I did the next best thing and wallowed by clicking through fabric websites and binge-buying every bolt of cloth that had the word ‘decadent’ in the product description.
Thankfully I had a fitting on Monday, so after two days of pouring my bank account into the black hole that is the Internet, I turned off my computer, dragged myself out of bed, and began to make both myself and the apartment presentable for clients. Oddly enough, this actually made me feel better than anything I had done—or more like, not done—all weekend. I was moving around, being active, accomplishing things! Okay, so the things I was accomplishing were on the scale of ‘getting that nasty stain out of the bathroom tile,’ but still. It was something. It made me feel like I might be able to do even more.
The bell rang just as I put the finishing touches on the living room, the black babydoll draped just right over the mannequin. “Coming, Julie!” I called.
And I opened the door right in the face of Asher Young.
#
I am nothing if not a smooth professional, and I responded in a classy and accommodating manner.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Well, for a certain value of classy and accommodating. A low one.
Asher looked startled for a second, but then, when you’ve got a face that looks like the real project that Michelangelo was slaving over while he knocked off the Pieta as a fun distraction, you probably don’t get a lot of people angrily demanding that you explain your presence. When he showed up, most people probably took one look at him and decided, you know what, life is short and this guy is beautiful, let’s just not question it.
“I’m here to see you, of course,” Asher said. He looked my body up and down slowly through those knee-weakening eyelashes. “Somehow, you just keep pulling me back.”
“Don’t quit your day job to join Comedy Central,” I shot back, trying to keep my knees from knocking together. “Dove isn’t due for two more days.”
“And yet here I am,” he said with a maddeningly sexy smirk, and strolled into my apartment like he owned the place, sprawling on the couch so that his T-shirt stretched up and revealed those deliciously rock-hard abs, and just a hint of dark hair trailing down. “I know you like detective stories. Deduce this, Sherlock.”
I looked out the window and saw the red convertible I knew belonged to my client Julie—and there was Julie herself, climbing out of the car, her long blonde hair whipping in the breeze—
Ah. Blonde. And thin. And with the IQ of a walnut. It all became clear now.
“Well, you certainly have a type,” I told Asher. “Are you starting a singing group? The Two-Timer’s Trio?”
“I’m going for a barbershop quartet, actually,” he said with a lazy grin like a jungle cat.
My heart sped up without my permission.
Julie blew into the room like a particularly glamorous storm, and for a little while I was able to ignore Asher, setting her up behind the changing screen and slipping her into the babydoll for her final approval. I’d wanted to go for blue to match her eyes, and I still mourned that missed opportunity, but classic black looked good on her too, and maybe after she saw how well it fit, she’d come back and we could revisit the issue.
“This is so adorbs!” she squealed, when she looked at the finished product in the mirror. “Oh wow, this is literally the best thing that has ever happened to me!” She shimmied out of the lingerie and back into her jeans, peeking over the screen. “Asher baby, I gotta jet to this shoot. Can you pay the nice lady? I left my wallet in my other car.”
Great. More time with God’s gift to the blonde and bereft of brains.
As Julie blew him a kiss, Asher counted bills into my palm. I tried to take my hand back as soon as he was done, but he closed his fingers over mine, caressing my skin. “Any particular reason you’re so grumpy today?”
I raised an eyebrow and yanked my hand away. “Any particular reason you’re going for blondes? Entering a dog show later, maybe?”
Asher just chuckled, leaning against the wall in a way that accentuated the muscular ripple of his shoulders under his tight T-shirt. I licked my lips without meaning to. “I hear they have more fun.”
“Well, gingers have plenty of fun too,” I shot back, silently cursing myself for not managing a better comeback.
Asher leaned in. His voice was a low, intimate rumble. “Well, you’ll have to show me sometime.”
We were just a few feet from my bedroom…I would just have to drag him in there, and throw him down on my bed, running my hands under his shirt and across that broad chest, letting his elegant fingers unbutton my skirt, our passion letting me forget his girlfriends and how terrible I felt about Stevie and the job and my whole life…
No. I was not going to be just another one of his conquests. Not even the sole redhead.
“Not a chance,” I told him.
He shrugged, nonchalant. “If you don’t, I might just assume you’re blonde after all.” A wicked grin split his face. “After all, how do I know that the carpet matches the drapes?”
“Dude, if your lady’s ladyhairs look like a carpet, then I think you have bigger concerns. Like, maybe a shampoo.”
“Why are you so obsessed with my girlfriends?” he said, lounging against the wall in a way that would have incited riots if he’d been in public.
“I’m not obsessed! You just keep bringing them around here and throwing them in my face!”
“You should be happy,” he said. “I just recommended you to another girl last night! Your designs are the best I’ve ever seen—and I’ve seen a lot of lingerie.” He winked. The nerve.
“I’m surprised you have time before they kick you out the door,” I shot back.
“Are you in stores?” he asked, suddenly serious. “I know a hundred more women who’d love to wear them.”
“Gee, only a hundred?” I rolled my eyes, ignoring the compliment. “Dude, if you haven’t already, maybe think about getting an STD check.”