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.
“And you know the drill,” she says as she zips up her purse and we wander through the shelves, heading for the exit.
I recite the rules. “Gino wants me to be charming, but not so charming that women hit on me instead of him. And I should be awesome at bowling if I’m on his team, and if not, I should throw the game so he wins. Because if I don’t play his games, the greater the chance I’ll get screwed in negotiations in a couple more weeks, since contract talks are at the end of this month.”
She taps her finger to her nose. “Perfecto.”
“It’s almost as if I’m used to his completely mercurial personality.”
She smiles. “That’s our boss. You know he was used to being the center of attention ’til you came around. You’re the full package, and it drives him crazy. But I really appreciate you doing these public events.”
I glance around the bookstore, filled with customers, some of whom just bought my cartoon collection. I’ve been asked to go bowling with a TV executive, who is a crazy, capricious ass, but who signs my fat paycheck. My show is killing it. I’m raking in the money, and the praise, and I do very well with the ladies. There’s something that they like about the scruff, ink, glasses, and hair, and the fact that my once-lanky frame is packed with toned, strong muscles.
Life is good.
“Serena, I assure you, it’s not like attending a party is some hardship. The fact that the head of the network has some weird complex about me is the very definition of a first-world problem.”
“No,” she says sharply as we reach the front door of the bookstore. “You know what a true first-world problem is? The other day I went to Ben & Jerry’s and got a pint to take home. I wanted two flavors. Coconut Seven Layer Bar for me, and Mango Sorbet for my hubby. But guess what?”
I hold a hand to my forehead like a fortuneteller. “They didn’t have Coconut Seven Layer Bar.”
“Worse,” she says, slamming her hand onto my chest and practically toppling me into the new release shelves with her exuberance. “They forgot to put a sheet of wax paper between them to separate the flavors. The mango leaked into the coconut,” she says with a pout.