Sex, Lies and Dirty Secrets

by Jamie Sobrato

  “Aren’t you all?”

  “Ha. Mounds, breasts, I get it. I didn’t even catch that ahead of time. You’re good.”

  “Definitely not one of my better jokes.”

  “I’m an easy audience. But seriously, what did you want to talk to me about. Some kind of work agreement?”

  “I just want to make sure we have the same expectations, you know, going back to work.”

  After last night, she was left feeling as though she and Griffin had different expectations. But she couldn’t begin to guess what his were. If he was hoping for an office booty-call honey, someone to screw on lunch breaks, he was going to be sorely disappointed. She didn’t care how amazing he might be in bed, she wasn’t about to compromise her work situation any more than she already had.

  “You mean like do we get to boink on lunch breaks, that kind of thing?” he said.

  “I don’t think we should be doing anymore boinking at all. Do you?”

  “I’m a guy. I almost never think I shouldn’t be boinking a pretty girl like you.”

  “Let’s be professionals about this, why don’t we?”

  “Does that mean I can start charging you for sex?”

  “Sh!” Macy glanced around. “Someone’s going to think you’re serious.”

  “I’ll have women lined up outside the restroom every time I need to go to the john.”

  “I hope we can keep what happened this weekend to ourselves,” Macy said.

  “Of course. I don’t kiss and tell.”

  “Do you think Carson can keep quiet?”

  “Oh, yeah. I’ve got major dirt on him. He wouldn’t think of talking.”

  “I’ve had a great time this weekend. Thanks,” she said. “I’m a little sad to see it end.”

  “It doesn’t have to.”

  “It’s better if it does. Now that we’ve cleared the air of all that sexual tension, we should be able to work much more effectively together, don’t you think?”

  Griffin settled back into his chair, his expression making it clear he didn’t quite buy her argument. “It’s weird, I was trying to brainstorm a little more on my own this morning on our way to the airport, and it’s like my brain is set on low-power mode today or something.”

  “Sex will do that to you,” Macy blurted without thinking.

  Well, he didn’t know about the study. He couldn’t know she was serious.

  She looked out the window at the tarmac, where airport employees were busy hurling the passengers’ bags onto the plane. Good thing she’d only brought a carry-on.

  “No, no, you’ve got it wrong. It’s athletic ability that’s supposed to be adversely affected by sex, but I think they’ve proven that to be an old wives’ tale.”

  “Who’s they?” Macy said, glad for the distraction.

  “You know, those imbeciles who go around studying the ridiculous minutiae of human behavior.”

  “You mean scientists.”

  “If that’s what we’re calling them these days.”

  Macy smiled as she imagined what Lauren would think if she witnessed this conversation. Likely her flight attendant persona would disappear in a flash.

  “So,” Griffin said. “Nervous about the promotion announcement?”

  “Do we have to talk about that?”

  He shrugged. “Nope.”

  She dug a book out of her purse, shoved her purse under the seat in front of her, then pretended to be engrossed in her reading. But his head game was working. All she could think about was the promotion.

  “Since you asked,” she said, snapping her book closed. “No, I’m not nervous at all. What would I have to worry about when I’m going to get the job?”

  “Hey, if you’re that confident, then nothing.”

  “Just like you—we’re both sure we’ll get it. One of us is going to be seriously disappointed.”

  “Yep,” he said, flipping through the in-flight magazine, his lack of concern making it clear who he thought would be disappointed.

  Macy studied his game face, knowing she had something to learn from it. Because he was getting to her. She couldn’t deny it. She wasn’t as good at head games as he was. But she’d learn from the master, and then the student would become the master. Just like in the kung fu flicks she and Lauren secretly loved to watch.

  So what would the master do right now? She bit her lip, giving the matter some thought as her fingers traced the embossed lettering on the cover of her historical romance. He’d say, whatever it took to get the upper hand.

  And if she really wanted to avoid the possibility of falling into bed with Griffin again, she might as well piss him off good and well. What was the one thing that could piss a guy off, guaranteed?

  Insult his manhood.

  Griffin’s manhood wasn’t exactly ripe for insulting, but she did have one thing on him. She knew his vulnerability, and she had to exploit it.

  Macy leaned toward him, putting her mouth close to his ear. He smiled. She exhaled, letting her breath caress his cheek.

  “Remember Friday night?” she said, her voice low and sultry.

  “How could I forget?”

  “When you thought I might be faking it?”

  “Yeah.”

  Macy paused for dramatic effect, watching his smile fade. He looked over at her, confused.

  “I was.”

  GRIFFIN DIDN’T USUALLY let shots below the belt get to him, but Macy had an uncanny ability to find his weak spot and pound it.

  “You faked it? Why?”

  She shrugged. “I wasn’t that excited.”

  “I beg to differ. What about all that ‘umming and ahhing’? You were just acting?”

  “I did win an award for it, after all.”

  “That’s pretty low,” he said, not sure whether to feel pissed off or impressed by her tactics.

  “If it makes you feel better to believe I was having wildly enjoyable sex, feel free. I wouldn’t want to shatter your self-image.”

  He cast a vaguely amused look in her direction.

  She couldn’t have just said what he thought she’d said.

  But she had.

  And if her claim of faking it hadn’t rung true, he might not have believed her.

  “So you faked it every time?”

  She shrugged again.

  “Did you?”

  “Does it matter?” she asked, smiling.

  “Why would you want to keep going and going and going if you weren’t enjoying yourself that much?”

  “I kept hoping it would get better, I guess.”

  “Are you playing head games with me? Because if you are, you need to do a better job of lying. I don’t believe you.”

  She opened her book and stared at it. “That’s okay. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m lying.”

  Griffin wanted to kiss the smirk off her face. But they’d agreed no more hanky-panky. Damn common sense. Sometimes he wished he could do without it.

  He leaned in close to her now, his mouth nearly touching her ear. “I’m sure you’re lying, because you were so hot for me, you couldn’t control yourself.”

  But the truth was, he’d been so hot for her, he could hardly think straight. He might not have been coherent enough to read her every sign. He’d tried, but she turned him into a crazed version of himself when she took her clothes off.

  “You’re right,” she said, too casually. “I’m lying. I came every time. Best sex of my life.”

  Griffin sat back in his chair again, his victory feeling hollow at best. She was playing head games with him for sure, but his brain was too foggy from a weekend of partying to think very clearly. And he was tired. Damn tired. Fine. Let her have her little victory.

  He was going to take a nap. He closed his eyes, but her claim kept echoing in his head.

  She was faking it…faking it…faking it.

  SUNDAY AFTERNOON roller-skating had been a tradition with Macy and Lauren for the past year, and since their planes had both arrived in the c
ity in the early afternoon, they’d caught up via cell phone and agreed to meet at Golden Gate Park as usual.

  Macy had just skated a few warm-up rounds around the makeshift roller rink, and now she was skating in time with the music that was blaring out of nearby speakers, something vaguely familiar by Earth, Wind and Fire, while Lauren checked out the fresh meat skating around the park.

  “So you think the promotion is in the bag?” Lauren asked when she could no longer check out the hotties without looking too obvious.

  Macy lost her balance for a second, splayed her arms out to each side, and caught herself before she could fall. Was it a coincidence, or did the thought of what she’d done this weekend really throw her so off balance—literally?

  She bit her lip and considered Lauren’s question. “Hard to say. I mean, Griffin maybe seemed a little fuzzy-headed. I guess we’ll have to wait and see how noticeable the effects are at work, right?”

  “Oh, believe me, if you rocked his world as much as you claim you did, you will notice the effects. It’s a proven fact now, thanks to me.”

  “Don’t look so pleased with yourself. It’s obnoxious.”

  “That’s actually the look I was going for,” Lauren quipped as she checked out a guy in ripped jeans and a black leather jacket skating past, shaking his hips to the music.

  Normally Macy would have found Lauren’s ease with her own attitude amusing, but now she couldn’t get past the feeling of heaviness that was sitting on her chest, threatening to ruin her satisfaction that she’d accomplished her weekend seduction plan and now had only to wait for the results to show themselves.

  She tried to focus on having a little bit of rhythm while skating, but instead she felt as if she was just going through the motions, not really hearing the music.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Lauren finally asked. “You seem pissed or something.”

  “Nothing,” Macy lied, because she didn’t have any good answer. She really didn’t know why all of a sudden she felt as though everything had gone wrong.

  What if Griffin had taken her overtures too seriously? What if she would be hurting him, just like Lauren might be hurting Carson by never giving him a chance?

  “Actually,” she said before Lauren could speak again. “I was just wondering about Carson and you. Any chance of anything there?”

  “Hell, no.”

  “You can’t hide from him forever,” Macy said. “From what he said after we dropped you at your gate, he thinks he does have a chance.”

  “Actually, I think I can hide from him pretty much forever. This is a big city, and I’m only one person.”

  “How do you think it’s going to be for me, having to lie to a friend I work with every day?”

  Lauren didn’t look overly concerned. “I was hoping you could just get over it.”

  “What if I can’t?” Maybe Macy was being a little unreasonable, but she was feeling crankier by the second.

  Sexual deprivation and all. That had to be it.

  Lauren spun around to skate backward in front of Macy. “You can be a monumental pain in the ass, you know that?”

  “I just don’t want to be a party to your lies, that’s all.”

  “So now you’re Miss High-and-Mighty? After having sex with a guy just so you could secure your own promotion?”

  Something inside Macy snapped.

  Lauren had said a lot of things to Macy over the years—things someone who wasn’t her best friend couldn’t have gotten away with. And she’d always put up with it, because Lauren was usually right.

  But this was hitting too close to home. She felt her face burning with something akin to anger, something like embarrassment. Maybe a mixture of both.

  “That was low. You’re the one who suggested it in the first place.”

  “And you’re the one who went along.”

  Lauren spun again and skated ahead, and Macy, for once, didn’t feel like following after her. Didn’t feel like keeping up with someone else’s pace.

  She stopped, turned and skated the other way, toward her parked car on the side of the street. Her eyes stung, and she was going to have a whole new reason to feel as if she were in junior high again if she started crying like a baby right now. She blinked away tears.

  Really, the only reason she was emotional was stress. That’s all it was. But Lauren had gone too far, and did Macy need friends who could insult her so casually and so completely without even flinching? Of course she didn’t.

  But the very thought of not having Lauren in her life left her feeling vaguely empty and unmoored.

  She tugged her skates off and tossed them in the trunk, jammed her feet into a pair of pink sneakers, and got in the car. She’d driven on autopilot most of the way home before realizing this was the first real argument she’d ever had with Lauren.

  What was it about putting on roller skates that had turned their entire relationship, in the space of a few minutes, into some ridiculous preteen drama? She was back in junior high—which was the only time in her life that was measurably worse than high school.

  She couldn’t see any easy way to repair this crap with Lauren short of an apology. But Lauren didn’t do apologies. At least Macy had never witnessed one.

  She parked and went into her apartment, ran up the stairs and went straight to the fridge for emergency caffeine. A lonely can of Mountain Dew sat in the back of the refrigerator for occasions like this, and then she found a bag of peanut M & Ms hidden in her top cabinet. Comfort junk food.

  She’d plowed through half the bag when the phone rang, and her first instinct was to ignore it. She let the answering machine pick up, half expecting it to be Lauren calling to curse her out for ditching her at the park.

  Instead, it was Carson.

  “Hey, Macy,” he said to the answering machine. “I was just hoping you’d give in and let me know how I can get in touch with—”

  Macy grabbed the phone from the end table, pressed the talk button, and interrupted him. “Carson, hi.”

  “Screening calls, eh?”

  “Kinda sorta.” Macy frowned at the bag of candy and felt a surge of guilt over her lack of willpower.

  “What’s the deal with your friend Lauren? I tried calling the number she gave me and it’s a Korean restaurant.”

  “Oh, it is?”

  “Are you going to give me her real phone number or what?”

  Macy calculated her options. She could lie, put Carson off and be the one dealing with him for the next six months. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who gave up easily, and she didn’t want this driving a wedge between them at the office. Lauren may have come to Vegas to hang with Carson as a favor to her, but Macy hadn’t asked her to lie. And she couldn’t see how a free trip was any special chore on Lauren’s part.

  She took a deep breath and let her instincts make the decision.

  “You want her number? Here it is,” she said, then spouted off the numbers she knew by heart but would probably never need to dial again at this rate.

  “Got it,” he said, after what she could only assume was a pause to copy the phone number down.

  This seemed like an adequate compromise to Macy. She hadn’t given up Lauren’s true identity—she’d just handed the problem of Carson over to her to deal with. Lauren’s answering machine didn’t reveal her name, so if she wanted to tell any more of the truth—or if she wanted to keep lying—she could do it herself.

  “Please don’t use this information to stalk her, okay?”

  “Do I seem like a stalker to you?”

  Macy made a doubtful noise. “You never know.”

  “I guess if you get that promotion, you can always fire me if I harass your friend, right? Is her real name even Lauren Smith?”

  “So you don’t believe Griffin’s propaganda that he’s a shoo-in for creative director?” Macy asked, suddenly liking Carson even better than before.

  He laughed. “Hey, Griffin’s biggest strength and his biggest weaknes
s is his confidence. There’s such a thing as too much of it.”

  “True.”

  “Don’t get me wrong, I love the guy and all. I think he’d be great in the job, but I’ve worked with you, too, and I know you’re as capable as he is.”

  “Are you kissing my ass because I gave you Lauren’s number?” Macy stretched out long on the couch, set aside the bag of candy and stared up at the ceiling.

  “I’m definitely not ass-kissing. I mean, I’ve already got the number. What would be the point?”

  “Maybe you’re digging for further info. Her address, social security number, bra size…”

  “Nope. And let me say this, if Griffin’s got a problem with overconfidence, you’ve got the opposite problem. You need to show more confidence if you want the higher-ups to take notice of you.”

  Macy thought about her shamrock trophy, the emblem of what could happen when she really stepped out and showed confidence in herself. Well, big whoop, she’d won a cheesy plastic trophy in a fake orgasm contest. Really something to be proud of.

  “Maybe you’ve got a point there,” she said. “I guess I tend to forget that not everyone knows how brilliant and talented I am.”

  “Exactly. But, you know, you didn’t answer me about Lauren’s real name.”

  “Yes, her name is Lauren. Happy?” Macy said, skipping over the whole last-name issue, praying Carson wouldn’t notice.

  “Thanks, Macy. I really appreciate this.”

  “Are you that into her, or is this just a matter of pride? Like you can’t be the one who gets dumped?”

  “What can I say—I felt a connection. This has nothing to do with being the dumper or dumpee.”

  “You think she felt the same connection?”

  “You’re her friend. Are you trying to tell me she didn’t?”

  “Actually, we may not be friends after today, and frankly, I don’t presume to know anything about Lauren’s emotional life. She’s kind of a closed book.”

  “Whoa—I hope this fallout thing doesn’t have anything to do with you giving me her number. If so, I’ll toss it and leave her alone.”

  Macy bit her lip, weighing the best way to answer. “Don’t worry, it has nothing to do with you,” she lied.