Chronicles of a Serial Dater - Book 7: A New Adult Romantic Comedy (4 page)

Lisa stood motionless, staring out her window for a few moments. I tentatively said, “Ma’am?” It snapped her out of her daze and returned to her desk, but did nothing to clear things up for me.

“The marketing will have to be primarily digital, of course. That only makes sense given the original medium and target demographic. I’m not an expert in this type of thing, but I have ideas.” She looked up, a twinkle behind her glasses. “I’m smart enough to know when I’m dumb.” She laughed once and I was compelled to join.

“Right.”

Lisa tapped a pen on the side of her cheek as she regarded me. I felt a little like a gazelle as the lion sized me up for dinner. “You’re a pretty girl. We could put you in front of the camera. We’ll have to coach all that awkwardness out of you. You are awfully clumsy,” she said as if revealing a hard truth to me for the first time.

I was so lost, I was about to burst. “I’m sorry, but I have no idea what you’re talking about. I thought Clint… Mr. English, didn’t want me working on his project?” Even just saying it was like a little stab to the heart.

Lisa blinked at me and dropped her hands to the desk. “That’s true and all the better, in my opinion. You’d be spread far too thin.”

I dropped my gaze to my lap to hide the blush crawling up my cheeks. “I’m sure Abi will do a wonderful job.”

“
Pfft.
I trust her to not completely fuck up your work. Besides,” she said with a flick of her hand, “I need you to devote all your time to this project.”

“Project?” I breathed. “I thought for sure you were about to fire me!”

“Fire you? I’m offering you a book deal,” she intoned, as if I were having trouble understanding English.

“A book…”

Lisa was never the type to explain things in detail. You either caught on or you didn’t, and if you didn’t, she left you behind.

“Yes. I read your blog. You’re onto something great. I want you to think about the format. I’m not a huge fan of diary entry type books and after seeing the creative narrative you put together with Mr. English’s work, I have faith you can come up with something equally clever. Of course, some aspects related to this company will have to be altered.”

My brain was officially overloaded. I was still hung up on the phrase, book deal.
Book deal.
Book deal.
It finally dawned on me that I wasn’t getting fired.
She’s not canning me. She’s offering me a book deal. Holy shit, she read my blog…

“Ms. Greene, ma’am,” I started. “I want you to know absolutely nothing happened between me and Cli—Mr. English. I wouldn’t dream of jeopardizing your reputation.”

She held me with a steely, unreadable gaze. “You made that very clear, yes. So, I’ll come up with a few notes, you do the same...”

I could feel her drawing the meeting to a close. While I was still in her good graces, I thought I’d try to find out more. “May I ask what reason he gave for requesting me to be taken off the project?”

She pressed her lips together before commenting. “You can ask, but I’m not going to tell you,” she replied cryptically. I couldn’t get a read on her at all. Buoyed by the fact I wasn’t fired
and
apparently becoming a published author, I pressed my luck.

“In that case, may I ask how you found out about my blog?”

Lisa leaned back and, I swear to God, smiled. She smiled at me. “Judging by the scene I witnessed in the hall just now, I think you already know the answer to that question. And before you ask, I will be taking care of that situation at some point. I won’t tolerate that kind of behavior in my company but I have to wait until Mr. English’s project is complete. You understand.”

I did. I would’ve waited a full year if it meant Abi getting what was coming.

Lisa concluded the meeting quickly, sending me away with a list of tasks and ideas to look over for the rest of the day. I floated down the hall back to my office, wondering if any other morning in my life had brought so much change.

The following couple weeks were rough. Anette tried to reassure me that my behavior at the opening hadn’t been bad enough to warrant him kicking me off the project, what else could it have been? Snippets of the conversation came back to me, mostly in the form of his facial expressions as we spoke. He hadn’t looked very happy…
what could I have said that would’ve pissed him off so much?

But every wave of disappointment was followed by one of excitement. I was getting a book deal. My silly little blog, the thing I’d used as a replacement for a therapist, was now going to be a full novel. Things were at such early stages I didn’t allow myself to get too carried away with it all, but it took away the sting of being removed from Clint’s project.

“You’re doing it again,” Anette chastised.

I tucked my phone between my thighs and looked up at the TV. “No I’m not.” I didn’t even have to look at her to see the reproachful expression on her face. “All right, maybe a little.”

“You need to let it go.”

“I know,” I sighed. “I’d like one conversation, just one. It’s so out of character for him to not confront a problem straight on. To speak through Lisa, to not come to me with an issue he had in the first place… it’s weird.”

“When a person shows you who they really are, believe them,” Amie said.

Her soft-spoken advice brought a smile to my face. The pair of them were tangled up on the sofa, looking more like they’d been together a few years rather than a few weeks. It was adorable and for once since my breakup from Kevin, I didn’t bemoan a couple for their happiness. Anette had certainly earned it.

“Maybe you’ll meet someone else. They always seem to appear right when you aren’t looking for them,” Amie added with a sweetness directed toward Anette.

“Small chance of that. Miss Tinder Talia has hung up her swiping thumbs for the time being, haven’t you?”

I nodded. “Consider it my favor to the men of the five boroughs. No longer do they have to run in fear.”

“You’re looking at it all wrong,” Anette said as she lifted her head from Amie’s lap. “You were doing a public service. By naming and shaming these weirdos, you were helping out the millions of other women in the city.”

Something about a self-imposed chastity left me feeling more magnanimous about the whole thing. “To be fair, most of those guys were simply expressing their kinks. I think it’s kind of nice people felt they could be that open with me.” Anette’s eyebrows shot up and I couldn’t help but laugh. “I will say they were all pretty clueless about it.”

“Uh, overstatement. Showing you a secret dungeon and tossing you a whip is not what first dates are made for.”

We all shared a good laugh before Amie spoke up. “You know, when you think about how expensive apartments are in the city, he must
really
be into it.”

“Oh, he was.
Super
into it,” I said with a shudder. I’m not sure there’s anything in the world that could scrub the memory of him squirming in the throes of an orgasm from my mind.

I climbed to my feet with a groan. “Sorry, I’m not great company right now. I’ll leave you two lovebirds alone.”

“If you need to talk, you know where to find us,” Anette replied.

I paused at the edge of the room, hanging from the door frame. “You know, you’ve gone soft in your old age.”

“Aw, don’t go away sad,” she replied. She glanced up at me behind Amie’s back and grinned wickedly. “Just go away.”

Amie squealed and slapped her thigh. “You can’t say that!”

Anette’s eyes were full of playful adoration. “What? Really? I had no idea. Was that rude?” She gave me a wink over her shoulder before I ducked down the hall.

Once in the privacy of my room, I sat at my computer, staring at a blank page. The little cursor blinked. Blinked. Blinked. I closed my eyes and spilled my heart out on the page.

Clint. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for screwing everything up. I honestly don’t know what I did or said that night, but the fact I can’t even remember proves I have a lot to apologize for. I understand why you took me off the project and I hope you have nothing but success with the book. I know it’s going to be great.

I slammed my pinkie finger down on the enter key enough times the paragraph disappeared. I started again.

Hello Mr. English. I’m writing to apologize for my behavior the other night. It wasn’t appropriate or professional and for that I’m sorry.

“Christ. You suck at writing,” I mumbled as I put even more space on the page.

Clint. I miss you. I miss talking to you, hearing about your insane life. I even miss acting like an idiot whenever I’m in your presence. What I miss most is the hope you gave me when we were together. Maybe you and I weren’t meant to be, but knowing that someone like you is out there… I don’t know. It gave me hope that the last few months weren’t foreshadowing the rest of my life. Kevin wasn’t my last shot at happiness.

I’m sorry things ended the way they did. I’m still not sure exactly what happened, but I know you’re a man of action. Your actions very obviously show you have no interest in seeing me again and I’ll respect that.

I stared at the screen, the words swimming a little with my tears. Of course, I didn’t send any of these to him, but just writing it out was cathartic. His possible response terrified me anyway. Sometimes silence is kinder.

“Why can’t we just go to your bar?” I whined.

Anette was practically pulling me down the sidewalk. We looked like a mother dragging her kid along to the dentist rather than two friends going out on a Friday night.

“We always go to Dive85,” she replied as if that were an explanation.

“I’m sure Amie’s working.”

“I know she is, but that’s not the point of tonight.”

I was struggling to keep up, her long strides covering so much more distance than mine. “The point? God, Anette! Will you please just slow the fu…”

She stopped dead in her tracks and pointed to the sign above our heads. “We’re here. Quit complaining.”

I frowned as I looked up and then through the windows. “You made me get dressed up for this? I’m wearing heels and a… what the hell is going on?”

Anette grinned ear to ear, her perfectly painted red lips gave her a devilish look. “Nothing’s going on! I just wanted to go out with my bestie.”

I took a step back and cocked my head to the side, holding her back with a warning glare. “Okay. Now I know there’s something going on. I’ve never heard you use that word unironically.”

She mimed my posture. “Is unironically a word?”

“Don’t change the subject!” I stared at the front of the bar. A loud cheer rang out followed by lots of clapping and hooting. “Did I tell you this is where I came for my first Tinder date?” I asked suspiciously.

Anette’s brows furrowed comically. She turned to look at the sign again as if it’d changed in the last minute. “Is it? That’s so weird. Well,” she declared throwing her hands up in the air, “we’re already here. Want a drink?”

I squinted at her but couldn’t see a reason not to. “I think the Mets are playing tonight…”

“Yeah! They’re totally playing! They’re playing their asses off, but you can only see them in here.” She held the door open. I hesitated at the threshold before taking a long step inside. That’s when I saw him.

Clint.