The Art of Love

by Kayla C. Oliver

  My longtime friend Trent Parker was seated at one of the outdoor tables, with a large coffee mug that was bright red and chipped for the sake of “character” sitting on the table in front of him. But he wasn’t focused on the coffee or the really nice view of downtown and the harbor. Instead, his dark eyes were fixed on a waitress whose skirt was so short I kept expecting to get a flash of the panties beneath and whose chest was large enough that the lettering across her shirt was misshapen.

  I shook my head.

  Before heading over, I got rid of the evidence of my infidelity. The half-eaten scone disappeared in the trash, and I got only one more swallow of my coffee before it, too, followed. I sighed. I wished Trent would be less of a trend follower so I wouldn’t have to put up with this indie bullcrap.

  Checking for oncoming traffic, I made a break across the street and half jogged to the little café.

  Trent was still eying the sexy little waitress who was taking way too long to clean that damn table when I came up to him.

  “You’re despicable,” I informed him mildly as I plopped down in the seat across from him. I’d picked it deliberately so that I was blocking his view of the girl.

  He made a frustrated sound and leaned half out of his chair to look around me. “You’re a prude,” Trent responded, unfazed.

  “I’m not a prude,” I argued. “I’m just selective. You should try it sometime.”

  Trent switched to the other side, leaning a little farther. “I am selective. I only like hot chicks.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Very romantic.”

  He snorted. “What would you know about romantic?”

  I straightened up in my chair. “I’m romantic. I wine and dine ’em like the best.”

  “Sure, sure,” he said. I shifted in my chair slightly to impede his view again and he scowled at me. “Damn it, Callum, just because you want to live the life of a solitary, money-grubbing billionaire with nothing but the bat cave equivalent of a bachelor pad doesn’t mean I do.”

  “And just because you want to personally test every woman in the greater Seattle area to see if they have an STD doesn’t mean I want to witness it,” I countered easily.

  Finally, the waitress straightened up, glanced at Trent, and then headed inside with a giggle. I knew because Trent finally stopped trying to look straight through me to watch her ass.

  Trent leaned back in his seat and sighed. He slipped a hand over his head, rubbing his close-cropped, dark hair like it was a chia pet. Scowling at me again, he said, “Thanks a lot. I was gonna get her number.”

  I waved him off. “You’ll still get her number. She was wiggling her ass like an open invitation.”

  “She was cleaning a table,” he pointed out.

  “No one takes that long bent over to clean a table.”

  He shrugged. “Either way. Now I have to look at your ugly mug instead of her fine work of art.” He paused, then added, “I mean her body.”

  I rolled my eyes at him. “I know what you meant, jackass.”

  Trent’s grin was like turning on a damn lightbulb. It was bright and seemed to lighten everything around him, even more so because his teeth were so white, contrasting with his darker complexion. “How’s life in Seattle treating you?” he asked, lifting his coffee and bringing it to his lips. He took a sip, then made a face.

  I laughed at him. “See? Indie coffee is crap.”

  Immediately, he was defensive. “No it’s not. I support locally owned businesses. In fact, I’m thinking of investing in this place.” He waved a large hand to indicate the café behind us.

  “Starbucks is locally owned,” I deadpanned.

  He made a frustrated sound in his throat, maybe a little bit annoyed for real. We’d had this discussion a thousand times before. “It started here; that doesn’t make it local.”

  “Sure it does,” I argued, now just to piss him off. “There’s one on every corner. It’s local everywhere.”

  “You’re such an asshole,” he told me. “Starbucks is a chain, not a small business.”

  I shrugged. “Honestly, every big business started as a small one. If we stopped buying from the big businesses, they’d shut down and put a lot of people out of work. At the same time, that means we’d be buying from small businesses and making them larger, which would eventually make them into chains—because everyone wants more money—making them the exact same evil, monopoly businesses that we were all bitching about before. If anything, we should buy from the devil we know, that way we don’t destroy the gentle integrity of the small business.”

  There was a beat of silence as Trent just stared at me like I’d grown a second head. He didn’t say anything, didn’t smile, didn’t frown, nothing.

  After a moment, I reached across the table and grabbed his coffee. I took a sip, then made a face. “Plus, indie coffee is fucking disgusting.”

  Trent made a face that suggested he at least partially agreed with me on that last point. “It’s ’cause it’s cold,” he argued.

  I laughed. “Bullshit.”

  “No, seriously. It was good when I first got it.”

  “You’re a liar. That was the first damn sip you took.”

  He shrugged his shoulders noncommittally. “Whatever. I’m going to flag the waitress down and get us some more coffee—fresh, hot coffee.”

  I laughed lightly. “Only because you want to get in the waitress’s pants.”

  “You’re buying,” he informed me as a retort.

  I smiled and shook my head. It wasn’t like I didn’t have the money for it. Honestly, Trent had the money for it, too. You wouldn’t think an author could make money like that in this day and age, but Trent was the exception to the rule. Everyone knew his name. One of his books was almost guaranteed to be in every household—well, at least the ones that read or pretended to read. And if the book wasn’t in their house, then they’d seen the damn movie. He was rolling in it.

  And he still didn’t have as much as I did.

  The waitress scurried over quickly, obviously waiting to see if we—or Trent, anyway—needed something.

  “Is there anything else I can get you?” She batted her extended lashes furiously, making me wonder if she had epilepsy or something.

  Trent grinned broadly at her.

  What a player, I thought.

  “I would love another coffee—for me and my friend,” he told her, emphasizing the fact that I, too, would be having coffee.

  The waitress glanced at me and did a quick once-over before returning her attention to Trent. She did what most women did when I was in his presence: glance right past me. It wasn’t that I wasn’t good-looking. I was. I’d been told it by enough women who didn’t know what I made to know it was legit. Instead, it was that Trent was good-looking and famous. I wasn’t. At least, not if you didn’t keep up with Forbes or the publishing circles.

  I was Callum Reid, owner of Tarvish Press. I had money to burn for the sake of burning. My summer home was a mansion in the Hamptons. I owned three zooming little sports cars that cost enough to make most people’s heads spin. And I still had my own place here in Seattle, which on its own was possibly the most impressive thing on that list.

  It was no easy task to find living space in Seattle.

  But the waitress didn’t recognize me, because my face wasn’t plastered on the back of book covers or listed in newspaper articles when people mentioned my upcoming movie.

  And I told myself I was grateful for that. While they flirted, I pulled out my cell phone and quickly checked my emails, my notifications, and everything else under the sun. I had a message from my secretary, reminding me of my meeting with the editors later that morning, plus the convention I’d promised to attend, and an email from her fourteen-year-old kid with a cat video.

  I never should have given that kid my email, I grumbled in my head. But even as I griped about kids and their stupid cat videos, I watched it. And I smiled.

  I put my phone back in my pocket only when t
he waitress left. “Did you at least get her number for all that work?” I teased.

  He leaned back in his chair with a grin. “That’s your problem, Callum. You always think it’s about the sex. Sometimes, it’s about the pursuit. It’s about the hunt. It’s about the flirting.”

  I lifted a single eyebrow, waiting.

  His grin widened. “And yes, I got her damn number, because sometimes it’s about the sex, too.”

  The waitress was prompt with her coffee and brought Trent a scone he didn’t order in an effort to further their flirting. I was grateful that she didn’t linger to talk to him.

  When she disappeared again, Trent took a forced sip of his coffee and just barely managed not to grimace. I almost laughed but managed to hold back. Instead, I broached a topic that I knew I shouldn’t. “So. How’s the new book coming?”

  Instantly, he held up a hand to stop me. “No. You know the rules. This is a purely social meeting between two friends. If you want to talk business, you can wine and dine me just like everyone else.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him and reminded him gently, “I’m paying for this.”

  He shrugged. “So? It’s not the same. You didn’t come here with the intention of paying or with the concept that this was some sort of business negotiation. You came here because we’re friends and we’ve been getting together for coffee at least once a week for the last decade. Hell, before that. We used to steal some of your mom’s coffee when we were thirteen and didn’t know what the fuck we were doing. So, no. Not the same. You want a business lunch, you make a business lunch with me. Otherwise, fuck off about the damn book.”

  I rolled my eyes at him, letting out a heavy sigh. “Seriously? You and your morals.” But even as I made a big deal about it, there was a part of me that was proud of him for sticking to his guns. I respected him more for it, and I was reminded once again that there were people who were decent just because they were decent.

  “You’re still a manwhore,” I grumbled.

  Trent grinned like the cat that ate the canary. “You’re still a prudish, lonely businessman.”

  “I’m not lonely,” I snapped.

  And I meant it. If she wasn’t a one-night stand, she wasn’t for me.

  Women were the one complication I didn’t fucking need.

  Chapter Three

  Callum

  The meeting with the editors was blissfully short. I told Sandy to get her act together, reminded Larson to stop being a dick to everyone, and gave the new girl a pep talk in the hopes she might break out of that newbie shell a little bit. Then I okayed several of our big names to go ahead to print, rejected two of the worst covers I’d ever seen—and that included the ridiculous trend of ballroom dresses for young-adult dystopian novels—then proceeded to smooth things over with clients whose names I remembered only because my secretary put them in front of me when I called.

  By the time that afternoon rolled around, I was almost relieved to have to go to the damn convention. Better that than to handhold a bunch of kids who hadn’t quite figured out what they were doing yet.

  Sandy’s older than you, and Larson’s been doing this for ten yearsˆ I had to remind myself. Although I felt like an old man a lot of the time, the truth was I’d only just turned thirty-three. By many people’s standards, I was the kid.

  Shaking those thoughts off, I got into my car and headed to the convention. It was located out toward Everett—for the scenery, they said—so I had a drive ahead of me. I’d be lucky if I made it by the last panel. I wasn’t too worried about it, though. I was going to make an appearance for Tarvish Press, but I wasn’t in the market for new editors, and while I kept my eyes open for additional clients, I didn’t need any at the moment. In fact, my quota for the year was nearly filled.

  I pulled around to the hotel at just after six. There were still a few panels, but most would be closed up. “Damn,” I said half-heartedly. I couldn’t really make myself care too much about it.

  I bravely let the valet park my baby, with a silent warning passing between us for him to not scratch my very expensive car, then headed inside. I straightened my suit and tie as I walked into the lobby and registered with the lady at the desk. I’d be staying that night and the next, then head home after the final day of the convention.

  Key in hand, I headed toward the back half of the hotel where most of the convention itself would be held.

  As I entered the room, I was already on my phone. I was texting with an editor and checking emails at the same time, answering query letters and discarding unsolicited manuscripts, because that was what I did with my life. When my phone pinged again, informing me that I had yet another new message, I braced myself for another complaint from “fill in the blank”—anyone from my editors to the automated voice-messaging system we were trying to revamp on our customer service line.

  Instead, it was from Trent.

  Got a date tonight. Waitress is hot.

  I laughed a little and shook my head. Quickly, I answered, Lucky you. I’m stuck at a convention.

  I waited a moment before another ping sounded.

  Better you than me. Want pics? She’s kinky.

  Making a face, I shook my head. You’re deplorable.

  Almost instantly, he answered, Big word. Thought I was the author.

  We went around like that a few more times, but eventually I had to go and invest a little time in actually being there. As I pocketed my phone, I headed toward the booths and checked in with the one for Tarvish Press. It was being handled by Dolores, a middle-aged woman who looked like she was a housewife but was actually one of the best talent agents we had on staff.

  “Mr. Reid,” she greeted me excitedly. She adjusted the bug-glasses she wore and smiled broadly. “We’ve got an excellent turnout today. I didn’t think you’d show, though.”

  I shrugged. “I was informed that I’d committed to be here.” I shook my head and sighed dramatically. “What idiot signed me up for this? Oh, right, me.”

  I winked at her, and she laughed. “Well, I’m glad for your lapse in judgment.”

  We talked about a few of the people who’d stopped by and whether or not I was interested in receiving a manuscript from them. I told Dolores the same thing I’d have told them in person: “Not without an agent.” We didn’t have the time to wade through unsolicited bullshit to find the good stuff. That was what agents were for.

  I told Dolores I was going to make a lap and check out the other booths, scope out some of the competition this year, and that I would check in again with her before the evening was out. She waved me off and told me to get her a coffee if I could manage it.

  As I headed toward a booth that was advertising several young-adult novels—I went back and forth between breaking into that market, but I couldn’t decide if it was worth the headache or not—I spotted a young woman in a pencil skirt. She was tall and not just because she wore three-inch heels. Her legs were long and shapely, going on for what felt like eternity before disappearing beneath her skintight skirt. Her pale blouse was tucked into the waistband, emphasizing her hourglass shape, and I noted instantly that she had a couple of those top buttons undone. Not unseemly, but damn if those few missing buttons didn’t grab my attention.

  She was standing near a booth for S&W Publishing, one of my biggest competitors, and by the way she was mulling over the brochures, book selections, and business cards, I thought she was likely looking for a job.

  She can work for me any day, I thought as I let my eyes roam over her once more.

  She flipped her long auburn hair over one shoulder, revealing a heart-shaped face and a pair of bright green eyes. Freckles dotted her cheeks and nose, and I found it strangely endearing.

  Adjusting my tie, I put on a smile and walked over to her. I pretended to peruse the table, looking over S&W’s offerings—not a bad way to get the lowdown on the competition, either—then glanced up when I “accidentally” bumped into her.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, I was
n’t even paying attention,” I lied.

  She pursed her lips together for a moment, then allowed herself a smile. It looked a little forced, but that didn’t dim the beauty of it. She had full kissable lips that I found my gaze lingering on, and the red lipstick that should have clashed with her hair only served to lure me in further.

  “It’s fine,” she told me. “Are you looking at S&W Publishing?”

  I shrugged. “Not really. I mostly wanted to see what others are doing right now. I’m already at a publishing house.”

  She lifted a single slender eyebrow. “Oh? Author?”

  I shook my head. “Editor.” That wasn’t strictly true. Technically I was the owner of Tarvish Press, but I also did some editing when there was overflow, and in the end, I was the one who okayed everything before it went to publishing.

  “Ah,” she said.

  I put my hands in my trouser pockets and smiled at her. “It’s a rough job sometimes. Long hours, lonely nights.” I let my eyes do a quick once-over again so that she knew I was interested. “But it’s rewarding, too.”

  She gave a little laugh. “I’m sure.”

  Marnie

  I’m sure you think you’re a bigshot because you work for a publishing house, I thought but politely didn’t say. Although the man was attractive, the kind I didn’t mind having a quick roll in the hay with, I wasn’t really interested in sleeping with the competition. Mostly because I thought editors tended to be full of themselves and self-assured. Granted, I was also an editor, but that was part of the point. I knew the kind of people I worked with. I didn’t need to date one of them, too.

  Still… he was attractive.

  He had short dark hair that was styled very deliberately and cut fashionably short. His eyes were a light hazel that was a mixture of greens and golds mostly. He was dressed for work, like me, in a suit complete with tie. It was a dark, silky black that was tailored obviously for him. It showed off his trim waist and those broad shoulders that I was immediately drooling over.

  Jesus, I just need to get laid, I thought, chastising myself for spending such a long time looking him over.