The Pretend Boyfriend (The Pretend Boyfriend #1)(21)
Author: Artemis Hunt

“Wakey, wakey. I’ve got to be getting back to the Evil Day Job.”

“Oh right,” she groans, “it’s Monday. Two nights of partying. I can’t believe it. It’s so not me.”

Yeah, but it’s me, he thinks. Time to get back to his old life. Why does he feel heavy all of a sudden, like there’s a lead anchor dragging down his chest?

He vaults out of bed for a shower.

“I thought you were the boss,” she calls from the bed.

“Yeah, well, somebody’s got to play the devil.” He has got to work back his razor edge. He has been uncharacteristically mellow last night. Any more of this and he will be losing his touch.

When he has finished showering, she stands by the bathroom door, watching him as he towels his hair dry. They are both silent. He hates goodbyes and he knows she senses that he doesn’t want her to create a scene. And so she doesn’t. She just stands there, her hair mussed up – that sexy, been-fucked-all-night, out-of-bed hair that he finds so alluring. Her eyes are soft and accepting, and he’s grateful that she doesn’t try to talk him out of leaving.

After he has dressed in yesterday’s clothes, she watches him walk to the front door.

“Have a good life,” she says.

“You too, sweetheart.”

He turns to go before he can say something he’s going to regret, which is basically the story of his life. He avoids the elevators and bolts down the stairs, fleeing the carapace of emotions he left behind.

14

Sam finds herself thinking of Brian from time to time. She plays their lovemaking over and over again in her mind.

She’s not in love with him, she sternly tells herself. He is just a wonderful memory. A keepsake in her little box of secrets. She will never see him again, but take him out from her drawer from time to time to fantasize about – like a high school yearbook photo of a great-looking boy who took her to the prom.

She doesn’t tell Cassie about her night with Brian. She would like to keep it to herself, hug it warmly to her chest.

“So are you going to call Caleb?” she casually asks Cassie.

Her best friend stirs the froth on her cappuccino, despoiling the carefully shaped chocolate powder heart. She makes a face.

“I’d rather he call me first.”

“And has he?”

“No.”

“Maybe he’s waiting for you to call.”

“Maybe he’s too indoctrinated in the Brian Morton school of one night stands.”

Sam winces at the mention of Brian’s name.

‘Ah well,” Cassie says in a singsong voice, “back to the old daily grind of waiting by the phone. Only we don’t have to technically wait by the phone anymore, seeing as we are all equipped with text, Viber, What’s App and a million other ways to get dumped.”

“He did not dump you.”

“He didn’t exactly jump all over on seeing me again either. I mean, it’s understandable for Brian, but I thought Caleb and I had a connection. At least . . . we talked. And talked and talked and talked while we f**ked.”

That’s more than I can say for Brian, Sam thinks in chagrin.

Still, what is a girl to do but carry on with the precious mementoes in her life?

*

Brian finds himself thinking of Sam when he’s supposed to be concentrating on something else. Like this really boring ad presentation, for example.

“And so, it’s PERFECT,” the enthusiastic young exec says, tapping the mockup, “the perfect cream for the perfect woman.”

He beams as though he has just found a shortcut to the fountain of youth.

Brian feels like burying his face in his hands. Or better still, burying the young exec under a mountain of PERFECT cream. Who the hell copyrights a name like PERFECT anyway?

“And that’s supposed to make me run out to Nordstrom, throw down my credit card and shell three hundred dollars out for it?” he says caustically.

“Uh, sir, with all due respect, you’re not the target audience for this copy.”

“I’ll tell you who the target audience is for this synthetic tub of goo that’s the chemical composition of something you don’t really want to know. It’s the imperfect woman. Where the f**k did you get the idea that women are perfect anyway?”

“Uh, sir . . . they do strive for an ideal – ”

“I take it that you’ve never lived with a woman before?” Neither has Brian, but he’s not going to let that on to the gap-toothed kid who obviously hasn’t started shaving yet.

“I live with my mother, sir. And I’m g*y.”

Brian rolls his eyes. “Astounding. Take it from me, kid. Women aren’t perfect.”

In fact, he has known that all along. It’s just something which has never really occurred to him before, kind of like a thesis on the air he is breathing that he suddenly has to write about.

He takes a deep breath and goes on, “They’re highly strung, sometimes whiny and they do impractical, irrational things . . . such as asking their ex-school bully to be their pretend boyfriend to their sister’s engagement party over the weekend.”

The young ad exec blinks, clearly lost in this thread of conversation.

“Or taking the dance floor by storm even when they can’t distinguish somebody else’s toes from their own.”

He’s aware that Sam’s face has invaded his mind now, pretty much in the manner of alien thought control.

“Or fussing over their hair and worrying about it being too curly when it’s the most glorious thing on the planet. Or throwing a hissy fit when you’ve masturbated in your shared bed the night before and exploded your cum all over your sheets.”

The young exec’s jaw is on the table. “Oh wow, I never knew women were like that, sir.”

“Yeah.” Brian shoves the pile of prints across the table. “Go back to school, kid, and come back when you’ve f**ked a woman. And if you can’t get your dick up for one, try living with her for a weekend.”

Fuck. Now he’s getting all weird.

It’s all Sam’s fault. She has gotten under his skin somehow. Wormed in when he least expected it.

Now if only he can get Samantha Fox and her imperfect life out of his head.

15

THREE MONTHS LATER

The club music’s thumpa-thumpa-thumpa drowns everything out except the throbbing of Brian’s alcohol-soaked brain. Gawd. Don’t tell me I’m getting too old for this, he thinks.

He lifts his beer bottle to Caleb. They are at the blue-lighted bar.