Playing It Safe (2 page)

N
iña, estas de madre,”
my assistant calls out to me while walking into my office.

That’s Lisette, my Girl Friday, telling me, in no uncertain terms, that I’m a hot mess. I don’t speak fluent Spanish, but I’ve lived in Miami my entire life. I know the basics, and of course over the years I’ve learned a variety of curse words and phrases, so I get by … and she’s right.

I
am
a hot mess.

I have been for the past three and a half weeks since my date with Dick when I swore off men. So yeah, Lisette pretty much just hit the nail on the head. It’s not like I’m some crazed sexual deviant, but come on! Three weeks! That’s one hell of a dry spell, and it might also explain why I’ve been lusting over the UPS guy every time he drops by my office.

From my vantage point, I have a clear shot of the receptionist’s desk. Without fail, at one fifteen p.m. every day, give or take a few minutes, he appears before my eyes like a mirage in the desert. Then circa 1970s cheesy porn music starts playing in my head, and what do I have? A recipe for disaster, that’s what. Because what I’ve left out is that Mr. UPS Guy is probably in his mid to late fifties, with a beer belly and bald. I’m not knocking bald men. Nope, not at all. Some men can really rock that look, like The Rock and Bruce Willis. But this guy isn’t even close to that caliber of hotness.

Did I mention that he has really nice calves? They’re like perfectly formed muscles shifting ever so slightly and sexily as he prances in front of me.

You don’t believe me?

Well, trust me, he does.

“Ugh, Lisette, I know I’ve been in a piss-poor mood lately. Sorry.”

Lisette eyes me carefully while getting her pad and pen ready for our daily afternoon meeting. As I’ve come to expect, her ensemble is perfect, with a smart charcoal-gray pantsuit that is complemented by a black chiffon blouse. If I didn’t know her so well, I would never be able to tell she’s not a natural blonde. Then again, I know she goes far out of her way to ensure that
nobody
ever knows that about her. She’s a Miami native, just like me, and she married her high school sweetheart. They have twin boys who are about to go off to college. She doesn’t look a day over thirty, and that’s only my best guess since she keeps that kind of intel on lockdown. But whenever I get an opportunity, I ply her with drinks to see how much I can get out of her. It never works; she just ends up sloppy and drunk off her ass. Lisette is also the only woman I know who can pull off blood-red lipstick year-round. She can work the shit out of that look better than any runway model could. And it doesn’t matter if you bump into her at a grocery store on a Sunday afternoon; undoubtedly she’ll be sporting the red even if the rest of her looks like crap. I’ve known her for … I can’t say for sure how long I’ve known her, since she started off working here as my dad’s assistant. Needless to say, we go way back—
waaaay
back. We usually get together at least once a day to go over any loose ends on upcoming events my company is planning or hosting. These afternoon “meetings” usually consist of about a half hour of actual business, immediately followed by another half hour of shooting the shit and gossiping.

“Then do something about it,” she says in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Do something about what?” I ask.

“
It
. As in, go out and find yourself a man,” she answers with an expression on her face that suggests I’m a moron for not knowing what she’s talking about.

I swivel my seat so that I’m completely facing her, picking the stress ball up off my desk at the same time. Lately, I’ve been squeezing the living shit out of this thing; fucker could burst at any moment by the way I keep gripping it. It’ll pay off eventually because the next guy I give a hand job to is going to see stars.

Lisette’s eyes dart to my hand as it’s flexing and tightening itself, before raising an eyebrow in defiance. “Don’t give me that look, Julia. You’ve just had a run of bad luck in the man department. Everybody goes through those once in their life before meeting their Prince Charming. But you need to actually get your ass out there to meet him and not lock yourself up in your house all weekend, doing God knows what.” She immediately crosses herself, as if what she just said implies that I’m skinning cats or some crazy shit like that, and that the power of prayer is going to absolve me somehow.

I clench my fist around the stress ball and roll my neck around like a prize fighter getting ready to do battle before I hear it crack. “First of all, I’ve been busy redecorating Sabrina’s old room.” This is such bullshit, although I have given it quite a lot of thought while watching an exorbitant amount of television. I can’t help it if I have to catch up on Jax Teller, but she doesn’t need to know this. “Secondly, do I need to remind you of the long list of losers that I’ve had the pleasure of dating over the last year?”

“It wasn’t that bad,” she says, dismissing me quickly, even though she damn well knows it totally was.

I chuck the stress ball onto my desk, and it lands smack-dab on my keyboard. A distressing amount of beeps sound off in the background while I stand up and plant my hands on my desk, ready to remind her of just how bad it really was.

“First, there was Jack, who told me he was into ‘alternative films,’ which really meant he liked to watch porn all day. Then there was Dave, who apparently thought I looked
so
much like his beloved ex-girlfriend that when we finally had sex he shouted her name when he came. Then there’s Ryan, who told me on our very first date that he didn’t have a bank account, had never filed taxes, and had worked on a drug farm. Let’s see, oh! Then there’s Vincent, who—”

“
¡Por favor!
Stop, I get it. You’ve had some bad luck.”

“Bad luck?” I say with a mocking laugh. “Bad luck is more like not winning the pick six by one number. Or when you get a flat tire. Or getting your period while you’re at the beach. This is so much worse than bad luck. This is just … Jesus, I don’t even know what you call this, but I sure as shit can tell you it’s not just bad luck!”

Lisette is trying to stifle her giggle fit by covering her plump, red-coated lips with her hand and looking everywhere but at me. Between her sputtering laughter, I sit down again and calmly pluck the stress ball off the keyboard and being to massage it, hoping that it will help me center my chi, or whatever you call that nonsense. After about ten seconds of squeezing it to death, I give up and throw it back onto my desk, where it lands with a loud thud, barely missing my coffee cup.

“You need to work on your aim,” Lisette says while still snickering.

“I need to work on a lot of things,” I mutter under my breath.

She stops laughing long enough and coolly announces, “You’re gonna be fine. I bet your Prince Charming is right around the corner, and when you least expect it, he’ll swoop in to save the day. Girl, I can just feel it. He’s coming.”

“His Garmin must be telling him to come by way of Bumfuck, Egypt.”

“You know what I’m going to do,” she goes on to say, ignoring me completely. “When I get home tonight, I’m going to
encender una vela
in your name to
Santa Bárbara
.”

I roll my eyes because Lisette has been lighting so many candles to one saint or another in my name for years that by now it seems like a waste of a perfectly good matchstick. Not once have I seen anything come from it. However, if it makes her feel better and gets her off my back about my pathetic love life, fine.

“You’ll see,” she chirps, “it’s going to work,
chica
.”

With a loud
pfft
, I turn my attention back to the computer and pull up the coming week’s schedule. Three events are lined up: a grand opening of a new restaurant/bar in Coconut Grove, an engagement party at a home in Key Biscayne, and finally, at the end of the week, an opening at the Art Gallery here in South Beach.

That last one, the one at the Art Gallery, should be a cakewalk considering I’ve been handling their events and openings exclusively for the better part of the last year. And that would be thanks to Alex Holt, the owner.

Alex is kind of an enigma. Well maybe not, but there is something about him that I can’t quite put my finger on. My best friend Sabrina worked for him at the gallery before moving to Philly. At some point, he made it clear that he had the hots for her, but she was already in too deep with her boyfriend, Tyler. Well, not technically, but deep enough that Alex didn’t stand a chance.

Sounds like a fucking soap opera, right?

Anyway, the shit hit the fan, then yada, yada, yada, she moved away. But not before I made a deal with him that I still had to repay him for. I kind of told him that I would do any event of his choosing, free of charge, if he got Sabrina’s résumé to the right person at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. He did, she got the job, and almost a year later, he still hasn’t collected on my debt. He hasn’t even brought it up to me once, and I see him quite regularly. And we’ve become good friends.

Well,
good friends
is a bit of an overstatement;
good enough
is probably more of an accurate depiction. It doesn’t help that he’s hot as hell either. I’m not going to lie; the man is sex on a stick. He is gorgeous with a capital
G
. If Josh Holloway is ever in need of a stunt double, well look no further, because Alex should be the first and only person he would need to call. Our “friendship” could be described more by saying we playfully argue and exchange one too many flirtatious comments that drive me crazy. I didn’t even say anything yet about those dimples of his. Sweet baby Jesus, it’s just not fair.

“Julia, what the hell is wrong with you?” Lisette asks in a concerned voice, while I’m still conjuring up images of Alex’s dimples.

“What? Nothing’s wrong,” I say a tad too defensively, playing it off with a shrug of my shoulders. The last thing I need is for Lisette to drag out my daydreams of Alex in any way, shape, or form. “Just thinking about how crazy the schedule is for this week.”

“It’s not that bad. We’ve done three events in one week before. You can do this with your eyes closed and your hands tied behind your back.”

My mind goes straight to the gutter. Thoughts of being blindfolded and bound to a bed, at Alex’s hands and completely at his mercy, start whirling around in my head. God, it would be good …
soooo
good. Like earth-shattering good. Like speaking in tongues good. And I’m not even that into being tied up. But for Alex … damn, I’d haul my ass on over to Home Depot and buy the rope myself.

You know how I know he’d be amazing? Because there are some men—and when I say some, I mean a select few of the species—that the first thing you do when you meet them is picture how many sexual positions you can recreate from the
Kama Sutra
. Alex, without a doubt, is one of those men.

Okay, okay, so
maybe
I have a little crush on him. I don’t think I would act on it, though. The guy did boldly go where no man has gone before, or at least he tried to with my best friend. That would be like sloppy seconds, right? Maybe incestuous in Bizarro World since she’s like the sister I never had? Eww, so gross! I really need to come up with another way of looking at this whole situation. There are times, however, that it feels like he wants something to happen. Like he’s waiting for me to make a move. Goading me even. These instances are becoming more frequent to the point that I’m constantly questioning the parameters of our friendship. But the second I teeter on the brink of doing something about it, I reel myself back in.

“Earth to Julia! Come in, Julia!” Lisette’s hands are cupped around her mouth when her voice snaps me back to reality.

Shaking off the mental hopscotch I just played, I get back to the business at hand. “Sorry,” I quickly answer. “Was just thinking about all the redecorating I’m planning on doing this weekend. Where were we?”

Her cackle fills the room instantly. “
¡Por favor!
You were not thinking about redecorating.”

“I was! I was thinking of color palettes.”

She narrows her eyes at me and says, “You forget how well I know you. If you don’t want to share, fine. But remember, I’ve got my eyes on you.” Then she lifts her two fingers and points them toward her eyes, then at me, and then back to herself again.

“Whatever.”

“Yeah right, whatever,” she says, mimicking my dismissive tone. “Fine, can we discuss the Grandersons’ party then?”

“Yup, hang on a second while I pull up their file.”

A few strokes of the keyboard later and the details of the party we’re planning at the Grandersons’ home in Key Biscayne this Wednesday night are up and ready for review. I do a quick scan of the particulars before turning my head to face Lisette again, but not before I take note of the time on the corner of my monitor: 1:12 p.m.

“Lisette, sweetie, can you move your seat over to the right just a hair, please? The glare coming from the window behind you is killing my eyes.”

She smiles and does as I ask before going into details about the party. Everything seems to be in order, and then like clockwork, my eyes feast upon a vision standing at the receptionist’s desk. There he is. Mr. UPS Guy in all his UPS uniformed glory.

Bow chicka bow wow …

I
t’s like Africa hot in this tent, or oven—whichever way you want to refer to this plastic, white-walled room of heat. Even though it’s mid-September in Miami, if you’re in a tent at any time of the year, it’s the equivalent of a sweat lodge. As for me, the secret to Secret deodorant is to not sweat like a pig. Which completely defeats the purpose since your secret is out of the bag, as evident by the giant rings of perspiration currently gracing my white pintuck blouse. It’s a classy look.

I tried to talk them out of using this thing, but there was no use. Mr. Granderson, my client, refused to hear anything to the contrary. His only requirement for me was to make his baby girl happy at her rehearsal dinner. And his baby girl wanted a tent, so whatever baby wants, baby gets.

Speaking of “baby,” the few times we spoke during the planning stages of her engagement party she’d sometimes get a dreamy, faraway look in her eye. As if the mere thought of her betrothed would incapacitate her ability to hold a conversation. I can’t lie. I’m jealous. I want that for myself. I want to meet someone who robs me of speech, makes my pulse race, and loves me beyond measure. It might be a pipe dream at this point in my life. I’m barely holding on to the hope of finding “him.” And as I stand to the far side of the sweat tent observing the guests congratulate “baby,” I picture myself in her shoes.

People raise their champagne-filled flute glasses until someone clinks theirs with a spoon to quiet the crowd. “Congratulations, and may you both live in the glow of love for years to come. To Julia and …”

Damn, even in my daydream I can’t muster up a make-believe name for the faceless man I’m supposed to be engaged to. If that’s not pathetic, I don’t know what it is.

A defeated sigh escapes me as I scan the crowd again, looking for the groom-to-be. I never got a chance to meet him since “baby” said he was out of town on business. I think I spot the back of his head finally just as I catch Lisette heading my way from the corner of my eye. By the determined look on her face, my first thought is something happened with the caterer, which always seems to be the case at these things. But I quickly realize it’s much worse than that by the one word that spills out of her mouth as soon as she reaches me.

“Aiden.”

My voice catches in my throat when I ask, “Aiden, what?”

She chews nervously on her bottom lip because if there is one rule in regards to my personal life it’s this: never speak of Satan, a.k.a. Aiden. However, I’ll make an exception this one time and give you the abbreviated version.

Aiden was my boyfriend right after college. We were together for two years, five months, and sixteen days. But who’s counting? Um, this jackass, that’s who. I put up with so much bullshit from Aiden, it was sad.

For example, he had this “I’m finding myself” phase where almost every day for a good four months he was all about trying to get in touch with his inner Aiden, whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean. He started out by devouring every self-help book he could get his hands on. Then he changed his eating habits to a macrobiotic-type diet. This didn’t bother me too much because I could always fend for myself come dinnertime. But when he started talking about going to get his-and-hers enemas, I was done. It got to the point where whenever he said he was “working on Aiden,” and yes he would refer to himself in the third person, I would tell him to just look in a goddamn mirror and call it a day. Then there was his “I’m a gamer” phase where he would tune the whole world out for hours at a time, sometimes entire weekends, just so he could cultivate his video-gaming skills. Because according to Aiden, he was going to “get the gold at the next World Cyber Games.” For the record, that never happened.

That’s just a couple of the things he did over the course of our relationship that I dealt with. And why did I put up with it? Mostly because I was young and naïve and very much in love.
And
because he would tell me that I was his girl and that we were going to get married and have lots of babies and a whole slew of garbage that I ate right out of the palm of his hand. That is, until the day he called and said that he never wanted to see me again.

“Yeah, that’s really funny, Aiden,” I had said to him.

He was dead serious because the motherfucker had up and left for California that morning to shack up with some broad he had never met in person. Thank you very much, World Wide Web.

Long story short, ever since him I’ve been extremely wary when it comes to men and letting my guard down. And as luck would have it, I’ve had the worst pick of the litter since him.

“He’s here,” Lisette says.

“Here,” I repeat. “As in at
this
party?”

My eyes canvass the crowd, darting from face to face until Lisette stands in front of me to block my view.

“It’s worse than that,” she says.

Before I can ask her how that’s possible, I peek over her shoulder and see him.

The years have been kind to the devil incarnate. Aiden looks better than ever, to my utter disappointment. I’d been wishing he would have developed a deformity à la Hunchback of Notre Dame by now, but no such luck. He still looks male-model worthy with his cropped black hair, piercing blue eyes, and what I know is a lean, muscular physique hidden beneath his dark suit. The bastard could still give David Beckham a run for his money.

Lisette snaps her fingers within an inch of my nose. “Hey, are you okay?” she asks.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine.”

I’m not. In my head there are alarm bells going off, and all I can think of is why the hell is he here?

“Did you know he was going to be here?” I ask while trying to sneak another peek over her shoulder.

“No! How can you ask me that?” She sounds appalled that I would even entertain the idea for a second. “Did
you
know he was going to be here?”

My shocked expression along with my eyebrows flying up to my hairline is enough of an answer.

“Relax. I just meant that since the name of Sophia’s fiancé was Aiden, you might have asked about it.”

“Who’s Sophia?”

“Julia, that’s the bride-to-be,” she deadpans.

“Oh! You mean ‘baby,
’
” I answer.

“Who’s ‘baby’?” Lisette asks.

“Never mind,” I grumble under my breath. “Wait a minute, what did you mean you thought I would have asked about Sophia’s fiancé’s name?”

She gently grabs my arm and tries to move me, but I don’t budge. And that’s because I finally put two and two together as I see Aiden take “baby” in his arms and kiss her as if she’s the last woman on earth.

“Julia, come on,” Lisette says softly. “Let’s get you out of here.”

“You have got to be shitting me. He’s engaged to ‘baby’?” I ask her in a deathly quiet voice.

It’s too late to leave because I’ve been spotted. Sophia, “baby,” or whatever the hell her name is, is pointing me out to Aiden and leading him by the hand to where I’m standing.

“Dammit, they’re coming over here. What do I do?” I ask Lisette through clenched teeth.

She steps to the side and whispers, “Act natural.”

“Easy for you to say,” I say under my breath just before they reach us.

With each step the look on Aiden’s face is priceless. He obviously had no idea that I was the party planner. And when he’s finally standing right in front of me, close enough for me to kick in the nuts if I were so inclined, his eyes quickly move between me and Sophia in disbelief. She’s completely oblivious to the potential shit-storm brewing right in front of her. Honestly, I feel bad about how she’ll react when she finds out because she’s a genuinely nice person and I’m sure she won’t want to know how much of a dick her fiancé is.

“There you are,” Sophia says happily. “I was looking all over for you. I wanted to introduce you to my fiancé, Aiden.”

“We already kn—”

Aiden speaks over me and cuts me off. “Met.”

Sophia looks confused, and I’m staring at Aiden with the phoniest smile I can muster.

“You two know each other?” she asks.

“No,” he tells her. “I mean we met earlier tonight.”

Sophia seems reassured and smiles at him. “Awesome! Didn’t she do an amazing job, honey?”

I’m too shocked to say anything, and my mouth drops open as a result. Lisette pokes me in the ribs with her elbow, and I turn to see her give me a chiding look. I mouth
What?
to her, and she plasters a fake smile across her red lips. When I turn my attention back to the lovebirds, they’re staring at me expectantly. Well, Sophia most definitely is. Aiden looks more like a deer in the headlights.

“So will you do it?” Sophia asks.

“I’m sorry,” I answer her. “I didn’t hear what you were asking me.”

She laughs. “I was wondering if you’d be willing to help plan the wedding.”

Hmmm, let’s see … help plan the wedding of an ex who I thought would be the man I would be marrying someday. Um, that would be a big no.

“When is the wedding?” Lisette asks.

She can’t be serious. It’s my turn to poke her in the ribs, but she doesn’t even flinch.

“April fifteenth,” Sophia says with a lilt in her voice.

“Oooh, I’m sorry, Sophia,” Lisette responds with just the right amount of regret in her tone. “But we’re solidly booked from here to next summer.”

Wow! I’m impressed with Lisette’s lie, and I grin from ear to ear in approval as she tilts her head to acknowledge me.

“That’s too bad,” Aiden says while hugging Sophia from behind.

“Yeah, too bad,” she agrees with a sad smile. “I really would have loved to have you do it.”

“I would have loved to help,” I finally say even though I want to laugh like a lunatic at the absurdity of the situation. Of course, that would be after I kick Aiden in the nuts. And maybe stab him in the eye with a dull knife.

“Sophia!” someone yells from the far side of the tent.

“Oh, I have to go,” she quickly says and then extracts herself from Aiden’s embrace. “I’ll catch up with you later. Okay?”

“Sure thing,” I answer with a curt nod.

And then there were three.

“I’ll leave you two to talk,” Lisette abruptly announces and walks away.

And then there were two.

We stare at each other for a few seconds as if in a standoff; there are so many thoughts swirling through my head that I can’t pluck just one out. But if I know Aiden at all, which I really don’t, as proven by his disappearance and sudden reappearance, he’ll have some crap to say about all of this.

“It’s great to see you, Julia.”

“It’s great to see me?” I try the words out slowly. The feel of them on my tongue tastes as bitter as I sound. I hate that I’m still affected by his dismissal of me after all these years. I hate that I’m that girl: jealous and unforgiving and yes, still heartbroken.

He sighs and runs a hand through his short hair. Looking around nervously, he smiles sheepishly at me before taking a step forward. “I don’t know what else to say, but it
is
great to see you.”

“You don’t know what else to say to me?”

“Did you turn into a parrot since I last saw you?” he quips with a laugh. “The Julia that I knew would at least have something to say.”

I take a moment to gather my thoughts, opening and closing my hands into fists at my sides. I tilt my head to the side when my mind clears and the right words are finally at the ready.

“You no good, son of a bitch, assclown have the balls to think this is cute, don’t you?”

He raises his hands in defense.

“It’s not a question I want you to answer, Aiden.” I roll my eyes. “And as for ‘the old Julia,’ she’s gone. But the new and improved Julia has a ton of things to say to you. Shall I start at how I faked every orgasm? Perhaps I should start with how you disappeared five years ago, never to be seen or heard from again?”

The faking orgasm bit is a total lie. The man knew how to make my body sing like no other has been able to do since, but it gives me a glimmer of happiness to say it anyway. Does that make me a vindictive bitch? Probably. Do I care? No.

“Okay, okay,” he says and reaches out with his hand to grab my arm. He pulls me along to the corner of the tent while whispering, “Do you mind keeping your voice down?”

We come to a stop, and I look down in disgust at his hand still gripping my arm. “Get your fucking hand off of me.”

Aiden does so immediately and looks over his shoulder. Thankfully, Sophia still hasn’t noticed our little tête-à-tête.

“I guess the idea that you could look past this was just a pipe dream, huh?” he asks.

“You know what, Aiden? After tonight I’ll never have to see you again, so why don’t we forget we ever saw each other, and you can go back to whatever rock you crawled out from under.”

I turn on my heel and walk as briskly as possible to the nearest opening in the tent, leaving Aiden behind. The idiot in me who’s a sucker for punishment forces me to look over my shoulder at him. He’s still standing where I left him with a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. God, what I wouldn’t give to smack that look off of his face. But instead, I keep walking, desperately in search of Lisette or alcohol, whichever I find first.

Luckily, she finds me first and gives me a quick once-over. She tells me in no uncertain terms that I am to go home for the night and that she’ll talk to me tomorrow. I’m not going to disagree with her for once either. So with only an hour or so left at this engagement party from hell, I decide she’s absolutely right and leave Lisette in charge.

Walking through the wall of humidity and trying my damndest to not think about Aiden, I finally reach the front of the house and hand my keys off to the valet to wait for my Land Rover to be brought around. While I wait and still not think about Aiden, which means I’m totally thinking about him, I rummage through my purse to find a ponytail holder since my long blond hair is sticking to the back of my neck.

Gathering it all in my hands, I make a messy knot on the top of my head and instantly feel cooler. The night breeze off the ocean only a couple of miles away is finally making itself useful. It would’ve been nice if it had shown up about an hour ago, but you can’t have it all. I cannot wait to get home and wash away the sweat and stink off of me. My signature scent is Christian Dior’s Miss Dior Cherie, but right now it’s more like a mixture of perfume and body odor and not at all pleasant or alluring. And oh my God, don’t even get me started on the swamp ass.