“That’s nuts. They arrested me and they want me to do a toy drive?”
“It’s for the kids and it’ll be good for your image. It might be better to wear a different outfit, though. Still sexy, because we don’t want to admit guilt, but something that fits.”
“Fine, I’ll follow your directions, but I’m not appearing in court come January. If you’re any good, all this should be wiped off my record. I’ve never been more humiliated in my entire life.”
My phone buzzes and thank God, it’s Jen.
“On my way.” I push past Lacy and her makeup kit, and hurry to my bedroom to change.
“Welsh!” Lacy yells.
“It’s only Jen, who am I trying to impress anyway?” I flip her the bird and keep walking.
Except I’m one of the tech CEO’s everyone’s watching, and if I want my company to go public next year at full valuation, I’d better portray a wholesome girl-next-door image. Which means this lewd misconduct charge has to be squelched.
~ Ben ~
“Sorry about your beard and wig,” Ben said as he walked with his grandfather after being arraigned. “I’ll pay for it.”
He’d pled not guilty, of course.
Dominique and Delaine were speaking to the press, after arranging for the police to escort Ben and his grandfather to their car.
“I’m not worried about the beard and wig.” His grandfather put an arm around him. “The rescue organization gave me the cockatoo as compensation for the damage.”
“W-what? Gave you the cockatoo? Did you want him?”
“Aye, I was preapproved, but was paying on layaway. You know how expensive it is to adopt? I would have had to pay for all of his vet visits, as well as any other expenses he incurred.”
A sharp-eared reporter yelled, “Are you saying you’re adopting the bird who was behind all your grandson’s trouble?”
“No press,” the same burly policeman who’d arrested Ben said. “Stay back.”
The other policeman, the one who’d leered at Brittney, held onto Treat, who sat panting like they were best friends.
Traitor.
Grandpa unlocked his truck, and Ben helped him step up to the passenger seat. “I’ve wanted Big Blizzard for a while. He’s an ornery, cranky bird, but he’s also loads of fun.”
“Sure, I bet he is. Your decision, of course.” Ben took Treat from the douchebag cop and shoved him onto Grandpa’s lap, then shut the passenger door and walked to the driver’s side.
It was no use ducking or hiding from the cameras pointed his direction. Before his mug shot, the police had removed every bit of snowy white mustache and eyebrow hair, and cleaned his face. By now, every scout in the country knew about his arrest for indecent exposure and lewd misconduct—all because he had the bad luck to get tangled up with one hellacious bomb named Brittney Reed.
He started the engine and eased the truck from the parking lot. Cameras and video devices recorded his drive of shame. At least Grandpa was at his side for emotional support.
“So I’ve an idea,” Grandpa said once they were on the road. “We’re not giving up on this Santa gig.”
“I don’t think your doctor’s cleared you, has he?”
“Not me, you.”
“Me? No way. I don’t have time for this. I haven’t lifted weights today and I need to go for a run to clear my mind.”
“Sure, that’s fine, but you can’t run and hide. A pro football player’s always going to be in the public eye. I agree with your lawyer. You need to redeem your image and that means you tackle the bull by the horns and show the world you’re not a quitter.”
“Quitter? I got arrested. I didn’t quit.” Clods of irritation pumped through his veins. “I’m sorry, Grandpa. I know you mean well, but I’m not ever dressing in a Santa outfit again. I’ll pay for your ruined costume.”
“But, I promised the police you’d be there.”
“Police? Be where?” Ben gaped at his Grandpa. Had the heart attack thrown him off his rocker?
“The Police Dog Toy Drive. Didn’t they tell you Treat’s going to be the poster dog?”
“Wait, wait. They arrest me and you volunteer me?”
“Of course,” Grandpa says, as if it was the most normal and logical thing in the world. “It’ll get you on their good side and everyone will see what a perfect Santa you are. I’ve called a tailor to make you a suit that fits.”
“Sorry, can’t do it.” Ben pulled the truck into his grandfather’s driveway where two reporters stood with their cameras ready. “I’m not going anywhere until the charges are dropped. And if you don’t understand, I have no choice but to go home and hide there. The ranch is big enough that no reporters will get through.”
“Who’ll take care of me? Cook for me and watch over me?” Grandpa asked.
“You come with me. It’s time to make amends with Dad, don’t you think?”
“No. I doubt I’ll ever see eye to eye with him.” Grandpa huffed as he rubbed Treat’s ears. “Your mother was like a daughter to me. She loved me more than my own son did.”
“I know. You’ve told me a million times.” Ben hit the garage door opener and pulled the truck into the tight space. Cutting off the engine, he shut the door before the reporters could make a move.
The worst thing about this entire disaster? He’d never get to know more about Brittney Reed. The little girl he’d known for one brief summer had grown up, and from the looks of it, she was much more than a pretty face. He’d bet she had a lot more substance behind her than the sexy outfit and makeup would suggest.
Too bad he’d never know.
Chapter Eight
~ Brittney ~
I wash the remnants of Lacy’s garish makeup off my face, kicking off the horrid furry stiletto boots. I can’t get the fishnet stockings off fast enough. Ooops. Guess this pair’s going into the trash. The fur-lined tube is next. I shimmy out of it and throw it in the closet. It’s probably too stretched out for Lacy to wear, and I’ll never need it either.
There’s no time to shower, so I spritz cologne and pull on a pair of jeans, leaving the oversized Shopahol shirt on my back.
Lacy knocks on my bedroom door and steps in with the makeup case. “Remember what Owen said.”
“Not tonight, okay?” Can’t she ever leave me alone?
She’s always been way too bossy, being five years older than me. Family lore says it took my parents five years to recover from the horror known as Lacy Reed, from colic to night frights, prolonged toilet training to trips to the emergency room, and having to baby and childproof from carpet to ceiling, before they were brave enough to adopt me.
Of course, I slept through the night right away and always ate my baby food. I figured out the potty before I was two, and I learned to say “pwease” before I could say “mama” or “dada.” I even dressed myself and got ready for daycare before the parents woke, whereas Lacy had to be dragged kicking and screaming from her bed.
“You’re going to miss dinner if you leave now.” Lacy puts on a concerned look. “Are you sure you have to go in? I thought you could do everything remotely.”
“We can, but forcing people to go in is a way to motivate them not to make mistakes. Everyone responsible for the broken build has to report to the Broken Build Bullpen. Since the build broke in ScrapCloud code, I have to be there to police the fixes.”
“Sounds like punishment.” Her eyebrows crease and her lips twist. “That’s not very motivating.”
“Whatever. You’re no longer working there so it’s not your business.” I grab my laptop bag and turn toward the door. “Not all of us are lucky enough to snag the VP of Marketing.”
“Actually, Brandon gave notice,” Lacy says. “He’s starting a new venture, Appaholics Anonymous, a platform for building and delivering apps and getting paid per use.”
My jaw drops and I wave my hand at her. “How come no one tells me anything?”
“I just told you, didn’t I?” She twirls a stra
nd of her curly red-brown hair around her finger. “It’s a subscription service. Customers pay a flat fee and can download and use as many apps as they please for free. Our platform monitors their usage and pays the developers for the amount of time and features the subscribers use.”
“Uh, sure, sounds wonderful.” I really don’t have time to shoot the breeze with her.
“You should develop a Scrapbooking App for us, strip some of the premium features and set it up on our platform. Then users who really like it can make in-app purchases.”
“Sure, talk later.” I sidestep her, not an easy feat given her big belly. “This explains the sudden push from Jewell for a streamlined shopping app.”
“Yep, but don’t tell anyone. Jewell’s not on board. He’s claiming Brandon’s ideas belong to Shopahol, but we can prove that Shopahol is not in the app delivery business.”
“Unless we develop the platform before yours gets funded and prototyped.” The wheels in my mind are turning. I’d hate to backstab my sister, but Jen had pulled me aside Friday and told me to add an app showcase to the scrapbooks and allow users to share their friend’s apps on a trial basis.
Lacy’s eyes narrow. “You’re not going to spill all this to Jen, your idol, are you? I’m your sister, after all.”
“Of course not.” I zip my lips. “I’m not going to get involved in this. Right now, I have bigger problems with a feature that should have been online on Black Friday.”
“Sure, I trust you.” She pats my arm. “By the way, we’ll beat this lewd conduct thing. You’ll see. Someday, we’ll look back and laugh, but in the meantime, you’re going to look so hot, you’ll make me weep.”
“Why? Won’t you be jealous of Brandon checking me out?” I smirk to tease her.
“Don’t.” She growls and pushes me to the door. “Get to work, girl. Tomorrow I’ll take you shopping and do a makeover.”
I grab my car keys and hurry to my sensible Toyota parked next to Lacy’s bright red Mustang GT. A niggle starts from my heart and works its way to my stomach. Why should she have all the fun?
Turning on my heels, I stride back to the kitchen. Lacy, Brandon, my grandfather Pappy, grandmother Cece, and my parents are in the living room watching a bowl game along with Owen. Their rapt attention is on the boob tube.
No one disturbs me as I replace my keys and snag Lacy’s. She won’t miss her car. Not tonight, anyway.
The car starts with a full-bodied rumble. Oh yeah. I’m taking the top down. After weaving through the town, I zoom onto the freeway and head for the Golden Gate Bridge as the sun sets over the Pacific Ocean.
~ Ben ~
Ben checked into the private fitness club Dominique had set him up with. It was situated in a warehouse area in San Francisco next to a recycling center. The neighborhood looked dumpy, full of storage units, trailers, and the occasional office building, but once he got behind the automatic gates, a newly tarred driveway led into an old aircraft hangar which served as a shaded parking area for the athletes.
Pro players from the San Francisco Bridges, as well as their across the bay rivals, the Oakland Brigands, hung out at the swank club which was equipped with the heaviest weights and the most tortuous exercise machines known to mankind.
A personal trainer was always on duty, so Ben didn’t have to worry about a spotter for the weights he was going to hit.
Adrenaline flooded his veins as he pulled on his workout clothes. He routinely benched four hundred pounds and squatted seven hundred. As for reflexes and agility? He had a forty-inch vertical leap, could broad jump over one-hundred twenty-five inches, and ran the forty-yard dash in a little over four-and-a-half seconds.
Alonzo, one of the trainers, met him at the weight room. “You must be one dedicated hombre working out on a Saturday evening.”
“Yeah, well, if you had the day I had, you’d be pushing pounds too.”
“No date night, or you got some already?” Alonzo lifted his eyebrows. “What are you in for?”
“Hit me with some drop sets.”
“Sure you want to be useless tomorrow?” The trainer grabbed a towel and activated the electronic lock to the weight room.
“Tomorrow’s my endurance day. Going for a long run.” Ben grabbed a towel and a bottle of water.
An hour later, Ben could barely move. Every muscle in his body not only screamed, but was drained to the fullest. Drop sets continually taxed the same muscles by going from heavier weights to progressively lighter ones without resting, until the muscles literally failed.
Alonzo pulled him from the bench. “Okay, jock. To the shower and sauna. Couple of Brigands are there.”
“Sure, thanks.” Ben dragged himself to the shower. He didn’t want to meet up with or speak to anyone, especially if they’d seen the news.
The trainer, of course, was discreet, and never let on whether he’d seen or heard of Ben’s problems at the tree farm. However, he couldn’t count on pro players to consider his feelings, when he was nothing but a college senior whose agent paid for the private club—her investment for her future income stream.
He had finished his shower and was pulling on his clothes when two linebackers closed in on him. Great. One was the all pro linebacker for the Brigands and the other a guy who graduated from his college a few years back. It was too bad they weren’t in the playoffs like the Bridges were, or he would have had the gym to himself, at least on a Saturday night.
“Hey, it’s Bamm-Bamm,” the all pro, Greg Marsh, said. “Can’t believe they let you out of jail.”
“What happened? They couldn’t make it stick?” Josh Carter, the guy from his college, punched his shoulder.
“Nope. They got nothing on me.” Ben zipped up his pants and pulled on a sweatshirt. “Love to chat, but gotta go.”
“Why? Night’s young. We’re heading for the Strip Zone.” Josh leaned his elbow on Ben’s shoulder. “Between you and me, that elf’s nowhere as hot as the babes at the Zone.”
“Yeah, all she has is a giant pair of knockers. You need to hang with us.” Greg chuckled. “When you go pro, you’ll have access to the best tits and ass on the planet.”
Ben’s haunches bristled at the way they knocked Brittney down, as if she were only to be judged by her body. At the same time, it was useless to rile them up. After all, Greg was also a client of Dominique’s and depending on if there were room on the roster for another linebacker or not, they could possibly be teammates, or even better, cross-town rivals.
“I’m calling it a night. You guys go ahead.” Ben pulled on his socks. “My agent wants me to be a good boy until this mess is cleared up.”
“Word of advice,” Greg said. “Don’t let any cheap tramp anywhere near you. That’s why we stick to strippers. Their bosses keep them under control, if you know what I mean.”
What was he talking about? How dare he call Brittney names?
“Look, I really have to go.” Ben slipped on his shoes and stood. “Miss Reed is not a tramp. Her family owns the tree farm and she was helping out. This entire thing was a big misunderstanding.”
“That’s not what your lawyer says.” Josh stared at his phone browser. “She says it’s a case of entrapment. The slut’s suing you for sexual harassment and wants a cut of your future earnings.”
“What? Let me see.” Ben’s entire body glowed red hot.
He swiped the phone from Josh and glared at the article headlined. “For shame. Should an elf dress like this?” Not only that, they’d included unflattering pictures of Brittney and referred to her in bovine terms with several jokes about her udder and running a dairy farm on her own.
“This isn’t right.” Ben’s breath rasped as he scrolled through pages of comments calling Brittney a slut and a whore. “This isn’t what happened.”
He shoved the phone at Josh, grabbed his gym bag, and rushed to his truck. Dammit. Hadn’t Dominique said she wouldn’t represent him if he didn’t respect women?
Then why the hell was she allowing
her sister to tar and feather Brittney? No woman deserved this treatment.
Sitting in the cab of his truck, he searched for Brittney on the internet and his jaw hit the floorboards. She was the CEO of ScrapCloud, a multimedia social sharing company in a joint venture with Shopahol International, the world’s premiere shopping referral network. Add to that, Dave Jewell, the CEO of Shopahol, had come out in support of Brittney and was accusing his team of slut-shaming her.
Hadn’t Delaine told him that was her strategy? Why hadn’t he stopped her? He’d been so angry and confused, in panic mode. But that wasn’t an excuse. He had to do something to stop the attacks on Brittney.
Ben called Dominique on her cell phone. She didn’t pick up so he left a message.
“Have you seen the trash they’re posting about Brittney Reed? Call off your sister right away and issue retractions, or I’m turning myself in to the police and pleading guilty.”
Chapter Nine
~ Brittney ~
“No social media. Turn off those cell phones right now.” I hold up my hand as I walk into the Broken Build Bullpen and glare at the three programmers and the build engineer working on the new shopping feature called Monkey-See. Its main feature is to allow shoppers to be notified whenever their friends buy something online, so they can also place an order with a single click.
Samantha Reed, my cousin, is the one who broke the build when she checked in the permissions module with the wrong encryption type. At the moment, none of the friends are able to give permission for their shopping scrapbook to be followed, and Marketing is going crazy since this feature is being tested at Mississippi Online, Shopahol’s largest customer.
“The quicker we fix and rebuild the system, the faster we can all go home,” I say, eyeing the engineers. “No one leaves until automation tests have passed. Downtime in the middle of the Christmas shopping season is unacceptable, and you all should have integrated your code before checking it in.”
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