2
My real last name is Hammer.
I get asked that question all the time. Everyone thinks it’s fake. Like it’s a stage name, or pen name, or my stripper name from back in the days when I worked hard for the money.
Just kidding. I was never a stripper.
But I was lucky enough to land a kick-ass last name, and I’m doubly lucky because if I’d been a girl, my parents were going to name me Sunshine. Instead, my mom named her bakery Sunshine and her sons Wyatt and Nick. Our little sister came a few years after the bakery was born, so she dodged the hippy name too, but Josie definitely got the vibe. She’s a free spirit.
I point at the ring Harper has in her hand. “Did you jet off to Vegas this weekend and marry Penn? Or wait. Was it Teller?”
“No. Criss Angel,” she says, as she stuffs the ring inside a red purse so big it could provide safe harbor for refugees.
“Seriously, though. Why do you carry a wedding band around?”
“I could tell you, but then I’d be breaking Code 563 in the Magician’s Handbook of Secrecy, which was written to keep mere mortals such as yourself in the dark.”
I tap my chest and shake my head. “I beg your pardon. I’m not a mere mortal. ’Fess up.”
She cups the side of her mouth and stage whispers, “It’s fake. I picked it up so I could do a little sleight-of-hand trick at a party last weekend.”
“Did the trick work?”
She nods, her lips curving in a grin. “Like a charm. Turned this into the Green Lantern’s ring. The kid was in awe.”
“As well he should be. By the way,” I say, tipping my chin in the direction of the long-gone lady, “thank you. For a second there I was thinking maybe she had a magic bullet in her pocket.”
Her eyes widened. “Has that happened?”
I nod, rolling my eyes. “Once. At a fan meet-and-greet.”
“A fan rubbed one out in line?”
“Either that or was just priming the pump for later. But don’t worry. I’m pretty psyched that you saved me from the sneak-off-the-wedding-band tactic, too. I think you might be a superhero.”
“That’s me. I swoop in out of nowhere and rescue unsuspecting men from married women with dangerous husbands who would want to crush the life-force out of wildly popular cartoonists. You’ll probably want to take me out for a coffee when I tell you her husband is about ten feet tall, has arms the size of cannons, and wears brass knuckles. Saw him outside the bookstore before I came in.”
“Does he lead an underground fight ring, too?”
She nods in mock seriousness. “Yes. He’s Vicious. That’s his fight name.”
“I clearly owe you the coffee. Maybe even a slice of cake, just so you know how much I appreciate you saving me from Vicious.”
“Don’t tease me. Cake is my religion.” She lowers her voice. “I was debating for the longest time whether to use the ring trick or to give her these,” she says, dipping her hand into her bag and producing a pair of purple eyeglasses, “and suggesting she wear them to help her eye-fuck you better.”
I crack up at her choice of words. “Are they specially designed for that? If so, I’d really like to get a pair.”
To use on you.
She nods again. “There’s a shop in the East Village that sells them. They need to be special ordered, but I can hook you up,” she says, then roots around in her bag. It’s like Hermione’s purse. Yes, I read all of Harry Potter. It’s only the best story ever told.
She grabs a copy of my collection from inside her bag and sets it on the table. “Can you sign it to Helena?”
I shoot her a look when I see the receipt inside the book. She bought it here. “Harper, you didn’t have to come here for me to sign a book. I would have given you one.”
She winks. “Good to know I’m on the short-list. For now, I have a client who is secretly in love with you. So I’m giving her this as a gift.”
“Tell Helena, Mister Orgasm says hello,” I say as I sign it.
When I look up, Harper is wearing the purple glasses.
I blink.
Holy shit. She is red-hot in them. As a guy who wears glasses, I dig a chick in glasses, and I’ve never seen Harper wear them before. Not gonna lie—the sexy librarian fantasy is strong in this one. This one being me, and I’m thinking pencil skirt, tight white blouse enticingly unbuttoned, and Harper bending over a desk, ready to be spanked for mis-shelving some books.
She ogles me like the woman in line was doing, and whispers in a naughty tone, “Do they work, Nick?”
Absolutely, but you don’t even need glasses for me to want to be eye-fucked by you. Also, I’m imagining what you look like in nothing but them.
Wait. Shit. No.
I smack the 99.99 percent of my brain that just thought that. Because Harper is my best friend’s sister. And Spencer already promised he would shave off all my hair and dye my eyebrows if I ever touched her. Not that I’m scared of Spencer, I just really like my hair. It’s light brown, thick, and—well, I’m just going to be honest here—I could totally do shampoo commercials. There. I said it.
But I also don’t plan on acting on any of the damn fantasies I’ve had about Harper, even if the bent-over-the-kitchen-counter one is particularly potent lately. Though, that’s not fair to the up-against-the-wall fantasy, is it?
Note to self: Bring the wall one back into rotation tonight.
But, back to her question about the glasses.
“They work like a charm,” I tell her, repeating her words.
She takes them off and glances behind her. A few fans are left, tapping their feet, holding their books. “I’ve been commandeering your time. I should get out of here.”
“Wait. I’m almost done. Want to grab that cup of coffee in fifteen minutes?” I ask, then quickly add, “As payment for your rescue services.”
“Hmm. Is there anyplace in this city to get coffee?” She taps her chin, as if truly considering it.
I sigh heavily, playing along. “Good point. It is really hard to find coffee. It’s not as if it’s on every corner or anything.”
She nods in understanding. “Usually you have to hunt for it, far and wide. It can take a few hours.” She snaps her fingers. “Tell you what. Let me see what I can accomplish with a map. If I can find a cup of coffee within, say, a fifty-foot radius of the store, I’ll text you the location.”
“Ten-four.”
She salutes me and spins on her heel, and I swear I don’t watch her too intently as she weaves through the bookstore on her way out. Okay, fine. Maybe I do spend three or four seconds checking out her backside. Five seconds, tops. But, it’s a spectacular ass, so it seems a shame not to enjoy the view.
Serena returns, parks herself next to me at the table, and for the next fifteen minutes I focus on my fans, signing and chatting, interacting and engaging.
When the event ends, I check for a text from Harper and am stoked to find one. I tap out a reply then help Serena straighten up. A straight shooter, she started working on my show a couple years ago, before it climbed high in the ratings. “You did good, sweetie. Sorry I was MIA for some of it,” she says, twisting her curly black hair into a clip before she stands and scoops the Sharpies into her purse. She pats her belly. “I swear for a few minutes I thought I was going to have the baby in the bookstore bathroom.”
“Funny, I’d been worried about the same thing. If you did, you would have named the baby after me, right?”
“No. If I had the baby in the bathroom, I was going to name it Sink,” she says, then holds up her finger. “Oh, I almost forgot to tell you.” That’s how she always prefaces requests from the head of the network. “There’s an event Gino wants you to be at on Thursday. It’s just a little charity fundraiser schmooze at a bowling alley, but he wants all his home-grown stars there.”
“Of course I’ll be there,” I say, grabbing my jacket. I mean, what other answer is there? Paranoid prick or not, Gino controls the time slots on the
network, and he likes me to remember he handpicked my online strip to turn into an animated show a few years back when he was in the development division. I’m grateful as all hell that he gave me a shot, but he’s strangely jealous, too, and I suspect it’s because he created a show years ago that faded from the limelight quickly, and none of his efforts to craft another one of his own panned out.
“And you know the drill,” she says as she zips up her purse and we wander through the shelves, heading for the exit.
I recite the rules. “Gino wants me to be charming, but not so charming that women hit on me instead of him. And I should be awesome at bowling if I’m on his team, and if not, I should throw the game so he wins. Because if I don’t play his games, the greater the chance I’ll get screwed in negotiations in a couple more weeks, since contract talks are at the end of this month.”
She taps her finger to her nose. “Perfecto.”
“It’s almost as if I’m used to his completely mercurial personality.”
She smiles. “That’s our boss. You know he was used to being the center of attention ’til you came around. You’re the full package, and it drives him crazy. But I really appreciate you doing these public events.”
I glance around the bookstore, filled with customers, some of whom just bought my cartoon collection. I’ve been asked to go bowling with a TV executive, who is a crazy, capricious ass, but who signs my fat paycheck. My show is killing it. I’m raking in the money, and the praise, and I do very well with the ladies. There’s something that they like about the scruff, ink, glasses, and hair, and the fact that my once-lanky frame is packed with toned, strong muscles.
Life is good.
“Serena, I assure you, it’s not like attending a party is some hardship. The fact that the head of the network has some weird complex about me is the very definition of a first-world problem.”
“No,” she says sharply as we reach the front door of the bookstore. “You know what a true first-world problem is? The other day I went to Ben & Jerry’s and got a pint to take home. I wanted two flavors. Coconut Seven Layer Bar for me, and Mango Sorbet for my hubby. But guess what?”
I hold a hand to my forehead like a fortuneteller. “They didn’t have Coconut Seven Layer Bar.”
“Worse,” she says, slamming her hand onto my chest and practically toppling me into the new release shelves with her exuberance. “They forgot to put a sheet of wax paper between them to separate the flavors. The mango leaked into the coconut,” she says with a pout.
I frown. “That’s really terrible. I kind of wish I never knew such a horrific thing happened. I’m not sure I can get that image out of my head.”
On that note, I say goodbye to Serena and head to Peace of Cake where Harper waves to me from a table in the back. She’s reading my book.
Is it wrong that I wish she still had those glasses on?
But glasses or no glasses, she just does it for me.
3
We share a piece of double chocolate cake.
I know how this looks.
Like a date.
But it’s not. It’s just that the slices here at this cake/coffee shop are huge. No way can you eat one all by yourself, unless you were born with two dessert compartments. I love dessert, but I only have one.
Besides, it’s not like that between us. I’ve known Harper for what seems like forever, since I’ve been best friends with Spencer for that long. The three of us went to the same high school, but Harper is three years younger than me, so it’s not like I was doing the left-hand shuffle to thoughts of her when I was a senior and she was a freshman. I’d never thought of her that way then.
Besides I’m right handed.
Anyway, now that we’re both in our late twenties and living in New York City, we hang out from time to time. Maybe even more so since Spencer got engaged; he’s much less available these days. Sometimes Harper and I go to the movies on weekends, and lately, sitting next to her in the theater is the definition of distracting.
Let’s just be blunt here: Harper is not cheerleader hot. She’s not Victoria’s Secret hot.
She’s quirky hot. Nerd hot. Video-gamer fantasy hot. She does kickboxing for workouts, she competes hard in our summer softball games, and she knows what house she’d be in at Hogwarts. She’s a Hufflepuff, and yes, it turns me on that she didn’t pick Ravenclaw or Gryffindor like everyone else usually does, but she chooses the house known for loyalty.
And she’s a fucking magician. For a living. The chick pays her own bills performing sleight of hand and slipping the wool over people’s eyes.
That’s kind of the hottest profession ever—hotter than bartender, than model, than rock star. Maybe not hotter than sexy librarian, though.
I honestly didn’t think these thoughts until a few months ago. Until the day last summer when she asked me to help her get even with her brother for something he did to her years ago. To exact her revenge, we pretended we were getting it on at softball practice.
I took off my shirt, she ran her hands down my chest, and the rest is history. The 99.99 percent of my brain started going there with her that day in Central Park.
Look, I’m a guy. It is that simple. We’re not complicated, and anyone who tries to make us out to be complex is full of shit. That’s not to say we aren’t capable of advanced feelings, emotions, and all that jazz. But when it comes to women, it doesn’t take much for the lightbulb to go on or off.
And the Harper switch went all the way on that day.
I do my best to focus on idle chit-chat with her, rather than cycling through what kind of lingerie she might be wearing, especially since I can see a hint of a black satiny strap at the edge of her V-neck sweater. I force myself not to imagine what the rest of that sexy garment looks like.
Too late. I’m picturing it now, seeing in my mind how the lace hugs her flesh, and that is one fine image. Thank you, brain, for never being afraid to go there. But now I need to zone in on the conversation.
I point at the cake we’re working on. “Scale of one to ten. What would you give this cake?”
With her fork poised midair, she stares at the ceiling. “Rapture.”
“I don’t believe that’s on the scale.”
“I did say cake was a religion.”
“Then I would think second coming would be fitting.”
“Coming. You said coming,” she says with a straight face.
“I say that a lot, actually.” I lean back in the chair, keeping it casual.
“I know.” She wiggles her eyebrows then whispers, “I was enjoying your book before you arrived. It’s so dirty.” She says it like this is a secret. Like she just learned for the very first time that my cartoon is a fiesta of naughtiness. “What I really want to know, Nick Hammer,” she says, owning my name in a way that the blonde from the bookstore could never even come close to, “is where your inspiration comes from.”
You don’t even want to know, Harper.
I pretend to study the cake. “I think this cake might be laced with something.”
She takes a bite and winks. “Yeah, deliciousness. That’s what it’s spiked with.”
Fuck, see what I mean? She’s too much. She makes it really hard not to think about what she’d be like in bed. She operates at this constant state of verbal banter that’s flirting, but not quite flirting. The net effect? I’m a cat, and she’s working the laser pointer. I’m chasing the red light, but I can’t ever catch it. The fact that I’m single doesn’t help. I have nothing whatsoever against one-night stands, but I’m less of a hookup guy and more of a serial monogamist, even though I’ve never fallen in love with anyone I’ve monogamied serially with, including the last woman, who’s in Italy now, working on a book.
Ergo, I’m one hundred percent available, I’m absolutely interested in the woman sitting across from me, but no way can I have her.
I take a drink of my coffee, and she reaches for her hot chocolate. Since I can’t spend the entire time staring at he
r lips on the mug, I look around. The shelves at the counter are full of fantastic-looking cakes, and a chalkboard menu lists mouth-watering flavors alongside the standard coffee options. Peace of Cake is packed. The wooden tables are nearly overflowing with your Upper West Side potpourri of people—moms, dads, and young kids, along with twenty-somethings and couples.
“So how many was it?” Harper nods in the direction of the bookstore.
“How many what? Books sold?”
She shakes her head. “How many times did you get hit on in there?”
I laugh, but don’t answer her.
“C’mon,” she presses, tapping the table. “A good-looking guy like you. The center of attention. It must have been, what . . . every other fan?”
My ears perk up at her description. Other parts do, too. But see, it’s not like she says good-looking guy in this come-on way. She says it like it’s some known fact. Which is why I can’t figure her out. I have no clue if her mind swerved out of Friendshipville and into Naughty Thought Town that day in the park, too. “No, not every other fan,” I say.
“But every other other fan?” she asks, and I laugh again at her word choice, as if every other other is now a thing.
“All I’m going to say is you were an excellent shield when I needed you.” I snap my fingers. “Hey, I have an idea. I have this event in a couple days.” I give her the details that Serena shared with me and fill her in on my boss’s weird jealousy issues. “But Gino still wants me to go, so you should come with me.”
“As a shield? So women won’t hit on you?” she asks, taking another bite of the cake.
“They generally don’t if you’re there with a friend.”
She gestures with her fork from her to me and back. “Am I supposed to pretend it’s a date?” She says this like it’s the craziest notion in the world, which tells me I need to stop entertaining any thoughts of Harper Holiday running her hands down my chest ever again. It’s not like she needs to know I drew a picture of her O face a few weeks ago. What? Was that so wrong? It’s what I do for a living. It’s not that weird. Besides, I deleted the file. I was just messing around on the computer, I swear.
Mister O Page 2
