Man Candy (6 page)

No. I bet he doesn’t even eat pizza.

Mmm, pizza.

I love pizza.

Hauling my tipsy ass off the ground, I

gave up on work and went into the

kitchen, where I found a French bread

pizza in the freezer. I debated using the

oven, since frozen pizza nuked in the

microwave always turns out a bit soggy

and flaccid, but decided I was too

hungry to be picky. While it cooked, I

studied the box. “French bread” was a

bit of a stretch, and I wondered if it had

been a marketing idea. (“I know!” I

imagined someone saying in an

advertising meeting. “Let’s call it

French, that sounds fancier. Maybe they

can make the one edge a bit bullet-

shaped so it vaguely resembles a

baguette, but make it wider, like a

baguette after a piano was dropped on

it.”)

When the microwave dinged, I took

my dinner back to my desk—along with

another glass of wine…OK, the rest of

the bottle—and while I ate, I researched

the history of French bread pizza.

According to the Internet, where all

Great Truths are discovered, Stouffer’s

bought (or maybe copied) the idea from

a guy who ran a food truck at Cornell

University, starting in 1960. I filed that

interesting yet useless maybe-fact away

in my brain, which housed an entire

library of those things, and tried focusing

on my client again.

Needless to say, after that much

wine, I ended up back on Instagram, and

was rabidly scrolling through Quinn’s

account (Jesus, did the guy
ever
take a

bad pic? And did he get to keep all the

little underpants he wore in these photo

shoots or did he have to give them back?

Like, if I snooped in his underwear

drawer, would it be full of colorful

banana hammocks or just plain old boxer

briefs?) when my phone vibrated. I

glanced down and saw a text from

Claire, one of my two closest friends.

I need one of you to put ORC into

motion.

Got it
, I typed back.

Let me know if you need me
,

Margot responded.

ORC stood for Operation Rescue

Claire. It meant I had to call her in five

minutes with some reason she needed to

leave the terrible date she was on,

immediately. We’d set it up two years

ago among our friends after it became

clear that NO is not in Claire’s

vocabulary, so she says yes to all dates.

She doesn’t like to hurt people’s

feelings, and besides that, she genuinely

believes that her soul mate is out there,

poor thing. She’s the kind of girl who

thinks love at first sight is possible,

people always mean what they say, and

Jack somehow survived freezing in the

Atlantic after the ship went down in

Titanic. (“They didn’t have anyone

confirm his death and there was no

funeral! I think he survived and found

her and she kept it a secret!”)

After a while I stopped arguing with

her, although not only did I believe he

was dead, I thought there was enough

room on that door/raft that Rose could

have saved him, but whatever. Pretty

sure Claire believes in unicorns, too.

Honestly, I had no idea how we

were such close friends, but we’d been

together since grade school. Margot, the

third member of our trio, had gone to

private school up until ninth grade, when

she finally convinced her parents that

she couldn’t catch New Moneyitis by

attending public schools. We’d each

gone to different colleges but had moved

back to the area after grad school, and

we had standing GNO dates every week.

I waited the five minutes and called

Claire, claiming to be her mother with

an emergency at home. “I’ll be right

there, Mom,” she promised in an

unnaturally loud voice. “Fifteen minutes

at most. Don’t move.”

We hung up, and she called me from

the car ten minutes later. “Thanks. I was

dying.”

“Good thing you drove yourself.” I

carried my empty plate and glass into the

kitchen and set them in the sink.

“Always. Especially this time. I had

a feeling.”

“What went wrong?”

“He spent the first thirty minutes of

our date talking about his ex. He was in

tears by the time my second glass of

wine arrived. I took my entrée to go.”

“What is it?”

“Veal piccata.”

“Nice. Why is he even dating if he’s

not over his ex?”

“Who knows?” She sighed. “He was

sort of cute, though. Great hair. It’s a

bummer. All the good ones are taken, I

swear. Or gay. Or both.”

“Speaking of cute, you’ll never guess

who just moved in downstairs.” I turned

around and leaned back against the sink,

eyeing the fridge where he near-kissed

me.

“Who?”

“Quinn Rusek.” I lowered my voice.

I didn’t want him to hear me talking

about him.

“
Quinn Rusek
just moved in

downstairs from you?
Why
?”

“Because my brother told him he

could.”

“Your brother,” she said wistfully.

“A perfect example of cute, taken, and

gay.”

“We are talking about
me
,” I

reminded her peevishly. “And I have not

heard the proper amount of outrage from

you on my behalf that my cute, gay, and

taken brother is subjecting me to this

cruel and unusual punishment!”

“I’m sorry. It
is
cruel and unusual.

What’s he doing here?”

I filled her in on the details while I

rinsed my dishes, put them in the

dishwasher, and hunted around in my

pantry for something sweet. “And then

when I saw him, he had the nerve to act

like nothing was wrong. Like he hadn’t

been such an asshole to me that night.”

“Well, it
was
ten years ago, Jaims.”

“That doesn’t matter! My humiliation

is still fresh! It rose right to the surface

the moment he brought up the thing I

said.”

She gasped. “The ‘I love you’

thing?”

Spying a can of Duncan Hines

frosting at the back, I pulled it out, took

off the cap, and peeled back the foil lid.

“Yes. Turns out he still remembers that.

I’d been hoping he forgot.” I dragged a

finger through the thick chocolate sludge

and licked it off. “It was so horrible. He

teased me about it. Made me feel

seventeen years old and ridiculous

again.”

“What an asshole,” she said, finally

giving me what I wanted. “How did he

look?”

I groaned and dug back into the

frosting. “Good. Too good. You can’t

trust people that good-looking. He’s

probably an alien or something. He’s

just here trying to charm women back to

the mother ship to breed his ridiculously

beautiful alien babies.” I sucked the

chocolate off my finger.

Claire laughed. “OK, don’t follow

him to any spaceships, but maybe you

can try the whole bikini seduction again.

Bet he’d go for you now.”

“
Wrong
. He came up here, and I’m

so stupid and gullible, I invited him in

for a glass of wine. Talked about myself.

Tried to get him to kiss me.”

“Omigod! Why?”

I squeezed my eyes shut. “I have no

idea. I swear to God, it came out of

nowhere! One minute I’m telling him I

won’t go on a date with him, and the

next, I’m puckering up! He’s got some

sort of weird spell on me or something!”

“Wait, he asked you for a date?”

“Yes. No. You know what? I don’t

even know.” I stabbed the frosting.

“He’s so damn cagey, somehow I don’t

even know what he’s saying. Plus I get

distracted by his face.” I shoved the

frosting-coated finger in my mouth. “And

his body.”

“Dang. So did he kiss you?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“Who knows? To torment me? I

mean…I thought he wanted to kiss me.

He was flirting with me, I think.”

“You couldn’t tell?”

“No. And I hate when I can’t read

people. It makes it impossible to keep

the upper hand.”

“Ah,” Claire said knowingly. “The

old upper hand.”

“I have to have it,” I insisted,

wondering how many calories were in a

can of frosting and deciding not to look.

Instead I put the cap back on and stuck it

in the fridge.

“I know you do. You are the master

of the upper hand.”

“The mistress,” I corrected, and the

thought of myself as a dominatrix made

me giggle. “I need a whip.”

“Totally. Maybe you could tie him up

and punish him for turning you down

again.”

“Ha! He would deserve it.” I thought

for a moment as I stared at the

refrigerator where he’d pinned me

without actually touching me. “Problem

is, I think he’s the upper hand type too.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I just feel like he’s

good at taking control, at getting people

right where he wants them.”

She laughed again. “And where does

he want you?”

“He
says
he wants to be friends.”

“Friends?”

“Friends. But fuck that. I’m not going

to be his friend,” I said stubbornly.

“OK.”

“I’m going to ignore him until he

goes away.”

“Good plan. That always works

when you have a crush on someone.”

“I don’t have a crush on him!”

“No, no. I’m sorry, sweetie. Of

course you don’t.”

I sighed as I turned off the kitchen

light and headed down the hall to my

bedroom. “But I can’t stop thinking

about him. Why is that?”

“Well, what if it’s fate? I mean, what

if there’s even an underlying reason he

came back to town? What if it was his

destiny to live in your house? What if

he’s your soul mate, your one tr—”

“Claire,” I interrupted loudly.

“Repeat after me. There is no such thing

as a soul mate. Or destiny. Or one true

love. I just want to bang him, not ride off

into the sunset on his horse. And I’m

annoyed he’s not cooperating.”

She clucked her tongue. “You have

zero sense of romance.”

“What’s the point? Even in books,

all great love stories end in tragedy.

Why should real life be any different?”

Now it was Claire’s turn to sigh.

“You know what? I’m beginning to think

you might be right.”

It should have made me feel good

that she’d finally agreed with me, that I

was right, that I was good at my job—

selling ideas to people—but somehow it

didn’t.

It took me a long time to fall asleep

that night, imagining him beneath me.

(And I do mean
right
beneath me.)

Even a realist has to dream

sometimes.

SIX

JAIME

THE NEXT MORNING I heard the

front door open and shut at an absurdly

early hour for a Saturday. For one foggy

moment, I was concerned about an

intruder until I remembered Quinn.
I bet

he gets up early and goes to the gym
, I

thought, snuggling deeper under the

covers.
Fuck that noise.

But I couldn’t get back to sleep.

Instead, I lay there thinking about his

sweaty body, muscles flexing, breathing

hard, until I finally couldn’t stand it,

grabbed my vibrator, and got myself off.

Afterward, I craved him more than

ever.

What the hell was I going to do?

My pride would not allow for a third

attempt at seduction, not after I’d failed

so miserably the first two times. What

was wrong with him, anyway? Had I not

made it clear that I don’t want a

boyfriend, but I do want sex? What kind

of guy turns down an offer like that?

It got me thinking. Who was Quinn

Rusek, anyway? Maybe there was more

to him than meets the eye (not that there

was anything wrong with what met the

eye, mind you).

I needed to focus.

I needed to figure him out.

Then I needed a strategy to make him

want me.

I’d get my fill of him—literally—

and then he could be on his way. Out of

my house, out of my head, out of my life.

OVER THE NEXT TEN DAYS, I

carefully avoided talking to Quinn while

at the same time paying close attention to

everything he did. I even made a list:

Works out early Tuesday,

Thursday, Saturday mornings.

Goes to class MWF mornings,

must work out later those afternoons.

Late classes Tuesday and

Thursday evenings.

Cooks his own dinners (have

smelled Italian things, chicken things,

possibly steak after getting home at

night).

Binge watches Game of Thrones

and House of Cards.

Takes out the trash and recycling