Fluffy(27)

“My bottom line is this: I need to unload my parents’ house. I have a price threshold. If you can get it to sell, you get one percent of the selling price.” He slides a folder across the desk to me. I open it. A contract is inside.

“That’s the agreement we had in our email. What’s in here?” Pulling all the loose pieces of myself together and focusing on business is harder than it should be.

“Standard legalese. Plus your budget.”

I almost blurt out, I have a budget? but I stop myself. Instead, I pretend to be a wise, edgy business woman and read the legalese.

“There isn’t a line item for dandelion root in here,” I joke.

His eyes narrow. “Where did you go to college again?” he asks. A part of me is hurt he doesn't remember, but my cool, sophisticated grown-up parts hand her a Lisa Frank journal and some glitter pens so she'll be distracted.

“Brown.”

Eyebrows shoot up. “That's right. They taught you the woo at Brown?”

“I taught them the woo at Brown.” I bat my eyelashes as he chuckles. Hearing him laugh is its own reward. “And quit talking to me while I’m reviewing a contract. It’s bad business.”

“It’s good negotiation.”

“Are we negotiating? I thought the terms were set.”

“Contracts are never set. They’re just set for now,” Will says, but then he goes quiet.

Two and a half pages later, I’m happy but troubled. Happy because the contract is fine.

Troubled because Will seems to think I shouldn’t be happy. Shouldn’t settle for what he’s offered.

His expectation that I will negotiate is the only reason I am going to negotiate.

“I want to add to the budget.”

“What do you want to add? Dandelion root?”

“A live elephant.”

“An elephant.”

“And nine ounces of platypus milk.”

“Really? What does that do to the energy of my parents’ house?”

“You ride the elephant around the outside of the house while drinking the milk.”

“And that does what?”

“It makes me laugh. And when I laugh, it gives a space good energy.”

“You really went to an Ivy League school and this is the result?”

“It’s okay, Will. You don’t have to understand. Not everyone does.” I give him a pitying smile, calculated to be condescending. “And if you’re having second thoughts because you know you’ll lose–”

“No second thoughts.”

I sign the contract. “Great. Done. Now get me some platypus milk.”

“You didn’t attach an addendum.”

“Damn.” I look around the office, which is atrociously claustrophobic in spite of the fact that it’s about five thousand square feet of tall-ceilinged warehouse space. “I’ll have to find one of the critters and milk her myself.”

“You are a woman of many skills, Mallory.”

“Or I’m easily distracted. You pick.”

“My pick is for you to go back to my parents’ house with me and get started on the fluffing.”

“Excuse me?” I pretend to be offended, but my blood is supercharged. The mental image Will’s joke conjures....

Rich laughter fills my ears. “House fluffing. Did you really answer that Craigslist ad and not know what a fluffer was?”

And... here we go.

“Not all of us spend more time reading Urban Dictionary than The Atlantic.”

“It doesn’t take being well educated to know what a fluffer is, Mallory.”

“Survey any ten random strangers on the street and I’ll bet you three of them have no idea the term fluffer is for porn. In New England, I’ll bet half will think you’re talking about fluffernutters.”

“Is that what you call an insane fluffer?”

“You’re about to get a stapler to the nose, Lotham.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time my nose took a hit.” He pinches the bridge of it. “But it would be the first time a woman threw something at me in anger.”

“I highly doubt that.”

“I tend to date nonviolent women.”

“Or ones who are exceedingly patient.”

As the words come out of my mouth, I feel his breath hitch. The air between us changes. I don’t know why he offered me this job. I also don’t know why I look up and catch his eye.

But I’m glad I do.

Because that half smile on his face is the best.

Will leans across the desk and taps the stapler. “You don’t have a license to wield a deadly weapon, Mallory. And I didn’t hire you to fling inanimate objects at my face.”

I wonder about animate objects I can fling at his face.

Wait. No. Halt. Ahhhhh! Stop thinking that. I wince, which makes him frown.

“Are you okay?” he asks, looking at me intently, making this so much worse.

“I’m fine.”

“You look like you’re in pain.”

“It’s my contact lens.”

He stands up and steps close to me, so I stand, too. “Why are you wearing these when you have contacts?” he asks, touching the arm of my glasses.