Mister O(4)

I crack up at her choice of words. “Are they specially designed for that? If so, I’d really like to get a pair.”

To use on you.

She nods again. “There’s a shop in the East Village that sells them. They need to be special ordered, but I can hook you up,” she says, then roots around in her bag. It’s like Hermione’s purse. Yes, I read all of Harry Potter. It’s only the best story ever told.

She grabs a copy of my collection from inside her bag and sets it on the table. “Can you sign it to Helena?”

I shoot her a look when I see the receipt inside the book. She bought it here. “Harper, you didn’t have to come here for me to sign a book. I would have given you one.”

She winks. “Good to know I’m on the short-list. For now, I have a client who is secretly in love with you. So I’m giving her this as a gift.”

“Tell Helena, Mister Orgasm says hello,” I say as I sign it.

When I look up, Harper is wearing the purple glasses.

I blink.

Holy shit. She is red-hot in them. As a guy who wears glasses, I dig a chick in glasses, and I’ve never seen Harper wear them before. Not gonna lie—the sexy librarian fantasy is strong in this one. This one being me, and I’m thinking pencil skirt, tight white blouse enticingly unbuttoned, and Harper bending over a desk, ready to be spanked for mis-shelving some books.

She ogles me like the woman in line was doing, and whispers in a naughty tone, “Do they work, Nick?”

Absolutely, but you don’t even need glasses for me to want to be eye-f*cked by you. Also, I’m imagining what you look like in nothing but them.

Wait. Shit. No.

I smack the 99.99 percent of my brain that just thought that. Because Harper is my best friend’s sister. And Spencer already promised he would shave off all my hair and dye my eyebrows if I ever touched her. Not that I’m scared of Spencer, I just really like my hair. It’s light brown, thick, and—well, I’m just going to be honest here—I could totally do shampoo commercials. There. I said it.

But I also don’t plan on acting on any of the damn fantasies I’ve had about Harper, even if the bent-over-the-kitchen-counter one is particularly potent lately. Though, that’s not fair to the up-against-the-wall fantasy, is it?

Note to self: Bring the wall one back into rotation tonight.

But, back to her question about the glasses.

“They work like a charm,” I tell her, repeating her words.

She takes them off and glances behind her. A few fans are left, tapping their feet, holding their books. “I’ve been commandeering your time. I should get out of here.”

“Wait. I’m almost done. Want to grab that cup of coffee in fifteen minutes?” I ask, then quickly add, “As payment for your rescue services.”

“Hmm. Is there anyplace in this city to get coffee?” She taps her chin, as if truly considering it.

I sigh heavily, playing along. “Good point. It is really hard to find coffee. It’s not as if it’s on every corner or anything.”

She nods in understanding. “Usually you have to hunt for it, far and wide. It can take a few hours.” She snaps her fingers. “Tell you what. Let me see what I can accomplish with a map. If I can find a cup of coffee within, say, a fifty-foot radius of the store, I’ll text you the location.”

“Ten-four.”

She salutes me and spins on her heel, and I swear I don’t watch her too intently as she weaves through the bookstore on her way out. Okay, fine. Maybe I do spend three or four seconds checking out her backside. Five seconds, tops. But, it’s a spectacular ass, so it seems a shame not to enjoy the view.

Serena returns, parks herself next to me at the table, and for the next fifteen minutes I focus on my fans, signing and chatting, interacting and engaging.

When the event ends, I check for a text from Harper and am stoked to find one. I tap out a reply then help Serena straighten up. A straight shooter, she started working on my show a couple years ago, before it climbed high in the ratings. “You did good, sweetie. Sorry I was MIA for some of it,” she says, twisting her curly black hair into a clip before she stands and scoops the Sharpies into her purse. She pats her belly. “I swear for a few minutes I thought I was going to have the baby in the bookstore bathroom.”

“Funny, I’d been worried about the same thing. If you did, you would have named the baby after me, right?”

“No. If I had the baby in the bathroom, I was going to name it Sink,” she says, then holds up her finger. “Oh, I almost forgot to tell you.” That’s how she always prefaces requests from the head of the network. “There’s an event Gino wants you to be at on Thursday. It’s just a little charity fundraiser schmooze at a bowling alley, but he wants all his home-grown stars there.”

“Of course I’ll be there,” I say, grabbing my jacket. I mean, what other answer is there? Paranoid prick or not, Gino controls the time slots on the network, and he likes me to remember he handpicked my online strip to turn into an animated show a few years back when he was in the development division. I’m grateful as all hell that he gave me a shot, but he’s strangely jealous, too, and I suspect it’s because he created a show years ago that faded from the limelight quickly, and none of his efforts to craft another one of his own panned out.