“The Met again?” Hank raises an eyebrow. “Well, well, they must’ve been quite impressed with your work the last time around to ask you back again. Well done!”
“It’s a job,” I say with a shrug, not wanting to talk about work, or the stupid strike, or Lizzie and the make-out session in her apartment, which I can’t seem to stop thinking about. “So what’s going on with you and the blond?” I ask, trying to change the subject.
“Just a flirtation, my dear boy, nothing more. I’m far too old to be domesticated,” he says with a smile. He’s been a bachelor for almost thirty years now, since Grandma passed, and he always says that marriage is unnatural—good for the man, terrible for the woman.
“Anything in that pocket for me?” he asks, his smile turning devilish as he rubs his hands together.
“But of course,” I say, and with a flourish I pull my flask from my pocket, and hand it over. Hank gave it to me on my college graduation, and I try to always keep it stocked with his favorite whiskey, Macallan 25.
“I love this piece,” he says, turning the flask over in his hands. It shines under the Tiffany lamp at his bedside, and I watch as he runs his fingers over my initials, engraved on the side. “I found it in a little shop in Paris on the left bank, sometime in the fifties. Back then, Paris was a playground—women everywhere! They wore silk stockings with seams that drove me half out of my mind, and little hats with veils. Every chance meeting was a flirtation, my boy. Every sigh leading to a kiss . . .” His voice drifts off, lost in memory. And even though I’ve heard these stories a thousand times, I love all of it.
“Anyway,” he goes on, coming back to life and waving one hand, “I’d met this salesgirl on the Rue Cambon, cute little strawberry blond, Mimi, I think her name was, and she told me about the place—after she took me home, of course. Said it was the best kept secret in town.”
“You or the shop?” I joke.
“The shop, of course!” He laughs. “Though she wasn’t exactly complaining about my ministrations either.” He cackles, handing the flask back to me. “In fact, she set me up with her friend Simone the next evening, said she had to take me for a test drive. Can you imagine?”
Knowing the perennial bachelor and pussy hound that is my grandfather as well as I do and as long as I have, yes. Yes, I can.
“Those were the days.” He leans back into his nest of pillows. “No commitment, no attachment, just craven lust and then sweet, sweet goodbyes before you were on to the next target. And the next,” he says wistfully.
Before I can agree with him, my phone rings. I reach to turn it off—Hank can’t abide by interruptions—but he gestures for me to answer. “Time for my constitutional,” he says, and heaves himself out of bed. He hates feeling weak, so I stop myself from helping him and answer the call instead as he slowly trundles to the bathroom.
“You’re a fucking genius, you know that?” It’s Miles, sounding weirdly excitable.
“Any reason in particular?” I ask.
“Your idea, about the strike,” he answers as if I’m being dense. “Listen, I’m setting a bounty—the magazine is going to pay fifty thousand dollars to whoever gets Lizzie to cave.”
“Whoa.” I stop him. “I never said that!”
“You said that guys would be lining up to break it, right?”
“Yeah,” I admit, “But—”
“Well, I’m just giving them a little incentive, that’s all. Fifty thousand of them.”
“Miles, this is a bad idea.” I warn him. Putting a bounty on Lizzie’s . . . maidenhead? Try the worst fucking idea in the world.
“You don’t understand. I need to get laid—and soon! I’m not gonna last another month, Jake. Fuck, I may not last another week! Who knows how far this strike could go if I—if we—don’t do something to stop it?”
He’s lost his mind. “Wouldn’t it just be easier to buy Tatiana some roses and whisk her off to a tropical beach somewhere?” I point out. “Also, way less expensive!”
“Are you kidding? This is going to be great for the magazine. Just think of the pageviews.” I hear noise in the background. “Gotta go, bro. Tatiana just got home and I need to get this done before she comes in here with her nightly list of chores, none of which involve me fucking her senseless, I’m sorry to say. She keeps walking around in front of me in her underwear, Jake! And I know she just had a baby and everything but she looks phenomenal. I’m in hell,” he moans. “But not for long.”
“Miles, seriously. A bounty is a fucking moronic—”
But before I can finish, he’s gone.
“Fuck,” I say under my breath. And I thought the strike was stupid enough. But now Miles is going to double-dare the men of New York to get in her pants?
This can’t end well.
14
Lizzie
OK, so drunkenly making out with Jake Weston wasn’t exactly planned, but I can be cool about it. I can pretend like I wasn’t thirty seconds away from tearing off all our clothes and begging him to take me now. Ugh, when will I learn never to drink in the daytime? When? And when will I learn not to kiss pompous, narcissistic assholes like Jake Weston? Even if it was probably one of the top ten best kisses of my life so far . . .
Hell, making out with him was better than most of the sex I’ve been unlucky enough to have, so god only knows what it would have been like if I hadn’t put the brakes on when I did.
Way to go, Lizzie. Cut short your epic orgasms, why don’t you?
Doing the right thing is the worst.
I sigh, pulling down the skirt of my sundress and adjusting my umbrella. During the night it started to rain—my favorite kind, a light, spring rain, and I love how it makes the city look washed clean. Even the air smells fresh today, the flowers blooming in the park somehow rising over the exhaust fumes coming from the cars on Fifth Avenue.
I’m waiting for a light to change when a guy sidles up beside me, surreptitiously looking me up and down.
“Beautiful day,” he leers, leaning towards me. “Isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it’s just peachy,” I say in a flat monotone, keeping my eyes on the light and willing it to change.
“Great dress.”
“Thanks,” I say, like I’d rather be doing my taxes or buffing my callouses.
“You work around here?” he asks, clearly undeterred.
“Maybe,” I say, not even bothering to disguise my irritation. “Not that it’s any of your business.” He’s your basic business suit drone, holding a briefcase, his blond hair thinning on top.
“Maybe we could get a drink sometime—or a cup of coffee,” he says brightly as the light changes.