My So-Called Sex Life (How to Date, #1)(2)

“Cool,” she says blandly, then walks away, her tunic swishing against her leggings.

Once I sit, I rub my palms on my jeans, a tiny bit nervous. What if I’m seated with an over-sharer? An endless talker? A dullsville candidate?

But I’m excited too.

What if my companion is an enigmatic billionaire like in a romance novel? A broody rock musician? A hot tech nerd who’s looking for a matchmaker?

Gah. The meet-cute possibilities are endless, and when I write this as the opening of my next book, it’s going to be epic.

I just know it.

I’m making some notes on my phone about the vibe when a man’s voice interrupts my thoughts.

“Four minutes and forty-five seconds.” His tone is a little gravelly and a lot know-it-all-y.

Say it isn’t so.

I was already dreading sharing a stage with Axel Huxley at the reader expo I’m doing this weekend. I can’t believe fate would inflict him on me any sooner than necessary.

I turn my gaze toward the front of Menu, praying that’s not my archnemesis. Maybe he has a vocal twin. Maybe that’s a thing now.

But my prayers are unanswered. Standing tall at the hostess stand is the smart-mouthed, glasses-wearing, smirky-faced romantic-thriller writer.

Wearing black because of course he wears black.

And of course he’s arguing with the hostess. He never met a statement he couldn’t debate and dissect into a million julienned pieces, then pepper with disagreement.

He blah blah blahs a little more, finishing with, “So, you have to seat me. It’s the policy of the restaurant.”

I snort. Get over yourself, Huxley. I hope they kick you out.

I feel sorry for whichever sucker is getting seated with King Dick tonight.

Inspired, I make another note, chuckling fiendishly as I imagine my heroine running into her enemy before the clever, charming, hottie hero enters the scene. Then I check the menu options while waiting for my brilliant professor, my inscrutable tycoon, my good guy with a heart of gold in need of a makeover.

Until the sound of footsteps grows louder and closer. I look up.

At a face I want to punch.





2





IT’S BECOMING A HABIT


Axel

A long time ago, in a decade far, far away, I’d been terrified to walk to the front of my eleventh grade English class and present a speech on the dangers of wealth in The Great Gatsby.

Speaking in front of a few dozen high schoolers who mostly didn’t give a shit was horrifying.

My stepfather told me to picture everyone in the class naked. My brain did some extra credit. I didn’t just undress everyone as I opined on Fitzgerald’s depictions of the moneyed class. I imagined everyone in my class fucking.

A writer’s habit was born.

Ever since then, I’ve mentally written character bios for almost everyone I’ve met, detailing traits all the way down to their bedroom preferences. Assigning habits—like if they talk during The Godfather, how many cardboard wrappers they could possibly need on a cup of coffee, and whether they like it doggie style or being tied up and taken—has become the way I keep everything in perspective.

The hostess? She only drinks soy chai lattes, and she brings her own cup to the artisan fair-trade coffee shop. She doesn’t have a favorite position because sex is boring in the same way everything is boring to her.

Poor gal.

The bartender over there with the goatee? The ring says he’s married but the way he stares at the hostess says he jerks it to her when the wife’s asleep. That is, after he reads lit fic in hardback.

Then there’s the redhead I’d recognize from several football fields away. Too bad I don’t have the luxury of yards and yards. Instead, she’s seated mere feet from me at the last table at the edge of the dining room. The woman with the long, lush hair, the dangerous green eyes, the pouty lips, and the sharpest mouth I’ve ever met.

Fuck her bio. I refuse to write one for Hazel Valentine.

Ever.

She’d better not be the other party at my dinner. I came here to research how to hire a hitman for my next book, not to share a meal with a woman who hates me.

But as the hostess walks me to the last table, the inevitable becomes my Friday night, and my brain concocts a bio in spite of my better judgment.

Hazel Valentine:



Emotional wounds—we’re going to need a bigger boat for hers since someone clearly has daddy and boyfriend issues.



Coffee—ideally via an IV drip. At all times of the day.



Sex preferences—nope. Stop. Just stop. Don’t go there.



As I near, Hazel looks up from her phone. For a moment she seems flustered but then she schools her expression. There’s simply flint in her gaze.

The hostess waves to the table without speaking. I thank her and pull out a chair as she walks away, dismissing us already.

Hazel stares at me unflinchingly, as if challenging me to leave.

Won’t happen, sweetheart.

I park myself, sliding into the chair across from the redhead, then smile without showing any teeth. I fold my hands and meet Hazel’s steely gaze. “Let me guess. You’re here to test oh-so-cute opening chapters for your next book,” I say.

She tilts her head, smiling slyly. “And you must be researching how your next bad guy will off someone, hoping it will make your latest book more…scintillating.”