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She pays and gets her purchase in a bag. “Why’re you so into this if you’re not even getting paid for it?” She squints at me through the sun when we walk outside, and we take the sidewalk to the main doors of ourbuilding.
It’s the same question I’ve asked myself a dozen times. I could say because my ego needs a boost, but I land on something I think is closer to thetruth.
“Wes is a good guy. A great guy, actually. He had some hard family stuff happen lately. He deserves abreak.”
Her mouth scrunches up. “I thought it was in exchange for sexual favors. Because your little make out session at the fundraiser Wednesday was hot enough to get me pregnant for the secondtime.”
I reach up to tug on my ponytail as she holds the door. “He paid three thousanddollars.”
I glance back, seeing my friend standing immobilized in the open doorway. “To kissyou.”
“No.” She finally releases the door and follows me inside, her heels clicking on the lobby floor after mine. “So I didn’t have to kiss anyoneelse.”
Warmth floods my body at thememory.
I liked having Wes at the party with me. It was like having a partner in crime, which I haven’t had since leaving Haley in Philly three monthsago.
I didn’t expect him to thread his fingers in my hair, to take control like he had every right to make me feel something in the middle of the entireparty.
I didn’t expect him to kiss like there was something dirty under that beautifully tailoredtux.
Kendall’s eyes gleam. “Oh, that’s even better. That man is seriously intoyou.”
“That’s not it.” I enter the stairwell, taking each step one at a time. “First, I’m putting the casual thing on ice for now. And even if I was interested in dating Wes—which I’m not—he’s going to claim the highest peak of Mount Nerd, then look for his genetic Cinderella orwhatever.
“Which is why I’m going to help him sell this app. As a public service.” I stop at the landing and turn, folding my arms. “To do that, I need to test the product. Therefore, I’m going out with a guy tonight. From theapp.”
Kendall pauses in front of me, brushing a piece of hair from her shining face. “Wait. So, you’re like a test case? That’ll take forever. You can’t expect the first guy to work out. Unless you plan on going on a million dates and Wes is willing to waitmonths.”
“You’re right.” I pull out my phone and dash off a text as she swipes her card by the securitypad.
Rena:Hey. Any happy-ever-afters come out of your 10k-personsample?
Then I tuckthe phone away, satisfied. “I want to prove Daisy wrong. I can sell anything. And in the meantime, maybe there’s a chance I’ll find someone to entertain me and distract me from my parents’ bickering this weekend. And my brother getting into trouble. And the fact that my work’s going down thetoilet.”
Kendall holds up her plastic bag. “If you want to borrow this fortonight…”
I push it away. “Notnecessary.”
“Not even forWes.”
I can’t stop the shiver. “Especially not forWes.”
She shrugs, leading the way to our desks. “You don’t think he’d be good with hismouth?”
I swallow the groan as I drop into my chair, ignoring herquestion.
Because yes, I think Wes Robinson would be fucking fantastic with hismouth.
* * *
Blurry lawyer turnsout to be nice. He’s my height with slick, dark hair, and he confesses he hasn’t made it to the gym sincearticling.
But we end up talking, and he’s easy to get alongwith.
The subject drifts from us to how he got involved inthis.
“I was part of a research study on MS. Three people in my family have it, and we agreed we wanted to be part of the study to help researchers better understand the disease and any biological markers for it. When this came up as an option afterward—the chance to get added to this pool, I mean…” He shrugs, grins. “I figured, why not? Hard enough to meet people in the city. Good to know there’s some science behindit.”
