He laughs. “Yeah, exactly.”
“Cute,” I say. “But that’s a big old no.”
“What? Why? Is it such a big deal?”
I guess it shouldn’t be. The truth that I’m trying to hide from myself is that the idea of kissing him isn’t just something that wouldn’t bother me—it’s something I keep thinking about the more I look at him. Even obnoxious, cocky, and shoving his face full of waffles he’s still so hot that I keep forgetting that we’re just going to be pretending.
“So, if I’m hearing you correctly, you want a three-kiss clause included in our little contract? Am I right?”
“A three-kiss clause,” he repeats, smiling at himself like a happy idiot. “I like that, write that on the napkin.”
“Slow your roll, there. I didn’t agree. I was just confirming.”
“Oh, come on Tori. Would it really be so bad to kiss me three times?”
I stop, frozen in his gaze. For a second, I forget where we are, or just what we’re doing. Instead I only hear his question, and with razor focus I think to myself the most honest answer there is. No, Cormac, it wouldn’t be bad at all. It would be the opposite of bad. I take a deep breath, afraid to be vulnerable.
“Alright, done.”
“Excuse me?” he asks, looking confused at my change of heart.
“I said alright. Does this mean that we have a deal?”
This time it’s him who stops and thinks—and he’s really thinking now. I realize that I’m holding my breath, hoping that he says yes. And just then. . .
“I must be out of my mind to be agreeing to this, but yeah, we have a deal.”
“Yes!” I throw my hands up in the air like I just won something. “That’s amazing!”
“Wait,” he says. I start to worry he’s going to change his mind, and that’s when he asks something neither of us has really thought of. “Where are we going to stay?”
Shit. I hadn’t thought of that. The idea of him at my place is just. . . no. But the idea of staying at his place is also unappealing. “I have no idea. Who gets the home court advantage?”
He thinks again, then takes the last gulp of his cup of coffee. “I have an idea—how about neither of us has the home court advantage? My partner, Cynthia, has a place in the suburbs that I’m sure she’s paying someone to check in on while she’s away. It’s only a thirty-minute commute. She’s going to be away for about another month. I’ll offer to house sit for her, and we can move in there during the experiment. How does that sound?”
It doesn’t sound bad at all. I already know from Elissa that Cynthia is into my book, plus she’s a woman, so her house is probably more my speed than Cormac’s anyhow. Why not? “Alright. I can have my friend Shoshana look after my apartment, and I can have my mail forwarded to Cynthia’s address for a month. It’s a deal.”
“Great. I’ll text her now.”
“What are you going to say?”
“Don’t worry, I have it all worked out. And we can figure out the sleeping thing another time.”
I’m not sure I believe that he has it all worked out, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt this time. I take out my pen and write as he texts. “So here,” I say, scribbling as fast as I can. “Look this over.”
“Jeez, your handwriting is terrible.”
“Focus on what’s important right now. And I’m writing on a napkin fast enough to land me in Guinness—so cut me a break, will ya?”
“Fair enough.” He reads over our impromptu napkin contract, smiling the whole way. “Two thoughts I’m having right now. One, I’m crazy. And two, this is perfect. But are you okay with this? I know it’s not exactly how you envisioned things, and book deal or no, I won’t do this if you’re not comfortable with everything we just discussed.”
I’d trained myself to think Cormac Delaney was the biggest jerk in existence. I’m still not totally convinced I was wrong on that, but the more I talk to him the softer I feel towards him. And that last part, about wanting my consent—even though the whole thing was my idea—is enough to let me know that he—that we—are not so crazy for going through with this crazy idea after all.
“I’m more than comfortable. It’s a deal.”
“Good. I need to get to the office—boring piles of work and all that, you know?”
“Right. Enjoy that. Call me later on and we can figure some of the details out.”
“You got it.” He stands up and walks past me. I don’t turn around, but I feel him stop just behind me. And then I feel something I don’t expect—a firm hand on my shoulder. Right after, his mouth comes close to my ear, and I hear his deep voice whisper in my ear. “Who knows. Maybe I’ll end up being a Tor-Men-Tor after all.”
My whole body feels that whisper. His deep voice, the warmth of his breath, and the feeling of his body standing so close to mine. I didn’t expect to feel anything but disgust, but apparently my body had other plans in mind.
Huh. That was unexpected.
Now I turn around without thought, watching the tall, muscular frame of his body walk away until he’s gone.
I think I might not hate our little three kiss clause after all.
Part II
The Experiment
Cormac
Saturday, July 15th
If Cynthia only knew what her beautiful home was about to be used for!
Oh well, what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her, right? Unless we mess her place up, in which case I’ll be the one doing the hurting.
Here’s the official story—officially, I’m offering to house sit because I’m sick of the clutter and noise in the city and needed to clear my mind so I could work on my book.
Unofficially, I’m living with a rabid feminist who hates my guts and who’ll be living here with me as my fake girlfriend.
Yeah. I’ll be leaving that unofficial stuff out of any future conversations with my partner.
What I told her isn’t a total lie—besides agreeing to be Tori’s fake boyfriend, I actually am going to use this unexpected change in geography as an opportunity to work on a project I’ve been struggling to finish.
I make decisions on which of the thousands of authors who query us actually gets their book seen in print, but I’ve dreamed of being one of those authors ever since I was in college. I love everything about books—even though my brothers and I grew up struggling financially, Mom always managed to have at least a few books around the house for each of us.
It’s actually the reason I got into this business in the first place. It wasn’t for the salary, and it wasn’t to reject authors trying their best to get published. It’s much more of a self-serving reason than those. The truth is that I love getting to read great books before anyone else does. I get to sit across from authors and pick their brains about their processes, inspirations, and preferences.
I met Elissa and Cynthia when I was one of those authors—pitching an idea that wasn’t ready to be pitched. They didn’t think I was ready to be an author, but they were impressed with my knowledge of the industry itself—I knew all of the best-selling authors in every genre going back five years. I knew the process of getting on a New York Times or Wall Street Journal best selling list—I was like a walking savant when it came to all things publishing.
I was thirty when that book got rejected. I was crushed. I thought I’d never get close to a publishing agency again. Then, a few months later, right after I’d turned thirty-one, Elissa contacted me out of the blue and offered to interview me to be the newest partner at the same company that had turned down my book. The rest is history. Well, almost.
I still have dreams of being a writer—that never went away—only I’ve been too caught up in life to ever see that process through. I’ve been writing a love story for years. I have the whole thing set—except I can’t seem to finish the last few chapters. I either get the worst case of writer’s block ever, or I’m just too busy reading other people’s work to really make a dent in my own. At least that’s
what I tell myself. So I’m going to look on the bright side of things—maybe having a new house will give me some inspiration.
Speaking of the experiment, Tori should be here any minute now.
It’s been three days since we drew up our contract on a napkin, and we’ve spoken every night since, mostly by text. Even when it comes to a whacked-out idea like this one I agreed to, Tori’s attention to detail is insane. She wanted to know everything—which one of us was going to buy groceries, cook dinner, she even wanted to see my my damn Netflix list to see if our TV watching was going to be compatible. Big surprise, we like different types of shows!
But still, whatever I think of her book, I can see how the woman runs her own social media empire. I don’t really know what that means, exactly, but I know how much work and detail it takes to be one of three partners keeping a business floating, so I can’t imagine how she keeps a YouTube channel, a podcast, and all of her other accounts going all by herself.
And she added one thing to our contract I wasn’t thrilled about, but I said yes just so we could do this already. She wanted to do some interviews with me to pick a guy’s brain about some of the subject matter in her book. I had to agree to let her publish those interviews—anonymously—in her book, whether we end up publishing it or not. I’m not too excited about that part, but I’m interested in what she’s going to ask me about.
We said noon, and it’s eleven fifty-five according to my phone. I get a text telling me her ETA is about three minutes from now. There she goes again—details. Most people would have just said noon, but she wants me to know that she’ll be two minutes earlier than she originally said.
She’s good to her word—or she has the best GPS ever—because three minutes later she sends another text telling me that she’s outside, and I go to meet her like a good fake boyfriend should.
“Hey there, sweetie pie honey buns.” I wave and smile like we’re some couple in a bad 1950’s movie, all saccharine and overly energetic. “You find the place okay?”
“Thank God for GPS—I can’t remember the world before it.”
“There was a world before it?” I joke.
She gives me a look of death. If she were a superhero, she’d be shooting lasers out of her eyes to strike me down right here on the lawn. I’d be Rorschach to her Dr. Manhattan. As it is, I’m another fictional character altogether—Captain Fake Boyfriend—I have no particular powers except to stand here and wait for the vitriol I know is about to spew from her mouth.
“It’s too hot for this. If you try to call me sweetie pie honey buns again I’m going to cut your balls right off and toss them out the window like that woman in the 90’s.”
“Lorena Bobbitt. Oh yeah, I forgot about her. If I recall correctly it was his dick, not his balls.”
“Details,” she says a little too convincingly. “Either way, you try a ‘sweetie’ on me again and something down there is ending up on the side of the road.”
“I kind of like both my dick and my balls, so I guess it’ll just be ‘Tori’ for our time shacking up together.”
“Perfect. That works for me. Speaking of shacking up, how long have you been here?”
“Not long,” I tell her. “Maybe a half hour or so. I just started putting my stuff down and getting the lay of the land.”
“Haven’t you been here before?” she asks me, looking sweaty and sexy as she wipes her brow.
“Sure, but only as a guest those times. I don’t know the nooks and crannies of the house like that.”
“Nooks and crannies?”
“Yeah, you know, the little details. . .”
“No, I get the metaphor, it’s just bad. It’s not an English muffin commercial.”
I laugh. “Someone’s in a mood, huh? That time of the month?”
“Did you really just ask me that?”
“Oh, right,” I joke. “I’m supposed to be breaking your stereotypes of guys, right? So I should say what you want me to say. How about ‘you’re really beautiful when you’re shitting over my super awesome use of metaphor.’ That better?”
“You’re such a dick. And yes, I’m in a mood and no, it’s not that time of the month. It’s this heat, it’s insane.”
Tori decided to spring this little experiment on me in the absolute dead of July in New York, and that means a few indisputable things: pulsating and oppressive heat, humidity that makes Long Island closely resemble equatorial Africa, and invasive tiger mosquitos that give no fucks about your silly Off! Repellant, or dumb ass citronella candles. As much as I love being outside, this time of year it’s best to make friends with a cold drink and central air conditioning, otherwise you’re risking a case of heat prostration and West Nile Virus from all the bugs.
“The central air is on inside.”
“So let’s stop talking on the lawn and go cool down.”
We both stop right in front of the door like certain death awaits us inside—like we’re vampires who need to be invited in. We look at each other awkwardly, and that’s when it hits me—I barely know this woman, and I’m about to be living with her.
“Aren’t you going to go in?” she asks.
“Ladies first.”
“Don’t pull that fake chivalry stuff on me.”
“It’s not fake, I’m just offering to let you go inside first.”
“Why?”
“Jesus, woman, this little experiment hasn’t even started yet and we’re already having our first fight. Just go into the damn house already.”
“Fine.”
I’m amazed she actually gave in so fast—I had about six more comebacks ready if she didn’t walk through that door. I sneak a look at her ass as she finally walks inside and it does not disappoint at all. Damn, she has a body to die for!
My pants start to feel just a little bit tighter than they did a few seconds ago. The truth is I’m ridiculously attracted to Tori. I don’t even like admitting it to myself, and I’m sure as hell not going to admit it to her, but she’s gorgeous, and she doesn’t seem to know it.
Once we go inside, the sweet artificial cold of the air conditioning hits us right in our faces. It’s a refreshing welcome to what’s going to be our new home for the month.
“Oh my God, that feels amazing!” Tori stands a few feet inside the living room, arms out to the side and eyes closed like she’s having a religious experience. With her arms out like that her shirt lifts up just enough to see the tiniest bit of her skin.
“It sure does.”
She finally puts her arms down and opens her eyes. “So what did you tell Cynthia about this whole thing?”
“That I needed to recharge my batteries and work on my book in a quiet setting that I just couldn’t get in the city. I told her in exchange for letting me use the place, I’d watch over everything and get her mail and all that. It was an easy sell. I grabbed the key from the neighbor who was doing some of that stuff and now it’s all ours.”
“It is very nice of her to let. . .” She stops like she’s just realizing what I said. “Wait. Your book?”
“Yeah, I’m writing one, but I don’t really want to get into it right now.”
“Fine. I’m not interested anyway, I was just trying to be polite.”
“We can skip the pleasantries for now, let’s just get unpacked.”
“Fine by me.”
We stand staring around the room like a couple of idiots, not knowing what to do now that we’ve officially begun our fake relationship. I’ve never lived with another person outside of a college roommate, and that was a very different situation.
“So,” I say. “Here we are, huh?”
“Yup. Here we are.”
“What do we do first?” I smile because this is so awkward. Talking about it was one thing, writing down terms on a napkin was something else, but actually being here with her is a whole new ball game.
“Unpacking seems a little too obvious. Ohh. . . I have an idea. You feel up to doing our first interview?”
“Now or never. Not really, we can do it anytime, but why not, you have something better to do on fake moving in day?”
Fair point. “I guess not. Yeah, that’s fine, just let me roll all my stuff into the bedroom. You’re welcome to join me in there.”
“Sure,” she says, taking her bags and following me. “This might be the last time we’re in here together, so suck it up.”
“Interesting choice of words.”
“Don’t be gross.”
“Well, isn’t that the kind of thing you want to ask me about?”
“Sexual puns? Not really what I do. You should try listening to an episode or two. Who knows, you might actually enjoy it.”
“Podcasts are not really my thing,” I tell her.
“Spoken like someone who’s never listened to one. I think I can change your mind.”
I bet you can, Tori—in more ways than one.
“I have an idea,” she tells me. The look in her eyes is devious, and I know she’s about to say something I’m not expecting. “How about I make these interviews into a podcast?” Yup, there it is.
“Say what?”
“Listen,” she says, putting her hand on my leg. I’m not expecting it and suddenly I get really excited. “I know it’s not part of our deal—but podcasts are most interesting than interviews anyhow—this way it can be more. . . conversational.”
I think about it for a second. “Umm. . . that’s a hard pass for me.”
“Oh, come on, you’ll be great.”
“I’m not worried about that,” I tell her.
“Then what?”
“I’m worried about a whole bunch of people hearing what I have to say about women and relationships.”
She giggles. It’s a little snarky. “Look, Cormac, I don’t know how to break it to your clearly gigantic ego, but no one knows who you are, and I can keep you anonymous. Yes, I have a huge group of followers and subscribers, but there’s not going to be any video—it’s just your voice. I think it would be good.”
The Three Kiss CLause Page 9
