I struggled to keep my disappointment from showing. “Gotta run?” I asked, and immediately wanted to slap myself. Of course he had to run. Hadn’t I just heard him say that? What, did I think that if I just asked out loud, the universe would magically turn back time so that that conversation hadn’t happened?
Damn, but that would improve my sex life.
“I’m afraid so,” he said, glancing up from his zipper to shoot me a rueful smile. “It’s an emergency.”
“No one hurt, I hope?” I asked.
He had looked back down to hunt for his socks, and now his head shot back up, surprised. “No, no, not that kind of emergency. Just…” He did drunk-person-trying-to-gesture-like-they’re-sober gesturing. “Boring stuff. It’s a very boring emergency.”
I tried to smile. “Well, you certainly put a new spin on wham, bam, thank-you ma’am.” I let my gaze trail down his muscular chest and the still-tented front of his blue jeans, the way my hand had been set to only moments before. “Was really looking forward to returning the favor.”
A faint blush lit his cheeks, and oh, this was only a one-night stand, that gentlemanly blush shouldn’t be making my heart go pitter-pat.
“Not half as much as I was looking forward to it,” he admitted. “Maybe I’ll see you around…”
“I don’t know how much longer I’ll be staying,” I said. “Work stuff. But I…well, you never know. I wouldn’t mind it.” Yep. Playing it cool.
He finished buttoning his shirt and leaned forward, pressing a chaste yet passionate kiss to my cheek. “I hope you have a wonderful time while you’re here.”
“I already have,” I confessed, and the way he grinned, I almost thought he was about to throw off his clothes again, and stay.
But he just kissed my other cheek, and left.
I flopped back on the hotel bed and sighed, staring at the ceiling.
“Well, that’s the way the cookie crumbles,” I told myself. “And there’s no use crying over spilled milk.” Maybe if I just kept reciting clichés, I’d start to feel better.
It wasn’t the end of the world. It was just a hot guy, who I didn’t get to spend as much time with as I wanted to.
I tried to run through my presentation in my head as I drifted off to sleep, but nothing could keep my mind from replaying the scene with mystery man over and over. Those eyes, that mouth…that damn phone call. I’ll probably never see him again, I told myself, so it’s best to let it go. That’s just how the world works.
TWO
“Oh my god, Sandra, I’m so sorry, but I completely blanked on that, can you say it again?”
I cradled my phone against my ear as I swiped my badge at the door to the company offices. Thankfully I didn’t need my full brain to navigate, even though I’d never been there before—corporate structured all these places the same, right down to the brain-deadening beige of the carpet and the mass-produced inspirational posters on the walls. The whole place had a completely predictable layout and color scheme, all gleaming sterile neutral tones and easily disassembled cubicle partitions, all traces of individuality scrupulously erased from the workspaces except for the odd golf trophy.
I trotted down the hall, avoiding the curious gazes of the men in expensive suits, the younger ones looking at me like I was the dessert option on the menu, and the older ones looking at me like I must have taken a wrong turn on my way to the kitchen.
I tried not to fumble my phone in my suddenly sweaty hands. There was no reason to be nervous. No reason to be nervous. No reason.
Maybe if I repeated that enough times, I’d actually believe it.
“‘A warm color scheme,’” Sandra repeated as per my earlier instruction. “Lots of rich carmines and golden browns, think hunting lodge meets the red carpet.”
“Got it,” I said. I most definitely did not have a hangover, not even a tiny little bit, but this headache I’d woken up with was really starting to get on my last nerve, and the coffee and ibuprofen I’d had for breakfast weren’t working their magic just yet.
“I’m sorry to make you memorize all my crap,” Sandra apologized, before her voice went slightly tinny and further away. “James! Icky! Icky icky no no!” Her voice returned to its normal timbre. “Sorry about that, he was trying to get into the cat food again.”
“Tell the little monster hi for me,” I said with a grin. I just couldn’t be annoyed at that little moppet with his big brown eyes and mess of dark curls, not even if he was keeping the best art partner I’d ever had stuck back in Washington, D.C. “Has he figured out how to dismantle the DVD player yet?”
“Don’t give him any ideas,” Sandra ordered. “Really, though, I swear, I am going to strangle that babysitter; I let her know I would need her three months in advance and she swore that she would be available and then at the last minute—”
“Don’t sweat it,” I told her. “I got this, just go over some of this stuff with me and I’m golden.”
“Sure thing—James! Mommy’s credit card is not a snack!”
Once Sandra managed to wrest her wallet away from her son’s sticky, adorable fingers, we went over the preliminary art concepts she’d created for my pitch today, Sandra repeating the necessary buzzwords until I was sure they were drilled into my brain and unlikely to come jarred loose by anything less than a tank.
I could feel my confidence level rising I as I trotted down the hall towards the elevators. This was it. This was my big chance. There was nothing that—
“Did you see the hooters on that chick I banged last night? Like frigging planets or some shit.”
“Aw bro, don’t tell me you thought those were real!”
“Like I care? She wanted the D so bad, I swear, I barely got back to the Caddy before she was on her knees—”
My mood deflated like a rapidly punctured balloon as the gang of tanned young men rounded the corner, all pastel polos and hundred dollar haircuts and acrid cologne that filled the air almost as stiflingly as their entitlement.
“Sorry, got to go,” I told Sandra.