Trust in Advertising (72 page)

“You know,” Lexi skipped through the pile of suitcases, counting as she went, “four suitcases for us to go to San Francisco is a lot of luggage.”

Cocking an eyebrow, Vincent waited patiently for her to figure it out. She was getting closer, and the sneaky smile on her face was proof of her imminent 433

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victory. She peeked up at him through her lashes, then looked back at the tickets in her hand, not only inspecting the ones on top, but fingering through the pile until she screamed and began jumping in place.

“We’re going where?”

Vincent laughed out loud at her reaction. “You tell me. Where are we going, Nancy Drew?”

Her entire face lit up. “We’re going to Italy!” Her eyes sparkled with excitement. “How did this happen?” Her mouth hung open as she gaped at the tickets in her hands.

“Paolo called. The renovations were finally completed on the villa and Francesca insisted we visit. You know it’s impossible to say no to her.”

Lexi laughed and tossed her BlackBerry at Vincent. “And my malfunctioning calendar?”

Vincent sat down on the couch and pulled her into his lap. Instinctively, his fingers reached out and began playing with the ends of her hair. “So I might have had a little help on this one.”

“Erica!” Lexi groaned, suddenly mad at herself for not thinking of it sooner.

“That little sneak.”

“She’s quite crafty. The women’s leadership conference, it was all Erica.”

She stole another peek at the tickets, stil trying to process al the information he’d just dumped in her lap. “So we really have …”

“Two and a half weeks with absolutely nothing to do.” He picked her up off the couch, her legs wrapping tightly around his waist. “First, we’re going to go to see baby Hunter, and then,” he pressed her back against the cold wall and kissed her neck, his tongue running leisurely over her skin, “you’re mine. All mine.”

“I like the sound of that.”

When his lips finally were within reach, Lexi took control and kissed him.

Her hands shot into his hair, her fingers holding him as close as she could get.

The only thoughts in her head were of Vincent. He consumed her mind, and his hands devoured her body.

“What time is the flight tonight?” Lexi asked, tugging anxiously at his belt buckle.

“We need to be at the airport in an hour.” Vincent panted, his pants dropping to the floor as he pulled Lexi’s sweater over her head. “As much as I want to do this, I think we should maybe …”

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Trust in Advertising

“Do you trust me?” Lexi gasped as his mouth ran over her skin, and then giggled and squirmed away. She squealed when she took off running down the hall, knowing Vincent would follow.

As she leaped into the air and landed on the bed with a whoosh, Lexi turned to see Vincent right behind her. They had found one another. They had overcome all of their demons and were happy together. It was in that one perfect moment that Lexi realized that dreams really do come true.

He crawled onto the bed, looking down at her with complete love and devotion in his eyes. “Of course I trust you, with my life.”

∙ The End ∙

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Michaels? Turn the page for a

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Boycotts & Barflies

G race smelled the popcorn as soon as she stepped off of the elevator.

Meg and Bianca must be close to starting the movie,
she thought as she rushed down the hall, not wanting to be late.

“Hi, honeys! I’m home.” Grace came through the door and gently tossed her keys into the wicker basket on the counter.

Meg and Bianca were perched on the couch, remote control and popcorn in hand. “Grace,” they squealed in delight, “you escaped!”

Bianca, Meg, and Grace had been best friends for nearly four years. They met during their sophomore year of college, and after a horrible time living with insane roommates in the dorms, they decided to get an apartment together their junior year and had been living together ever since.

Bianca and Meg graduated with undergraduate degrees in interior design and currently worked at Baker Design House in downtown Portland. They had been there for the last year and a half, and even though they were only twenty-four years old, they had started to make quite a name for themselves. They were becoming two of the most highly sought after young designers in town.

Grace was the same age as her friends, but she was still in school and would be graduating in June with her Master’s in Literature. In the meantime, she was teaching English Lit classes at the local community col ege. The classes she taught didn’t make her a ton of money to live on, but her parents were very supportive Victoria Michaels

of her education and were helping her financially until she finished her degree and could get a full-time job at the university.

Even with successful jobs and graduate level educations, the girls still found themselves failing with men. These days, they were in the midst of a “dating drought” as they liked to call it. It seemed none of them could find a decent guy for any sort of long term relationship. They had been going on a series of random dates that ranged from bad to disgusting on the date scale. Lately, their Friday nights involved one or two of them ending a bad date early, a big bowl of popcorn, and a “chick flick” to take their minds off of their misery.

Grace glanced over at the couch and saw the leggy redhead stretched out there, flipping through a magazine. “Bianca, what are you doing home already?

You had a date, too. How’d you get home before me?” Bianca had left for her date at the same time as Grace, but she had already been home and screaming in the background when Meg called Grace at the restaurant.

Bianca blushed furiously at the question. She had very high standards when it came to guys. To Bianca, chemistry with a guy was everything, and if she didn’t feel it immediately, she wasn’t going to wait around for it to blossom. That was Bianca. She was a strong, beautiful woman, and she needed a man that was her equal; that was just how she was wired. If it was a blind date, she always had the guy wear a red rose on his lapel so she could check him out before she actually went so far as to introduce herself to him, giving her the option to walk away if she wasn’t attracted to him. Of course, even the good looks and chemistry would only get a guy so far. He’d better have a brain and a personality to back it up, or she would leave him the first chance she got.

Meg wasn’t nearly as bad as Bianca, but she was a hopeless romantic, looking for her one true love, convinced she would know him on sight. Her personality was quirky and wonderful. She too went on many first dates, but very few second dates for just that reason. Sometimes Grace envied Meg’s faith in true love and happy endings more than she cared to admit.

Bianca laughed darkly, and then launched into the story of her disastrous date as the previews played on the TV. “You know I hate blind dates. I did it as a favor to this girl at work, and after seeing this guy, I’m not sure I’m going to ever speak to Cindy again! He was this scrawny blond guy with a cheesy mustache! I mean really, when have I ever liked a guy with facial hair? Ugh! I gave the hostess twenty dollars to tell him I threw up in the parking lot,” she said, completely unashamed of her actions.

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Bianca was not one to waste her time with being nice; she always cut to the chase. Grace was glad Bianca liked her, because she wouldn’t want to be on her bad side.

The girls joined Grace in the kitchen and plopped down onto the bar stools across the counter. Grace smiled as she looked at them, so opposite in looks but similarly dazzling.

Bianca’s long, red hair hung down past the middle of her back, thick and straight. Her blue eyes were mesmerizing and framed with thick, lush eyelashes.

Blessed with a wonderful metabolism, she had a curvy, womanly body to die for without ever going to the gym. Women were jealous of her; men were enamored instantly. Throw in a pair of killer legs that went on for miles, she was gorgeous.

Meg was average in height, but next to Bianca’s long legs, everyone looked tiny. Her small frame and currently chocolate brown hair made her a much more exotic beauty. Always a work in progress, she changed her hair color as often as some women changed their nail color. Last month it had been platinum blond with pink highlights. No matter what, her deep blue eyes shone under the veil of her thick hair, twinkling with life, just like Meg herself. While average in stature, Meg had one of the biggest personalities you would ever come across.

Everyone she ever met remembered her. Her smile lit up a room, and people just naturally gravitated to her warmth and happiness.

Grace placed the foil swan with her leftovers in front of Meg. “Thank you for saving me from Tony the Dul ,” she said with a bow as she stood across the counter.

“No problem, but next time, please listen to us when we tell you someone isn’t right for you. We’re designers, for goodness sake; we can tell when things go together and when they don’t. It’s what we do.” Meg rolled her eyes and dramatically snapped the neck of the swan, digging into the leftovers. It was her silliness that Grace loved most about her.

“So I guess we’re the big losers this weekend, Bianca. At least I got a decent appetizer out of it and Meg got a foil swan of lasagna.” Grace laughed, trying her best to be a “glass half full” girl.

Bianca shrugged her shoulders. “True, but that’s also an hour of your life you’ll never get back, an hour wasted—on a dork. I, however, spent my hour productively shopping! Look at these fabulous shoes I found.” She squealed as she threw her foot into the air revealing a sleek black stiletto.

After an extensive discussion about the versatility of black patent leather heels in one’s fall wardrobe, Grace let out a loud sigh. “Girls, what are we going 441

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to do about all these losers we’ve been going on dates with? Where are all the good guys hiding?”

Meg laughed. “If we just keep going, eventually we will have dated every loser in the greater Portland area, and then, by process of elimination, we’ll finally come across the nice guys.”

“Yes, but we might be eighty years old by then, in a nursing home, eating pudding, and making Popsicle stick sculptures,” Grace teased.

“Oh, can we be roomies in the nursing home?” Meg asked excitedly. “Then we can wear our Juicy sweat suits and make all the other old people jealous of our fabulous style.”

“Enough about getting old and wrinkly, please. Let’s focus on the here and now, where we’re twenty-four and looking fit and fantastic. I’m with Grace; I’m tired of kissing frogs. I really want to make out with a handsome prince,”

Bianca whined. “Is that really so much to ask? One sexy, gorgeous, mentally stable, gainfully employed guy with an amazing personality, that doesn’t smell like mothballs or live with his mother?” Her eyes glazed over as she began to daydream about her perfect man.

Grace glanced over at Meg and found her deep in her own fantasy as she gracefully swayed with an invisible dance partner, probably named Mr. Right.

Struck with an idea, Grace went to the refrigerator, took out three beers, and opened them, placing one in front of each of the girls. “I propose we go on a boy-boycott until the new year,” Grace said as she happily waved her beer in the air. “Who’s with me?”

Both of her friends considered the idea for a few seconds before smiles crept onto their faces. Meg, of course, had questions. “What are the rules of a boy-boycott? No dates, I assume, but what else? Can we kiss random boys?

What if they kiss us? It doesn’t happen to me much, but Bianca gets that a lot, so I figured I’d ask …”

“Hold on a minute, Meg. Let’s make a list!” Grace dug in the drawer for a pen.

Bianca snatched a notebook off the nearby desk as Grace tossed her the pen she found. “OK, Boy-Boycott Official Rules,” she wrote across the top of the page.

Rule number one: No dates.

Rule number two: No tongue kissing with boys. Closed lip kissing is fine. If a guy crams his tongue down your throat unexpectedly, it doesn’t count, unless you kiss him back. (AKA Bianca’s rule)

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Rule number three: No sex … of any kind. If you wouldn’t want to see your parents do it, that counts as sex and it’s off limits.

Rule number four: Each of us puts $200 into the pot. If you break the rules of the boycott, you lose the money. The last person(s) standing gets the money to spend on a hot new pair of shoes to be worn on her first date of the new year and gets eternal bragging rights about her superior will power.

Bianca flipped the paper around so Meg and Grace could read it and check to see if they agreed with all of the rules. They quickly scanned the list; Grace was the first to sign the paper, followed by Meg, and finally Bianca. Grace ran into her room, her wavy black hair flowing behind her as she grabbed her wad of emergency cash. She slammed $200 onto the counter. Meg and Bianca disappeared for a few minutes, and then did the same. They hid the winnings in the cookie jar and tucked it into the back corner of the counter.