by Ivy Smoak
“Oh my God! Yes!” I gasped for air, finally able to breathe again, and did a little happy dance. I was STD-free! For the first time, I was grateful for my weird Society spa appointments.
“Now that we’ve cleared that up,” said Chastity, “I need to know… Did you or did you not bang Dr. Lyons before I arrived at the restaurant?”
“We did something way better.” The relief of not having STDs actually made me sigh.
“Anal?!”
“What? No. He came over last night after you called me. He brought me bread pudding and we watched Gossip Girl all night.”
“Hmm…well, let’s pretend like you did bang. That’ll make Tanner more jealous.”
Tanner. My stomach flipped over. Going on a date with Dr. Lyons was supposed to make Tanner jealous. But I’d forgotten all about that because I’d ended up having a really great time with Dr. Lyons. Really, really great. My stomach flipped again. “What do you want me to do? Email Tanner about it?” Would that make him jealous? Did I even want him to be jealous anymore? I bit the inside of my lip.
“Oh, right, you don’t know.”
“Know what?”
“Bee called me a few minutes ago. Tanner signed the contract.”
He’d signed the contract? I pulled out my phone to see if I’d been unterminated from the Society too. And sure enough…the Tax Codes app was working properly again. Huh. Storming into his office had actually worked. Somehow.
“And to make it easier to get things up and running, you and I will be working at his office starting Monday.”
“For how long?” I asked. “And what about Madison?”
“She was assigned somewhere else. And I guess we’ll work there until someone tells us otherwise. So pick out your hottest work clothes and get ready to make Tanner jealous. We’re gonna bag you a billionaire vampire werewolf sex god.”
***
I almost threw up three times on the way to Tanner’s offices. It was like the first day of high school…if you had made out with the principal the week before. Oh, and also pissed off the secretary and thrown everyone’s cupcakes in the trash.
Despite that, I was still giddy to see Tanner. How would he act around me? Would he be distant? Would he flirt with me? Would he ask if I was stalking him in that deep sexy voice of his?
Come to think of it, I wasn’t even sure he’d be there. He was a freaking billionaire. He had places to be and things to do. Why would he stay in his fancy corner office in NYC when he could be off sipping martinis on a private island in the Caribbean?
The thought of him not being there calmed my nerves. But that was no fun. He needed to be there so I could follow Chastity’s advice and ignore him and make him jealous of Dr. Lyons.
And it was my lucky day. Because Tanner was there. He even greeted us at the door.
“Good morning, ladies,” he said. He looked so dumb and ugly with his tailored suit and perfect 5 o’clock shadow.
Chastity shook his hand.
No! Don’t touch him, you whore! Okay…so maybe he looked good in his suit. And maybe I definitely did still have feelings for him after my date with Dr. Lyons. Was I a glutton for punishment?
“Thank you so much for this opportunity, Mr. Rhodes,” said Chastity.
“You’re quite welcome. Everything you need is on your desks.” He gestured to a little cubicle that we’d be sharing. “If you need anything, my door is always open.” A second later he was gone.
“Why didn’t you talk to him?” whispered Chastity.
“Did I not?”
“Nope. You just stared at him like a crazy person. You’re supposed to be making him jealous, not scared.”
“Damn it. I really thought I talked.” This was not going the way I had pictured. We needed a new plan. “Keep an eye on him. If you see him coming, kick me and I’ll start talking about Dr. Lyons.”
An hour later, Chastity kicked me.
“Ow!” I kicked her back.
“What the hell?” she hissed. “You’re supposed to talk about…”
“Everything okay?” asked Tanner. He’d stopped outside our cubicle and his arms were folded across his chest. I remembered the feeling of those muscles beneath my hands…
“Yup,” I said way louder than I meant to.
“Actually,” said Chastity. “We need to know what our hours are. And how long can we take for lunch? Because Ash has a lunch date with her new doctor boyfriend.”
Tanner raised an eyebrow. “A lunch date? Sounds…romantic.”
I shrugged. “We’ll see. I’m a little intimidated by how tall he is.” What else would make Dr. Lyons sound amazing? “And he loves kids a little too much.” I heard it the second the words left my mouth, but by then it was too late. Rather than make him jealous, I’d just confirmed what Tanner already thought: I was dating a 10-foot-tall pedophile.
“Take as long as you want for lunch. I only care that the work gets done. It doesn’t much matter to me if you finish at 10 am or 10 pm. But uh…be careful. That guy sounds like kind of a creep.”
“She’ll be fine,” said Chastity. “They had an awesome date on Saturday. He took her to Barracuda.”
Tanner nodded. “Great place. Did you try the grits?”
Grits. Did he know? Oh God. Someone had probably filmed me barfing all over Dr. Lyons and made a meme out of it. My life was officially ruined. I tried to play it cool. “Sure did. He even paid for them.”
“Well I’d hope so,” said Tanner. “Anyway, glad to hear he’s a stand-up guy. Have fun at lunch.” He tapped the top of our cubicle and returned to his office.
“Well that went great,” I said.
“No it didn’t,” said Chastity. “It was a train wreck. He didn’t seem jealous at all.”
Oh, brain fart. I got really distracted when Tanner was talking. “Well…that’s because you made it a lunch date. Why’d you pick the lamest of meals?”
“I don’t know! I panicked. I thought you were gonna do the jealous-ing.”
“Well now we have to go to lunch for hours.”
Chastity nodded. “And you have to come back with your skirt inside-out to make it look like you had a double helping of afternoon delight.”
“I’m not doing that.”
“Suit yourself. But don’t come crying to me when you’re old and single and penniless.” Chastity spun around in her chair and started working again.
“Wait, why is this my only chance to avoid being broke and single for the rest of my life?” It’s not, is it?
***
Just before noon Chastity and I got up to go to my fake lunch date, but it was hard to get out of the office due to the three tables of food semi-blocking the entrance. No, not just any food. Gochujang Palace. My favorite.
“Going to lunch?” asked Tanner, popping some spicy Korean nuggets in his mouth.
“What’s all this?” I asked.
“Oh, you know. Various people like to send us food. Today it looks like they sent…” He picked up a bag and made a show of looking at the label. “Gochujang Palace. Ever had it?”
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s my freaking favorite!”
“Grab a plate. These nuggets are amazing.” He ate another one.
“We’ll have to take a raincheck,” said Chastity.
But…Korean nuggets!
“Ash has a lunch date,” continued Chastity. “Remember?” She elbowed me in the ribs.
Tanner made a clicking noise. “Ah, damn. Forgot about that. You’re welcome to invite him here if you want? We have plenty.”
“Maybe some other time,” said Chastity, pulling me towards the elevator.
I watched the Korean food longingly as the elevator doors slid shut. “Damn it! We just failed so hard. He totally called our bluff.”
“Did he?” asked Chastity. “Because I’m pretty sure he just bought $500 worth of your favorite food in a lame attempt to prevent you from going on a date with Dr. Lyons. #JealousAF.”
“No he didn’t…
” My voice trailed off. “Wait. Did he?”
Chastity nodded. “It’s too much of a coincidence. You must have told him you love Gochujang Palace at some point.”
Had I? I thought back to our first date. Yup. I’d ranted about it for like twenty minutes just before we fell asleep. “I may have mentioned it at some point.”
“Then there you have it. Phase one accomplished.”
“Phase one? What’s phase two?”
Chastity pulled a copy of Twilight out of her bottomless purse. “We have to figure out his secret.”
“And how are we going to do that?”
“You’ll see.”
Chapter 34 - Garlic and Holy Water
Tuesday
The next few weeks were a blur of work, dates, and spa visits.
Spa visits were the smallest portion of my time, but the time I spent worrying about them was significant. I still wasn’t used to lying there completely naked while Moroccan women did weird things to my lady bits. And by that, I mean waxing. Not like…molesting me. Ew. The only inappropriate touching going on at the Shifting Sands Spa was happening between Chastity and Hassan the handsy masseur.
Then there was the work, or, as I liked to call it: Tanner Time. At first I came in every day hoping that I’d succeed in making him jealous enough to sneakily deliver me a Society date card. Or, if he was really feeling crazy, maybe he’d just ask me out on a for-realsies date. Alas, the date cards never arrived.
Which brings me to the third and final way I spent my time: dates. Not Society dates. I hadn’t been invited to one since the app magically fixed itself on my phone. These were just normal dates. Three in total, all with Dr. Lyons. One was to a Broadway performance of Playing a Player. The other two were just dinner dates. It was always tempting to invite him back to my apartment for more Gossip Girl binging, but I always chickened out. As crazy as it sounds, I was too worried about the sex. Yes, I know I almost raped him within 10 minutes of meeting him. But that was spur of the moment. When I had time to anticipate it, I would always get all sweaty and gassy. Which were not the best two ingredients for sexy time. Normally I would have asked my doctor why that happened to me when I thought about sex. But he was my doctor. So I couldn’t even get medical help. Also, it was possible that I was maybe subconsciously holding out for Tanner.
I would always make a point to gush about my dates (both real and fictional) in front of Tanner, but he never cracked. Chastity thought that he was passive-aggressively giving us extra work on date nights and trying to bribe us to stay at the office with food. Maybe she was right. Or maybe it was a coincidence. I wasn’t sure which.
All I knew was that I wasn’t getting invited to any Society events. And to me, that meant he wasn’t interested. Or maybe he was playing hard to get when I was supposed to be the one playing hard to get. Or maybe he was just respecting my assertion that I was 100% not interested in him.
No. That wasn’t it. He had made it very clear that he believed me being with him would put me in danger. I just didn’t understand how. I mean…no mobsters had shown up at the office and tried to break any kneecaps. In fact, no one had even had a heated argument with him. At least not that I had seen. And I definitely didn’t watch him through his office windows all day or anything like that…
Okay, fine! I watched him all the time. But it was strictly for security reasons.
“Pssst…look at this,” whispered Chastity. I stopped staring at Tanner and spun my chair around to see what Chastity wanted to show me. She was holding her phone out. The gallery app was open.
“Uh, why are you showing me thirty really poor-quality photos of Tanner?” I asked.
“They’re not poor quality,” said Chastity.
“Really? Because they’re blurrier than every photo my mom has ever taken with a camera phone. What’s so hard about it? You just point it at the person, tap their face, and then take the picture.”
“I know how to take a picture. I’m not a 60-year-old woman.”
I pointed to her gallery of blurry pictures. “Not based on that evidence.”
“Then you try.”
“Fine.” I pulled out my phone and discreetly snapped a picture of Tanner in his office. “See…easy.”
“Then why’s his face blurry?”
“What?” I looked down at the photo. Sure enough, everything was perfectly in focus except for Tanner’s face. “Let me try again.” I snapped another. Same blurry garbage. And my third photo, taken in professional mode with all the settings perfectly dialed in by hand, turned out just as bad. Or worse, if that was possible.
“See,” said Chastity. “I knew he was a vampire!”
“Since when is poor picture quality a sign of vampirism? I thought they just didn’t have reflections in mirrors?”
Chastity held up her copy of Twilight. “The literature is inconclusive.”
I rolled my eyes. “It seems more likely that one of his companies developed some privacy tech that automatically blurs pictures of him.”
“That sounds just as farfetched as my vampire idea. Dude is hiding something. And it’s not a mafia connection or a Christmas elf situation here. I swear he’s a vampire. Can we puh-leasssse just run a few tests on him?”
That was the third time this week that Chastity asked. Which meant I was literally incapable of denying her. Besides, I really did want to figure out why Tanner kept pushing me away. “Fine.”
Chastity gave me a shopping list, and an hour later we reconvened on the sidewalk outside the office. My feet ached from running all over the city finding all the random crap on the list.
“Find everything?” she asked.
I nodded and showed her the very strange contents of my purse. “You?”
“I had to flash a random Papa John’s delivery boy, but yes.”
“Why didn’t you just go to the store? The garlic sauce only costs like 55 cents.”
Chastity shrugged. “The girls needed some fresh air. Anyway, get your game face on. It’s time to learn all Tanner’s deepest, darkest secrets.”
Or get fired.
I got more nervous with every number that ticked by on the elevator ride up to Tanner’s office. This plan was completely ridiculous. But now that we’d bought the stuff, I felt committed to it. And there was no way in hell Chastity would let me back out. So instead of going to my desk, I went straight to Tanner’s office.
“Top of the morning to you,” he said.
I stared at him. Oh my God, he’s my soulmate. I thought I was the only person awkward enough to say something so strange!
He cleared his throat. “I mean, can I help you?” he asked. His dark eyes bore into me from behind his glasses, just like they always had back when he was stalking me. We no longer did that anymore. I mean…I still happened to take that route on my way to spin class, but Tanner was never there. And yes, I totally get how it might seem like I was stalking him because I was the one still showing up and he wasn’t. But whatever. Sue me.
“Hey,” I said, trying to pretend like I hadn’t just been staring at him for a solid 5 seconds. “I was hoping you could look through some of these graphics I’ve been working on for the winery.”
“Sure.” He walked around his desk and pulled a chair out for me. The scent of blueberries wafted over me. It made me want to lick him from his head to his toes. Scratch that. Feet were dirty. But his cologne was divine.
We went through a couple of the logos that I’d mocked up for the rebranding of Mills Winery. Their new name was Wineflix and Chill. Which I thought was the most clever name ever. I was super excited to see what Tanner thought of the logos. But I had to play along with Chastity’s stupid game. I made a show of squinting to look at them. “Is it just me, or is it really dark in here?”
He gave me a funny look. “It’s just you. Do you feel okay?”
“Do you mind if I open the blinds?”
“Be my guest.”
“You’re sure?” You’re not going to melt in the
sunlight, Mr. Vampire?
“I think? Now that you’re being weird about it, I’m kind of wondering if it’s some sort of trap. Did Chastity pay the window washer to work nude today or something?”
I winked at him. “Open it and find out.”
“No thanks. Anyway, I absolutely love these logos. Especially this one.” He pointed to his favorite. “Although I think the text should be pink instead of red.”
Hmm. Vampire test #1: inconclusive. Maybe Chastity’s crazy theory wasn’t that crazy after all. I agreed with him about the text color and then turned to the next page, purposefully running my hand across the edge of the thick paper. I cringed as it sliced into my hand.
“Ouch!” I yelled.
“What happened?” he asked.
I held up my hand. “Papercut. Your damn paper is so thick that it could practically be considered a deadly weapon.”
“Those are the worst. Need a Band-Aid?”
“Papercuts don’t need Band-Aids,” I said. “Everyone knows that the only way to make a papercut feel better is to suck on it.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Really? Huh. I must have missed whenever it was announced that there was an updated treatment.”
“Yeah. But everyone also knows that lip-gloss stings like a bitch when you get it on a cut. So I’m in quite a predicament.”
“Are you trying to get me to suck on your finger?” His eyes dropped to the blood and I swore he licked his lips.
Vampire! “Ew, no. Don’t be a freak.” I eyed him suspiciously. That was the second vampire test that kind of pointed to him actually being a vampire. I needed to discuss this development with Chastity immediately. Especially because if he actually was a vampire…he might decide to kill me. “Excuse me for a sec.”
“So?” asked Chastity as I approached her desk.
“I think he’s a vampire,” I whisper-yelled. My heart was racing. God, what do I do now? The guy that I was in love with was a vampire? In love? Stop it, psycho.
“Uh, duh. I tried to tell you.”
“What if he tries to bite my neck?”
