent reject our offer and inform us that she was ‘moving on’ to Mifflin, our biggest rival. Cynthia and Elissa were crushed, but I was crushed on both a personal and professional level. My partners didn’t know that Maryanne and I were an item—and if they ever found out they didn’t let on. When that whole thing ended I was good and messed up about it for a long time. She used me and my company to make her career, and once she got what she wanted she kicked us to the curb. That’s about the time I started valuing professional ethics over emotion.
I look at Aidan. He jumps in to stop Conor before he goes too far with the Maryanne thing and I get pissed for real. “Forget her. Exes are exes. Let’s leave her as our older bro’s Voldemort and let’s talk about this Tori chick instead.”
I thank him with my eyes. I’ll thank him with words next time I speak to him without Conor around. Normally I wouldn’t care about an ex being brought up—we all do it to each other, and we all have some hilarious stories that we like to bring up to embarrass one another whenever we get together like this, but Maryanne isn’t a joke—that girl ripped my still beating heart out of my chest like that dude in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
“This could be an epic, epic disaster,” I say.
“Or,” Aidan interrupts, “it could just be epic. You could change her mind about men, sling some powerful dick, and not have to do any of the shit real boyfriends have to do! You’re looking at this all wrong.”
I left the no-sex part out when I told them about this whole thing originally. My brothers—Conor especially—are kind of knuckleheads, and if I told them that I’m doing a lot of boyfriend shit without any of the boyfriend benefits they’d probably laugh at me, but I don’t want to lie to them. I take a deep breath and get ready for the ridicule. Here we go. “Oh, right, I didn’t tell you about that part.”
“About what part?” Aidan asks.
“The only rule of this little experiment she concocted was that we can’t have sex, or do anything physical.”
Rarely are my savage brothers speechless, but right now the only communication I’m getting is stunned silence and two judgmental eyebrow raises. Conor breaks the silence. “Excuse me?”
“Yeah. I know. She said she doesn’t even want to have to kiss me unless its required. You don’t have to say anything.”
“I think I do, bro. So lemme get this straight—you have to take her out, do shit around the house, all of that, but you don’t get to fuck her?”
“She was pretty explicit about that part, and she’s not the type to be easily swayed, so I’m gonna go with a hard no on that one. I don’t get to fuck her. Or even kiss her, from what she’s saying.”
Aidan looks at me and cracks up. “Holy shit, you got played.”
“How did I get played?”
“How?” he asks. “Oh, c’mon. You’re the older brother, you’re supposed to be the wise one.”
“I guess I left my wisdom back at the office. Enlighten me.”
“You just agreed to be a boyfriend without benefits. You’re gonna cook for her, spend your hard-earned money taking her to fancy restaurants, and at the end of it all she can just say that you didn’t change her mind and you’ll be forced to publish a book that you don’t want to publish.”
When Aidan says it like that it sounds even more ridiculous than it sounded in my head. He’s right. What’s in this arrangement for me? Why did I even (somewhat) agree to it? She has all the cards, and she can play them however she chooses.
“Fuck, maybe I need to text her to forget all this. You’re right, there’s no upside in it for me at all.”
“Unless. . .” Conor says, the smell of tequila already coming off him like it’s a cologne.
“Unless what?”
“You’re a partner in a prestigious publishing company.”
“Right. I think I knew that already. What’s your point?”
“My point, dick, is that you’re probably experienced in the art of negotiation, yes?”
“Yeah. I mean, authors try to negotiate terms of contracts all the time.”
“Well pretend that you’re on the other side of that table. Negotiate terms with her. Remember, you don’t even have to do this. You can just tell her no and it’s over, there’s nothing else she can do about it, right?” I nod. “So? Make sure that you get something out of the situation. If she won’t bend on the sex thing, think of other things you want her to do and work that into the contract.”
A contract.
Conor’s the most brilliant idiot I’ve ever known. Most of the shit he says is as dumb as he is, but every now and then he catches lightning in a bottle. We’ll negotiate terms and sign a contract!
“That’s a damn good idea.”
“Thank you,” he says, doing a little fake bow.
“I’ve gotta give it up to you, Snowball, it is a good idea.”
“Hey, fuck you!” Conor yells. “It’s been a while, we’re not bringing that Snowball shit back again.”
“Umm, I think we just did.” Me and Aidan belly laugh so hard people start to look at us. “But for real, I like that idea a lot. I’m gonna text her later and work out terms.” I take my second shot.
“Don’t get too drunk,” Aidan says. “If you’re gonna work this out correctly, the last thing you want to be is stupid drunk. You might say some dumb shit you regret, or forget to work something in that you really want.”
“You’re right,” I agree, stopping myself at my second shot. “You’re both right. You see, this is why I need my brothers.”
“Great,” Conor jokes. “Last round is on you.”
“You got it.”
Now all I need to do is think of what I want.
Tori
Shoshana is sitting across from me, looking at me like I just lost my mind.
Maybe I have.
I waited until we were done going over the notes for my next vlog to tell her about my rapidly unfolding book drama. She listened. She’s really good at listening. Unfortunately, she’s also good at asking a million follow up questions, a good deal of them inappropriate. But I guess when you tell your bestie that you’re shacking up with a semi-random guy who’s a partner in your dream publishing company, fielding a few questions is the least you can do.
“Wait, so you’re going to bang the guy who owns the publishing company? What’s his name again?”
“Cormac. Cormac Delaney. And I’m not banging anyone, Shosh, it’s just an experiment.”
&nb
sp; “That’s so crazy! I dated a Cormac junior year of high school. Did I ever tell you about him?” I shake my head. “Oh. Sad story. He had the smallest little baby dick—we’re talking end of thumb length—and to add insult to injury he used to hum when we made out. It was so weird that I had to break it off.”
“Wait, his dick or his humming were weird?”
“Both, actually. But the breakup was because of the humming—and because he was a little obsessive. They always go from boyfriend to stalker with me. I guess I just have that quality.”
I look at her sideways. She says the craziest shit sometimes. “That stalking quality?”
“It’s a thing. Look it up.”
“Actually, I’m more interested in the humming. Like, how did it sound?”
“It’s kinda hard to explain. I could show you but I’d have to have my tongue pretty far down your throat to get the sound just right. Wanna try it?”
“That’s a hard pass.”
“Fine, suit yourself. You’ll just have to use your writer’s imagination—think a seventeen-year-old with acne, a baby dick, and a soft muffled hum. That was my Cormac. I wonder what he’s up to these days? You think he found a girl with a little tiny vagina?”
“Have you ever stopped to consider how often you bring up vaginas in casual conversation? It’s, like, a lot.”
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I thought Ms. Feminist would be a little more comfortable talking about the female anatomy. Poser.”
“I am a poser,” I tell her. “I’m about to pretend to be a girlfriend to a guy I barely know—and all to get a book deal. What am I doing?”
“Back to your Cormac, right. You said he was a prick, didn’t you? That he hated your book?”
“He is—I mean, he was. It’s complicated.”
“Is it? Did you like him or didn’t you?”’
“Not at first. He was kind of an asshole to me. He made it seem like my book was a bunch of crap I’d made up out of thin air. But he seemed like less of a prick when we had coffee. I don’t know. He’s really hot, also.”
“So you want this guy to be your fake boyfriend for a few weeks, but you don’t want to have sex with him?”
“That’s right,” I tell her. “The spider webs are going to have to stay put a little longer. But it was the only play I had left. He was going to reject my book, I needed to act.”
“And this was what you came up with? Why not just go to another publishing house? You always hear successful authors talking about how they got rejected thirty times before getting lucrative deals. You could be one of those rejects!”
“Gee, thanks.”
“You know what I mean. I loved Fuckboys, whether some guy named Cormac hated it or not, but this is pretty far to the right of whacky, even for you.”
“I know.”
“You do realize why he got interested, right?”
“Yeah, because I exploited his ego and his fears.”
“No, Tor. You’re good but you’re not that good. He said yes because he secretly likes you.”
“I promise you he despises me—and the feeling is very mutual.”
“That’s just a guy thing. His words may say ‘I hate you and your stupid book’, but I bet his eyes say ‘I secretly want to be your fake boyfriend and have lots of very real sex with you.’ Am I right?”
“No, you’re not right.” Except she is right. She couldn’t be more right. She’s so right I feel like she might not be my best friend, she might be some kind of supernatural creature sent to watch over me and give me sage-like advice. “I mean, maybe you’re a little right. All I know for sure was that he was pretty close to agreeing to my deal when he walked out of that coffee shop.”
“So walk me through the rules. I’m interested now. Are you sleeping in the same bed? Oh, Tori, tell me you’re sleeping in the same bed!”
“Why do you want us to sleep together so bad?”
“’Cause he could be the one, Tor.”
“And which ‘one’ would that be?”
“He could be like that guy in the old story—Merlin, or whatever. No, wait, Merlin was that shady magician.” She looked at me all confused at that point, like I was supposed to be following her crazy thoughts. “Who’s the one who became the king?”
“You mean King Arthur?”
“Yes! This Cormac fella could be like Arthur, only instead of pulling a gigantic sword out of a hole it’s stuck in, he could stick his gigantic sword in. . .”
“Stop! Stop! Stop! I get it. God, where do you get these comparisons from?”
“Who knows? My mind is a strange and unexplored landscape. I think NASA’s sending a rover in there. But enough about me, let’s get back to your boy.”
“He’s not my boy.”
“That’s yet to be determined. So tell me the rules.”
“I’m not sure of all the rules just yet. He keeps asking for more and more. He wants to hold hands, and go on dates, and. . .”
“To fuck you? Yeah, of course he does, Tor.”
“Because he’s a man.”
“No, because you’re a goddess in human form. We’ve been over this before.”
Shoshana always tells me how beautiful I am and I never believe her. I don’t want to be defined by how I look or how a bunch of horny men perceive me. So usually I just brush her compliments off because I don’t really know what do with them.
That time I just gave her a hug. “Thank you. You’re too nice to me.”
“I know,” she agrees. “Now, look, I’m going to need details. Lots of them. All of them, actually. The dirtier the better. Especially the ones involving his penis.”
“You’ll be waiting a while because I’m never going to see his penis.”
“But you said he was hot?”
“Very.” I didn’t realize at first, but I feel myself smiling as I describe how good looking he is. I’d never say this out loud, but I like thinking about him—picturing the way he looked at me today, even as he was spitting venom from his tongue. Oh, that tongue. What that thing could do to me. . . I like thinking about what his body must look like under his clothes. “Yeah, he is, alright. Like. . . hot hot. Hotter than anyone either of us has ever seen in person.”
“Well, holy shit balls. This just became much more exciting—for me, I mean. You have a lot of issues to deal with.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“You’ll be fine. There are worse punishments than having to live with a hot guy who keeps asking to touch, kiss, and otherwise take the place of BOB. Just unclench that tight ass of yours and go with the flow. Let it happen.”
We record for my blog, have some leftover pizza, and then Shosh goes on yet another date with some guy she met on an app. I swear, for a hot woman who runs a huge social media empire, she doesn’t know where to find a good guy. She deserves better than the kind of creeps who always seem to find her. One day I hope she meets the right guy.
Now it’s ten o’clock and, even though I feel like I’m a hundred years old for doing this, I’m about to pass out. It’s been a long one. Just as I close my eyes, I hear my phone vibrating. It’s been a long day, and who could possibly be so rude as to call me this late?
“Hello?” Oh lord. Of course it’s him. “Yes? What? What contract? Are you drunk? Wait, wait, stop, you’re slurring a little. Listen. Let’s meet for breakfast tomorrow morning. You know the Colony Diner on Broad Street? Let’s meet there at seven. You can explain then, alright? Good. Goodnight.”
I hang up. He was definitely drunk, no doubt about it.
Maybe this was all a mistake. Maybe I acted too fast—again—without thinking of the consequences. I mean, Cormac’s company is the most prestigious publishing company in the city, and they are the place to get your book out there.
We’re not even living together yet and I’m already getting drunk dials at ten at night, babbling about some contract we should make together. I don’t even know what he was saying, and I don’t think he does either. I gue
ss we’ll find out tomorrow morning.
I close my eyes. I’m a terrible sleeper. Always have been. Usually I can’t keep my mind still enough to actually fall asleep at a decent hour. I’m always thinking. About my work, my family, my work again, about anything you can imagine. But never thoughts like. . . like this.
As soon as my eyes are sealed I see him, Cormac, in front of me. Well, not really in front of me—more like, on top of me. He’s not wearing that stuffy business suit, and he has nothing bad to say about me. In fact, he doesn’t speak at all. He doesn’t need to. His naked body hovers just over me, dripping sweat and smelling like pure man. He has a firm touch, reaching down and putting his hand on my face before he kisses me.
When I open my eyes, my hand is down between my legs. I didn’t even realize I’d slid my finger inside of myself. All I remember is the feeling my body had when he put himself on top of me, pressing down, the smell of him filling my nose. All it took was the sound of that deep voice to hit me right where it matters.
I hate that I’m attracted to him when I find the rest of him so repulsive. Maybe living with him will cure me of that. Or maybe it’ll make it even worse. Good Lord, Tori, what did you get yourself into?
We’ll find out tomorrow.
Tori
He’s five minutes late.
I was expecting it to be at least ten after how he sounded on the phone last night. I can practically smell him from where I’m sitting, but even hung over he looks fine as hell. He’s walking towards the table and I notice how his particular style of disheveled really works for me. He’s got a five o’clock shadow and his hair is all messy. All I think about as he walks towards me is running my hands through it.
That’s not all I want.
What I really want is to find him hideous—to be repulsed by him and think he’s a complete troll, but that’s not the case at all. If I have a type, he’s definitely it. After we spoke last night I couldn’t get him out of my head, and I had some of the most intense dreams I’ve had in years.
The Three Kiss CLause Page 7
