Man Candy

by Melanie Harlow

  He’d probably stand me up anyway!

  I dragged myself into the kitchen and poured another glass of wine (well, it was probably more like two glasses, but since it fit in a single big glass, I’ll call it one), then took my laptop into the guest room where I had my home office set up. I opened it, but instead of going to client files, I went right to Quinn’s Instagram account. His last post was a selfie (of course, did he take any other kind of picture?) with the MacArthur Bridge behind him that looked as if it had been taken on Belle Isle. Snow blanketed the ground and chunks of ice floated in the river, which stood out in the picture because it was the exact blue of his eyes. He wore a navy baseball cap with a white Old English D on the front, and the caption was just a hashtag: #BeautifulDetroit.

  To the right were all the usual comments from friends, followers, and creepers, everything from a gazillion smiley-faces with hearts for eyes or blowing heart-kisses to marriage proposals, actual compliments like wow gorgeous pic, and just plain weird crap like do you like helicopter rides? next to a banana emoji. Lots of the comments were not in English, and I wondered if Quinn had actually picked up any foreign languages during the last ten years with all his traveling for work. I wondered what countries he’d been to, which were his favorites and why, and where he’d like to visit again.

  But I couldn’t ask him those questions. Or any questions at all. My only mission for the next month where Quinn Rusek was concerned was to avoid him. Protect my dignity. And if my curiosity (or my desire) threatened to get the better of me, as it often did, I’d remind myself how I’d felt the night of the graduation party—rejected, ashamed, foolish. Since then, I’d been lied to, cheated on, and taken advantage of, but I’d never felt as heartbroken as I had the night Quinn turned me down. Why should I invite him to hurt me again?

  Because he would. I knew he would.

  They always do.

  Don’t be drunk and depressing. Get to work.

  After a big gulp of wine to fortify my strength, I closed out of Instagram without even scrolling down (I deserved a medal) and opened my work files, looking over my notes from a meeting I’d had with a new client this afternoon. My task was to create some content ideas that would increase brand awareness and grow potential customer engagement—pretty standard stuff.

  But it was impossible to concentrate knowing he was right beneath me. Every noise had me wondering.

  What was that thump? Did he drop something?

  I hear hangers on the closet rod in the guest room down there. I bet he has so many clothes he needs two closets. Total peacock. (Never mind that I used two full closets too.)

  Rod. Now I wonder what his rod is like.

  Was that the front door closing? Where’s he going?

  He’s back. Wonder if he got dinner. I’m hungry.

  The toilet just flushed. Great, now I’m thinking about his rod again.

  His bedroom TV is on. Wonder what he likes to watch at night. What if it’s porn? (That thought intrigued me so much, I went into my bedroom, lay down on the floor and pressed my ear to the hardwood.)

  Nope. He’s catching up on Game of Thrones. Bummer. But also cool, because GoT is awesome. Wonder who his favorite character is. For a moment, I entertained a little fantasy about the two of us watching together, maybe even sitting on the couch, with a pizza and a bottle of wine on the table.

  No. I bet he doesn’t even eat pizza.

  Mmm, pizza.

  I love pizza.

  Hauling my tipsy ass off the ground, I gave up on work and went into the kitchen, where I found a French bread pizza in the freezer. I debated using the oven, since frozen pizza nuked in the microwave always turns out a bit soggy and flaccid, but decided I was too hungry to be picky. While it cooked, I studied the box. “French bread” was a bit of a stretch, and I wondered if it had been a marketing idea. (“I know!” I imagined someone saying in an advertising meeting. “Let’s call it French, that sounds fancier. Maybe they can make the one edge a bit bullet-shaped so it vaguely resembles a baguette, but make it wider, like a baguette after a piano was dropped on it.”)

  When the microwave dinged, I took my dinner back to my desk—along with another glass of wine…OK, the rest of the bottle—and while I ate, I researched the history of French bread pizza. According to the Internet, where all Great Truths are discovered, Stouffer’s bought (or maybe copied) the idea from a guy who ran a food truck at Cornell University, starting in 1960. I filed that interesting yet useless maybe-fact away in my brain, which housed an entire library of those things, and tried focusing on my client again.

  Needless to say, after that much wine, I ended up back on Instagram, and was rabidly scrolling through Quinn’s account (Jesus, did the guy ever take a bad pic? And did he get to keep all the little underpants he wore in these photo shoots or did he have to give them back? Like, if I snooped in his underwear drawer, would it be full of colorful banana hammocks or just plain old boxer briefs?) when my phone vibrated. I glanced down and saw a text from Claire, one of my two closest friends.

  I need one of you to put ORC into motion.

  Got it, I typed back.

  Let me know if you need me, Margot responded.

  ORC stood for Operation Rescue Claire. It meant I had to call her in five minutes with some reason she needed to leave the terrible date she was on, immediately. We’d set it up two years ago among our friends after it became clear that NO is not in Claire’s vocabulary, so she says yes to all dates. She doesn’t like to hurt people’s feelings, and besides that, she genuinely believes that her soul mate is out there, poor thing. She’s the kind of girl who thinks love at first sight is possible, people always mean what they say, and Jack somehow survived freezing in the Atlantic after the ship went down in Titanic. (“They didn’t have anyone confirm his death and there was no funeral! I think he survived and found her and she kept it a secret!”)

  After a while I stopped arguing with her, although not only did I believe he was dead, I thought there was enough room on that door/raft that Rose could have saved him, but whatever. Pretty sure Claire believes in unicorns, too.

  Honestly, I had no idea how we were such close friends, but we’d been together since grade school. Margot, the third member of our trio, had gone to private school up until ninth grade, when she finally convinced her parents that she couldn’t catch New Moneyitis by attending public schools. We’d each gone to different colleges but had moved back to the area after grad school, and we had standing GNO dates every week.

  I waited the five minutes and called Claire, claiming to be her mother with an emergency at home. “I’ll be right there, Mom,” she promised in an unnaturally loud voice. “Fifteen minutes at most. Don’t move.”

  We hung up, and she called me from the car ten minutes later. “Thanks. I was dying.”

  “Good thing you drove yourself.” I carried my empty plate and glass into the kitchen and set them in the sink.

  “Always. Especially this time. I had a feeling.”

  “What went wrong?”

  “He spent the first thirty minutes of our date talking about his ex. He was in tears by the time my second glass of wine arrived. I took my entrée to go.”

  “What is it?”

  “Veal piccata.”

  “Nice. Why is he even dating if he’s not over his ex?”

  “Who knows?” She sighed. “He was sort of cute, though. Great hair. It’s a bummer. All the good ones are taken, I swear. Or gay. Or both.”

  “Speaking of cute, you’ll never guess who just moved in downstairs.” I turned around and leaned back against the sink, eyeing the fridge where he near-kissed me.

  “Who?”

  “Quinn Rusek.” I lowered my voice. I didn’t want him to hear me talking about him.

  “Quinn Rusek just moved in downstairs from you? Why?”

  “Because my brother told him he could.”

  “Your brother,” she said wistfully. “A perfect example of cute, taken, and gay.”


  “We are talking about me,” I reminded her peevishly. “And I have not heard the proper amount of outrage from you on my behalf that my cute, gay, and taken brother is subjecting me to this cruel and unusual punishment!”

  “I’m sorry. It is cruel and unusual. What’s he doing here?”

  I filled her in on the details while I rinsed my dishes, put them in the dishwasher, and hunted around in my pantry for something sweet. “And then when I saw him, he had the nerve to act like nothing was wrong. Like he hadn’t been such an asshole to me that night.”

  “Well, it was ten years ago, Jaims.”

  “That doesn’t matter! My humiliation is still fresh! It rose right to the surface the moment he brought up the thing I said.”

  She gasped. “The ‘I love you’ thing?”

  Spying a can of Duncan Hines frosting at the back, I pulled it out, took off the cap, and peeled back the foil lid. “Yes. Turns out he still remembers that. I’d been hoping he forgot.” I dragged a finger through the thick chocolate sludge and licked it off. “It was so horrible. He teased me about it. Made me feel seventeen years old and ridiculous again.”

  “What an asshole,” she said, finally giving me what I wanted. “How did he look?”

  I groaned and dug back into the frosting. “Good. Too good. You can’t trust people that good-looking. He’s probably an alien or something. He’s just here trying to charm women back to the mother ship to breed his ridiculously beautiful alien babies.” I sucked the chocolate off my finger.

  Claire laughed. “OK, don’t follow him to any spaceships, but maybe you can try the whole bikini seduction again. Bet he’d go for you now.”

  “Wrong. He came up here, and I’m so stupid and gullible, I invited him in for a glass of wine. Talked about myself. Tried to get him to kiss me.”

  “Omigod! Why?”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. “I have no idea. I swear to God, it came out of nowhere! One minute I’m telling him I won’t go on a date with him, and the next, I’m puckering up! He’s got some sort of weird spell on me or something!”

  “Wait, he asked you for a date?”

  “Yes. No. You know what? I don’t even know.” I stabbed the frosting. “He’s so damn cagey, somehow I don’t even know what he’s saying. Plus I get distracted by his face.” I shoved the frosting-coated finger in my mouth. “And his body.”

  “Dang. So did he kiss you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why not?”

  “Who knows? To torment me? I mean…I thought he wanted to kiss me. He was flirting with me, I think.”

  “You couldn’t tell?”

  “No. And I hate when I can’t read people. It makes it impossible to keep the upper hand.”

  “Ah,” Claire said knowingly. “The old upper hand.”

  “I have to have it,” I insisted, wondering how many calories were in a can of frosting and deciding not to look. Instead I put the cap back on and stuck it in the fridge.

  “I know you do. You are the master of the upper hand.”

  “The mistress,” I corrected, and the thought of myself as a dominatrix made me giggle. “I need a whip.”

  “Totally. Maybe you could tie him up and punish him for turning you down again.”

  “Ha! He would deserve it.” I thought for a moment as I stared at the refrigerator where he’d pinned me without actually touching me. “Problem is, I think he’s the upper hand type too.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I just feel like he’s good at taking control, at getting people right where he wants them.”

  She laughed again. “And where does he want you?”

  “He says he wants to be friends.”

  “Friends?”

  “Friends. But fuck that. I’m not going to be his friend,” I said stubbornly.

  “OK.”

  “I’m going to ignore him until he goes away.”

  “Good plan. That always works when you have a crush on someone.”

  “I don’t have a crush on him!”

  “No, no. I’m sorry, sweetie. Of course you don’t.”

  I sighed as I turned off the kitchen light and headed down the hall to my bedroom. “But I can’t stop thinking about him. Why is that?”

  “Well, what if it’s fate? I mean, what if there’s even an underlying reason he came back to town? What if it was his destiny to live in your house? What if he’s your soul mate, your one tr—”

  “Claire,” I interrupted loudly. “Repeat after me. There is no such thing as a soul mate. Or destiny. Or one true love. I just want to bang him, not ride off into the sunset on his horse. And I’m annoyed he’s not cooperating.”

  She clucked her tongue. “You have zero sense of romance.”

  “What’s the point? Even in books, all great love stories end in tragedy. Why should real life be any different?”

  Now it was Claire’s turn to sigh. “You know what? I’m beginning to think you might be right.”

  It should have made me feel good that she’d finally agreed with me, that I was right, that I was good at my job—selling ideas to people—but somehow it didn’t.

  It took me a long time to fall asleep that night, imagining him beneath me. (And I do mean right beneath me.)

  Even a realist has to dream sometimes.

  Six

  JAIME

  The next morning I heard the front door open and shut at an absurdly early hour for a Saturday. For one foggy moment, I was concerned about an intruder until I remembered Quinn. I bet he gets up early and goes to the gym, I thought, snuggling deeper under the covers. Fuck that noise.

  But I couldn’t get back to sleep. Instead, I lay there thinking about his sweaty body, muscles flexing, breathing hard, until I finally couldn’t stand it, grabbed my vibrator, and got myself off.

  Afterward, I craved him more than ever.

  What the hell was I going to do?

  My pride would not allow for a third attempt at seduction, not after I’d failed so miserably the first two times. What was wrong with him, anyway? Had I not made it clear that I don’t want a boyfriend, but I do want sex? What kind of guy turns down an offer like that?

  It got me thinking. Who was Quinn Rusek, anyway? Maybe there was more to him than meets the eye (not that there was anything wrong with what met the eye, mind you).

  I needed to focus.

  I needed to figure him out.

  Then I needed a strategy to make him want me.

  I’d get my fill of him—literally—and then he could be on his way. Out of my house, out of my head, out of my life.

  Over the next ten days, I carefully avoided talking to Quinn while at the same time paying close attention to everything he did. I even made a list:

  Works out early Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday mornings.

  Goes to class MWF mornings, must work out later those afternoons.

  Late classes Tuesday and Thursday evenings.

  Cooks his own dinners (have smelled Italian things, chicken things, possibly steak after getting home at night).

  Binge watches Game of Thrones and House of Cards.

  Takes out the trash and recycling bins (even mine) without being asked.

  Sings Beatles songs in the shower sometimes (fave might be Rocky Raccoon, voice not too bad).

  Wears size 12 shoe (left pair of boots in the hall to dry).

  Wears size 32/34 jeans (left pair of jeans in the dryer).

  Posts selfies to IG once a day (shirtless if inside, has perfected the Flynn Ryder smolder)

  Gradually a picture was emerging of Quinn as a polite tenant, fitness buff, good student, vainglorious photographer, and generally happy, well-adjusted person.

  Who wasn’t interested in me.

  “I don’t understand,” I complained to Claire and Margot over martinis at our weekly Wednesday GNO. “He was all about me that first night he moved in, and he’s ignored me ever since!”

  “Wait a minute, you just said you’ve been trying
to avoid him for the last ten days,” Claire said, sipping her Cosmo. “How is that him ignoring you?”

  “There have been plenty of nights where he must have heard me come in.” I refused to let him off the hook. “He could have come up like he did the first time.”

  “Why would he? You told him you weren’t attracted to him.” Margot blinked at me. “You told him to keep his hands to himself, did you not?”

  “I said maybe I wasn’t attracted to him,” I reminded her. “And that was only to get him to kiss me.”

  “You’re being ridiculous,” Claire said, shaking her head. “And you never get this way over a guy.”

  She was right. If I wanted someone, I went after him. If it was fun, maybe we’d make it work for a little while.

  But Quinn wasn’t playing fair!

  “Tell me about it.” I tipped back my dirty vodka martini. “Want to hear something insane? I have this list of things about him, stupid stuff that doesn’t even matter and isn’t helping me get him into bed. But I keep adding to it!”

  “Oh my God, Jaime.” Claire rolled her eyes. “Quit obsessing over getting him into bed. Just go talk to him. Hang out a little. You complained about him playing games, but right now you’re just as bad.”

  I gaped at her. “Do you know me at all, Claire French? I don’t want to talk to him. I’m not even sure I like him.” That wasn’t exactly true…Quinn did sort of amuse me, and I liked the way he’d taken care of his mom. He just knew how to push my buttons.

  “Then forget him altogether,” said Margot. “It’s not like you want a relationship.”

  “Ew. No.” I shuddered.

  “OK, so go bang someone else if you have to,” added Claire, “but maybe you should let this one go.”

  They were probably right, but I couldn’t.

  Once I get a craving like this, it has to be satisfied.

  The next day was Thursday, and I took it off from work in order to get some things done—a dentist appointment, some shopping, monthly lunch with my mother. She asked me how my toast for Alex’s wedding was coming along, and it stressed me out so badly that I’d come home, put on some pajamas, and uncorked the wine a little earlier than usual. But I figured the buzz might help the creative juices flow, so I justified it by sitting down at my computer with every intention of working on the toast.