You've Got Fail(17)

“Very much so.” The clerk smiled and finished bagging my clothes. “Her advice on practice was the key. Now…well let’s just say that I’m a very happy man. Satisfied.” He snagged the receipt. “So, what’s she look like?”

“Willis knows her better than I do. How would you describe her, Willis?”

I glared at Elias. “She’s a woman.”

“Oh, come on.” The clerk leaned over the counter. “Just a few details.”

“She’s a redhead.” I closed my eyes and imagined her devious smile. “And she’s full of mischief.”

“I knew it.” The clerk drummed his knuckles on the counter. “She’s hot.”

I swiped my bags off the counter and hurried toward the door.

“Hey, wait up.” Elias dogged my heels. “Rude boy.”

Bursting out into the cloudy Manhattan day, I took a deep breath. When the clerk had referred to Scarlet as “hot,” something had come over me. The need to put him in his place. Besides, I was the one who gave GaggingGracie the advice on practicing by pressing bananas against the back of her throat, not Scarlet. Was I jealous of myself? Jeez. I was through the looking glass.

“She’s making me crazy.” A desperate laugh gurgled up from my lungs. “And I only just met her.”

Elias clapped me on the shoulder. “This is good for you. Getting out of your apartment, walking around in the real world, interacting with actual people instead of online, and crushing on a hot little number like Scarlet.”

“I’m not crushing on her.”

He adopted a faux serious expression. “Right. Just business. I forgot. My bad.”

“You’re worse than a meddling aunt in a Victorian novel.”

“You lost me there.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Want to grab some lunch?”

“Can’t. Linda set up a photo shoot of Scarlet over in Greenwich. She wants me to be there to make sure it all fits my brand.” I would have done air quotes around “brand” but my hands were full.

“Nudes?”

At the thought of Scarlet lying on a divan and telling me to “draw me like one of your French girls,” my cock twitched. At this rate, I was regressing to my thirteen-year-old self with a Victoria’s Secret stash and a penchant for vacuuming alone in my room.

“Hahaha!” He punched my shoulder. “Look at that face. Now you’re picking up what I’m putting down, baking what I’m shaking, painting what I’m priming, bagging what I’m scanning, snacking what I’m packing, sniffing what I’m—”

“Please stop.” I held my bag-laden hand up.

He nodded. “Well, you get the idea.”

“Shouldn’t you be getting back to work?” I stared down the street, on the lookout for a taxi.

“Yeah, the SquickyLube waits for no man. They’re working on the prototypes right now. We’re going to have some meetings with lube manufacturers next week, then pick one to be the initial provider on the new models.”

“Sounds like you’re really greasing the wheels of progress over at Jizzlywinks.”

He winked. “I’m an up and comer.”

I groaned. “This conversation really needs to be over.”

“No problem. I need to brainstorm over my next design idea. I already have a name for it. Just don’t know the specifics yet.” He elbowed me as I hailed a cab. “Want to know the name?”

Might as well. “Sure. Hit me.”

“The Shitake Shocker.” He splayed his hands out in front of him as if these words appeared on a billboard across the street, complete with fireworks and neon.

“That verges on terrifying.” I smiled. I couldn’t help it. Elias could make a sad mime laugh out loud.

“But just think how nice it’ll look in ads on Scarlet Rocket. Got a nice thick mushroom head on one end, and on the other—”

“All right, gotta go.” I opened the cab door.

“Have fun at the photo shoot. Send beaver shots.”

I flipped him off and closed the door right as he added his signature “fuck you.” He waved me away as the car took off, and I gave the driver my instructions. I needed to wipe the image of the Shitake Shocker from my mind, so I tried to focus on what I would post to the blog about my upcoming events. Anything to drum up press would help get the word out on the day my book released. But the more I thought about the parties, the more I wondered about what Scarlet would wear. Something that showed off her curves, her legs, her dainty ankles? Did you just think the words “dainty ankles”?

“She’s a thief. A con artist. Don’t get involved any more than you have to,” I reminded myself as the cabbie gave me a glance in the rearview mirror.

He grinned, his two front teeth missing. “Women, right?”

The universal experience of having no fucking clue what to do when faced with a determined, intelligent, and sexy woman seemed to transcend even the not-insignificant social distance created between a cabbie and his fare.

“Women.” I nodded. “Right.”

My conflicting feelings begged the question: How fucked was I?

We pulled up out front of a four-story building, and I just caught the shimmer of Scarlet’s red hair cascading over her shoulder as she pushed through the front door. My chest constricted, and I momentarily forgot that I actually needed to pay for the cab ride.