Playing It Safe(4)

I clench my fist around the stress ball and roll my neck around like a prize fighter getting ready to do battle before I hear it crack. “First of all, I’ve been busy redecorating Sabrina’s old room.” This is such bullshit, although I have given it quite a lot of thought while watching an exorbitant amount of television. I can’t help it if I have to catch up on Jax Teller, but she doesn’t need to know this. “Secondly, do I need to remind you of the long list of losers that I’ve had the pleasure of dating over the last year?”

“It wasn’t that bad,” she says, dismissing me quickly, even though she damn well knows it totally was.

I chuck the stress ball onto my desk, and it lands smack-dab on my keyboard. A distressing amount of beeps sound off in the background while I stand up and plant my hands on my desk, ready to remind her of just how bad it really was.

“First, there was Jack, who told me he was into ‘alternative films,’ which really meant he liked to watch porn all day. Then there was Dave, who apparently thought I looked so much like his beloved ex-girlfriend that when we finally had sex he shouted her name when he came. Then there’s Ryan, who told me on our very first date that he didn’t have a bank account, had never filed taxes, and had worked on a drug farm. Let’s see, oh! Then there’s Vincent, who—”

“?Por favor! Stop, I get it. You’ve had some bad luck.”

“Bad luck?” I say with a mocking laugh. “Bad luck is more like not winning the pick six by one number. Or when you get a flat tire. Or getting your period while you’re at the beach. This is so much worse than bad luck. This is just … Jesus, I don’t even know what you call this, but I sure as shit can tell you it’s not just bad luck!”

Lisette is trying to stifle her giggle fit by covering her plump, red-coated lips with her hand and looking everywhere but at me. Between her sputtering laughter, I sit down again and calmly pluck the stress ball off the keyboard and being to massage it, hoping that it will help me center my chi, or whatever you call that nonsense. After about ten seconds of squeezing it to death, I give up and throw it back onto my desk, where it lands with a loud thud, barely missing my coffee cup.

“You need to work on your aim,” Lisette says while still snickering.

“I need to work on a lot of things,” I mutter under my breath.

She stops laughing long enough and coolly announces, “You’re gonna be fine. I bet your Prince Charming is right around the corner, and when you least expect it, he’ll swoop in to save the day. Girl, I can just feel it. He’s coming.”

“His Garmin must be telling him to come by way of Bumf*ck, Egypt.”

“You know what I’m going to do,” she goes on to say, ignoring me completely. “When I get home tonight, I’m going to encender una vela in your name to Santa Bárbara.”

I roll my eyes because Lisette has been lighting so many candles to one saint or another in my name for years that by now it seems like a waste of a perfectly good matchstick. Not once have I seen anything come from it. However, if it makes her feel better and gets her off my back about my pathetic love life, fine.

“You’ll see,” she chirps, “it’s going to work, chica.”

With a loud pfft, I turn my attention back to the computer and pull up the coming week’s schedule. Three events are lined up: a grand opening of a new restaurant/bar in Coconut Grove, an engagement party at a home in Key Biscayne, and finally, at the end of the week, an opening at the Art Gallery here in South Beach.

That last one, the one at the Art Gallery, should be a cakewalk considering I’ve been handling their events and openings exclusively for the better part of the last year. And that would be thanks to Alex Holt, the owner.

Alex is kind of an enigma. Well maybe not, but there is something about him that I can’t quite put my finger on. My best friend Sabrina worked for him at the gallery before moving to Philly. At some point, he made it clear that he had the hots for her, but she was already in too deep with her boyfriend, Tyler. Well, not technically, but deep enough that Alex didn’t stand a chance.

Sounds like a f*cking soap opera, right?

Anyway, the shit hit the fan, then yada, yada, yada, she moved away. But not before I made a deal with him that I still had to repay him for. I kind of told him that I would do any event of his choosing, free of charge, if he got Sabrina’s résumé to the right person at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. He did, she got the job, and almost a year later, he still hasn’t collected on my debt. He hasn’t even brought it up to me once, and I see him quite regularly. And we’ve become good friends.

Well, good friends is a bit of an overstatement; good enough is probably more of an accurate depiction. It doesn’t help that he’s hot as hell either. I’m not going to lie; the man is sex on a stick. He is gorgeous with a capital G. If Josh Holloway is ever in need of a stunt double, well look no further, because Alex should be the first and only person he would need to call. Our “friendship” could be described more by saying we playfully argue and exchange one too many flirtatious comments that drive me crazy. I didn’t even say anything yet about those dimples of his. Sweet baby Jesus, it’s just not fair.

“Julia, what the hell is wrong with you?” Lisette asks in a concerned voice, while I’m still conjuring up images of Alex’s dimples.