Page 100 of Pierced

I feel my jaw go slack. I don’t know what to say. I manage, “That’s… amazing.”

“Uh-huh,” she says, nodding and bouncing her eyebrows.

“You did all this?” She continues nodding. “Why?” I ask.

She cocks her head to the side and says, “Whatayou mean?”

“I mean why are you handling ad sales? That’s Washington’s job.”

“Washburn.”

“Sure.”

“He wasn’t taking it seriously. We lost two ad buyers this week. And why were we selling space to DogCo?”

“What’s DogCo?”

“I don’t know. I thought you’d know.”

“Are they the ones that make hunting jackets for dogs?”

“Hunting jackets for dogs? Who wants that?”

“I dunno. People who buy stuff from DogCo, I guess.”

“Whatever!” she says. “That’s my point. Washburn was acting like losing advertisers and selling space to doggy hunting jacket makers was just business as usual.”

“Well, I think they’re like the Burberry of dog jackets, but whatever. And, I mean, it is business as usual. We lose ad buys all the time. And then we make them up. No big deal.”

She looks at me with a confused expression. Crosses to me. “But… but you said that the magazine needed the party and the spread and the ad dollars because… because we’re in trouble. And then when your dad had you come to New York this week, I assumed…”

Oh, fuck me. Jesus Christ. I did. I told her all that shit. Why did I tell her all that shit? Forget that, why didn’t I tell her it was all bullshit? Because. Because it was just something I said, and I didn’t think about it again. Because I’m selfish. Like Andrew said. And I was getting things I wanted from all this and neglected to remember…

“Pierce?”

The look in her eyes is so vulnerable and hopeful and proud. Goddammit.

It’s OK. It’s OK. It doesn’t hurt anything. It helps, actually. Nothing wrong with getting more money. Never a bad thing. And, y’know, if she winds up thinking that it was her who made it all happen and she ‘saved my magazine,’ well, so much the better.

Yeah. Because it’s always dynamite to start a relationship on a foundation of lies.

“Pierce?” she says again, this time placing her hand on my chest.

“Yeah?”

“Is everything OK?”

“Yeah,” I say. I look in her eyes and I can’t risk hurting her. I just can’t. Not again. Not now. I’ll explain everything later, but not now. “Yeah, everything’s great.” Besides, she looks so good that… I take her face in my hands and kiss her on her beautiful mouth.

We stumble back into her new desk. Her desk that she placed here for herself. To do the work that she wanted to do. The work that she did for this company. Because she loves it. The work she did for me. Because… because she thinks I’m pretty cool. That’s OK. That’s enough for now.

I place her on the desk, push her skirt up, and spread her thighs.

“Wait,” she says.

“What?”

“Here? Now?”