Big Dick Energy: A Meet-Cute Novel Page 4

  “What took you so long? The longest it’s ever taken me to win over clients is two weeks.”

  As she spun to leave again, I reached out and snagged her shoulder.

  “That was a joke. Doug mentioned several companies were courting the Pythons, and you’re the reason they picked this firm. I’m here to ensure the process goes smoothly, not to undo the work you’ve already done.”

  The tiniest nod in the world got aimed my way. “Glad to hear it. As long as we remain professional and you realize I make final decisions, we shouldn’t have any further problems.”

  So close to a truce, and yet I couldn’t take it. “As for final decisions, we’ll leave that up to the client. But with that caveat, you have yourself a deal.” I extended my hand again as a show of good faith, and she finally slipped her palm inside. I caught a whiff of her perfume, something exotic and floral that gave me thoughts that were the opposite of professional.

  One firm shake that she seemed determined to outdo, gripping so hard it felt like we were in some twisted business version of a thumb war. Then she lowered her arm to her side. I glanced toward the windows and the skyscraper skyline as she pulled open the conference door.

  But just as it was closing behind her, I snuck one last farewell peek through the glass at the sky-high heels that highlighted her legs and added extra oomph to her voluptuous backside.

  “How are you settling in?” Doug asked as I took the leather chair opposite his desk. “Did everything go okay with Penny?”

  It took me a second to realize who he meant, as I was fairly certain the HR woman had been named Denise. Penny suited the woman I thought I was meeting last weekend in the bar, but Penelope fit the actual person I’d spoken to far better.

  And if by okay, he meant she hated me with a fiery passion and wanted to stab one of her sexy heels through my scrotum, then yeah, we were super-duper. But I’d never say that to him. “She’s smart and very organized.”

  I ran my palms down my slacks. I’d always respected the direct approach, but I didn’t want to come across as a tattletale who had as fragile of an ego as Penelope accused me of having. “I’d like to clarify my role. Is she the point person on this project?”

  “I’m afraid she’s not tough enough to run point, nor does she have the experience. The clients love her, though, so let’s think of this as more of a test run. See how you two work together, do whatever it takes to keep the Pythons and the city happy, and we’ll go from there.”

  If she wasn’t tough enough, then who was he going to get next? Freddy fucking Kruger?

  Doug must’ve read my introspection as confusion or perhaps disagreement, since he added, “Don’t get me wrong. Penelope’s brilliant and has great potential. She’s designed some beautiful fountains and always does the salon portion of the resorts we work on. But I’m not sure she’s got the chops to design a soccer stadium. What woman would? Which is why I need you to ensure the plan we present to the client appeals to a male audience as well.”

  Made sense I supposed, but so far, I hadn’t seen anything in the files that screamed feminine. Did he expect her to take the usual oblong stadium shape and present it as an ovary?

  “I was golfing with Chuck Miller and Bob Duvall. I mentioned the complex and how important it was to deliver on this project, and they called you the Home Run King.”

  Admittedly, I enjoyed the hell out of it whenever my clients and colleagues used a nickname that’d also been given to Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron. My dad had also taken a liking to it, the way I suspected he would, and often called and asked me how the Home Run King was doing. “That’s me,” I said, because humility was for losers.

  Another gem from my dad, but people didn’t want someone who hemmed and hawed about their skills. Who’d pay millions for buildings they thought would end up mediocre? They wanted confidence, wanted someone who’d knock it out of the park, and that was me, no doubt about it.

  Well, unless someone asked Penelope Jones. Pretty sure she had a whole lot of doubts about me, and there was only one thing for it.

  If she was going to play to win, she needed me on her team, and I’d gladly provide a demonstration of that when we met up with the client later this week. If the stubborn woman decided she’d rather go toe-to-toe than work with me, I wouldn’t think twice about handing Penelope her own fine ass.

  6

  Penelope

  Catalina’s secretary waved me on by, too busy with her stack of files to do much else. Although, if the situation called for it, she’d leap over the desk and tackle anyone who dared to interrupt my bestie when she was in her office doing her badass lawyer thing.

  Cat held up a finger when she spotted me. Then her face went deadly calm, her dark eyebrows twitching the slightest bit. “I beg your misogynistic pardon,” she said, and then she told whomever she was on the phone with that if he didn’t answer her question, she’d reach up his anus, grab his spine, and yank it out so he could see how weak it was.

  I brought up my shoulders, grimacing on the person’s behalf and thanking my lucky stars she was on my side. Then again, based on the first part of the comment, the guy deserved it.

  She casually kicked her heeled feet on the desk and studied her dark red fingernails. “Guess I’ll just hold your weak spine for ransom until you can find someone with a working knowledge of the actual law to answer my goddamn question then.”

  I couldn’t be sure, but based on what I could hear, the groveling had started up on the other side of the line.

  I walked closer to the plexiglass that provided a superior view of downtown San Diego. One America Plaza was the tallest skyscraper in San Diego, and the trolley ran right up to it. My office was eight blocks east, and Ellie usually worked from home. I leaned a bit closer to the giant windows to peer at the lights of the city. Not too close, though, as I had this illogical fear that after thirty years of holding up, they’d choose the moment I was by them to just pop right out and crash to the ground. I’d rather not use the Plexiglass as a surfboard when that happened.

  I swung my gaze south until I could make out the top of the Onyx Nightclub. Not that I cared about dance clubs the way my girls and I had during our college years, but it helped me get my bearings. If I had X-ray vision, I could see through the nightclub to Paddy’s Gaslamp Pub. The place now sent a stich of apprehension along the fabric woven from nearly a decade’s worth of memories.

  How dare Archer take away even an ounce of my fondness for Paddy’s.

  The loud slam of the phone receiver had me pivoting from the view to check on Cat’s mood.

  “Do you ever feel like you’re surrounded by idiots?” she asked, pushing two fingertips to her temples.

  “Does the guy who hit on me at the bar the other night count as an idiot?”

  “He blew his shot with you and failed to get your number, so yeah.”

  The shocking tea I’d been about to spill slipped down my throat instead. “Um, I shut him down before he could even shoot, and after the way I spoke to him, he’d be an idiot to even want my number.” It hit me that eventually, I’d likely have to give it to him, too.

  My entire body crumpled in on itself, and I resolved to see how long we could contain our interactions to solely email.

  Hey Archer, you cocky jackass,

  I don’t want you on this account but don’t actually have a choice, so here’s the bare minimum information you need.

  Warmest Regards,

  Penelope “I loathe you already” Jones

  “Kitty-cat,” I said, snapping my fingers to regain her attention as it’d drifted to the stack of files on the desk in front of her. As proof she’d forgotten my existence, she didn’t even bother hissing like she often did whenever Ellie and I used the nickname she only put up with because she loved us. “Do you remember how my boss told me he was bringing in some dude to help with the soccer complex? It’s the guy from the bar. The very guy I slammed when he was merely returning my credit card. And now I have to freaking work with him.”

  Sputtered laughter erupted from Cat, and I groaned and threw a hand over my face.

  “You are of no help at all, and I don’t know why I bothered stopping by your office before heading home.”

  At the slight tug on my wrist, I allowed Catalina to uncover my face. “Yes, you do. You saw his pretty mug today and felt bad. Let me guess, there was an apology poised on those pretty-little lips all day, wasn’t there?”

  I hugged an arm around my waist and brought my thumb to my mouth before remembering I wasn’t biting my nails anymore. “I will neither confirm nor deny.”

  “As if that’s ever stopped me from prying out the truth.” Cat tugged me to sit on the edge of her desk and narrowed her big brown eyes to truth-exacting slits. “Penelope Lillian Jones, tell me you didn’t say you’re sorry.”

  “I didn’t. But I might’ve considered it.” I wrinkled my nose. “Like five to six… hundred times.”

  “He hit on you, approached you again, and you think you need to apologize why?”

  “I was a total bitch and went way over the top.”

  Cat pursed lips done up in bright red, and I wished I could pull off that color without looking like a hooker but had never found the right shade. “Nah, that’s my role in our trio, and we all know it. Was there more to your chat at the bar than you first let on?”

  I kicked off my heels, scooting farther on the desk to sit side saddle, as my skirt didn’t allow for crisscross applesauce. “We had a bit of banter. Involving aliens and men in black.”

  “Oh, Penny,” she said. “That’s right up your Diagon Alley.”

  “I know! He did say he never would’ve hit on me if he’d known we’d have to work together, just like I wouldn’t have been so mean if I’d kno
wn. Then again, within five minutes of trying to update him on the project I was contemplating throwing things at his stupidly handsome face. Why couldn’t he be old and bald and have nose and ear hair for days?”

  Cat screwed up her face as if she were fighting the urge to gag.

  “Do me a favor. If there’s ever a time I forget it’d be the worst idea ever to get involved with another coworker, smack me or sue me or something. As much as I’d like to say it won’t come to that, he looks so damn good in his suit and then once in a while he peers so intensely at me that I forget he’s going to later mansplain and interrupt me and treat me like some girl who doesn’t know anything about soccer.”

  “If that happens, you have my blessing to find a ball and show him exactly how hard you can kick one.” Catalina raised an eyebrow. “Aim for the crotch, in case I wasn’t clear on that part.”

  “Oh, his crotch his crystal clear in my mind. I accidentally stared at it in the bar.” Then there was the glance when he’d stopped in front of my desk, but that was due to where the mini walls of my cubicle landed. Right at the wrong place, that was for sure.

  “Tell you what…” Cat tapped my thigh, and I shifted to allow her to pull out her desk drawer. She grabbed a yellow legal pad and scribbled something on it. Then she folded it, sealed it with tape, and slipped it inside my purse.

  “Still waiting for the part where you tell me.”

  “That note is for a moment when you start to feel weak. It’ll provide inspiration and be like carrying a pocket-sized version of moi around with you. Trust me, it’s a much better process than suing. Less time, due diligence, and I’m pretty sure you’d pass out if you saw how much I charge by the hour, friendship discount notwithstanding.”

  I kicked out at her, and she snagged my foot. “There’s another thing you could try if you get desperate and decide you’re cold-hearted enough to play the game to win.”

  “This is veering dangerously close to Tom Brady Territory.”

  “Hey, the dude’s nice to look at. Regardless of how much you or I like to bitch about him when we’re around our brothers, if Tom walked up to me in a bar, I’d flip my hair and giggle, and you would, too.”

  “I really hope I’d be stronger than that.” I frowned, not liking she’d made me consider whether I’d give in for even a second. I also wanted to be strong enough to insist I didn’t need to hit a panic button or play dirty to win.

  The idea of getting down and dirty with Archer, on the other hand… His image formed in my mind, and then he was peeling off his jacket, draping it over the back of a chair like a motherfucking gentleman, and removing his cufflinks before rolling up his sleeves.

  I bet he had forearms for days. They were one of the most underrated male characteristics, and I’d like to lick right up that firm line and… I cleared my throat and pinned my hands between the backsides of my knees and the desk. If I gave in and fanned my face, it’d give me away to Cat, and my dirty mind reel had been extra busy lately. Call it a hazard of going too long without taking the time for even a battery-operated-boyfriend.

  Unfortunately, it also meant I was a hop, skip, and a jump away from desperate. “Let’s hear it. The panic button plan.”

  “You bait him.” Cat shrugged a shoulder, as if it were merely another day at work, and while I knew she had more than one ax to grind when it came to men, at the same time I had no idea. “Obviously he’s attracted to you, so you teeter on the tight rope between friendly and flirty, keeping your words innocuous enough you could explain them away if it ever came up around anyone else.”

  I’d ask, but that seemed way too far, and so out of character I couldn’t even imagine the guilt it’d cause. Indigestion for days, to say the least. “Sounds more like gaslighting.”

  “Pfft. As if men haven’t been doing that to women since the dawn of time. Hell, your boss has been doing it to you since the day he hired you. He keeps pretending he’s considering you for a promotion, so you do the grunt work and put in more hours than everyone else, only to move the finish line. It’s the classic dangling a carrot in front of a donkey tactic.”

  “Wow. Now I’m a donkey. This just keeps getting better and better.”

  “Your boss is clearly the ass in the equation. All I’m saying is that if this…” Cat rolled her finger, signaling for me to fill in the name.

  “Archer York.” Nope, butterflies didn’t swirl through my gut at the mention of him. It was just an overly-dramatic hunger pang—that was my story, and I was sticking to it.

  “Mmm, sexy name,” Cat said, and I raised my eyebrows to convey my exasperation. “Right. That was my bad. The point is, if Archer’s a respectful guy and was telling the truth about not crossing lines, it’ll be easier to work together. He’ll also share more information if he thinks you’re friends. Then, if he crosses a single line and tries to screw you over, you show him you’re not messing around and you could take him down with the snap of your fingers.”

  The heaviness that flooded my body was definitely guilt. “This is getting way too close to Ron territory.”

  “You’ve got too many territories, Pen. Do you think Archer is having a conversation like this with his buddies? I bet he doesn’t even consider you a threat. We women have to work twice as hard to earn the positions freely given to men who don’t deserve it. We have to prove we care more about our careers than our personal lives, even as other women will snub us for it. We dissent. We make our own rules, remaining within the confines of the law, of course. But we take their underestimation of us to not only break the glass ceiling, but to help pull our sisters up with us.”

  That made me feel better, thinking about it that way.

  “If he takes the bait and finds a hook, that’s on him.”

  I wasn’t sure I agreed, but I had gotten talked over, walked over, and Ron was promoted after pitching an idea he’d told me was impractical. Trying to play fair, when the men in my career field definitely didn’t, was getting beyond old. And didn’t I come to Catalina because I needed some tough love?

  When I needed a friend to hug me, insist I look pretty even with mascara tracking down my face, and to down ice cream and wine while proclaiming the world unfair, I turned to Ellie. She was my favorite beloved enabler, just like I enabled her when it came to making excuses for why every dude she met on her dating app ended up ghosting her or being totally different IRL. It was always them, never her, and while I would stand by that to the day I died, Ellie had also ignored red flags and fallen for players while discarding nice guys because of their “funny walk” or “he closed his eyes too much when he talked.”

  We all had our issues and our roles, and the ones I’d been adhering to tripped me up and left me falling on my face again and again. It was like that boring movie Groundhog Day, but without the cute rodent to make me hate it slightly less.

  It wasn’t like I was going to seduce the guy—that went beyond my capabilities, even when I was in my early twenties with the metabolism of a hummingbird and the flexibility that allowed me to put my ankles behind my neck.

  Had I shown off that skill in any other capacity than how Ellie could pretend to pack me away in a suitcase? No.

  Had we demonstrated our party trick at an actual party only for the zipper to get stuck and leave me on the verge of passing out? Yes, yes, we had. Special skills. We had them.

  Meanwhile, Archer York was likely sitting in his big, beautiful condo, his long fingers wrapped around a thick crystal glass filled with amber-colored liquid. I’d bet he was swirling it as he assured himself that when the time came, he’d dazzle the client I worked for months to snag.

  What took you so long? The longest it’s ever taken me to win over clients is two weeks.

  Well, yay, hooray for him. I scooted to the edge of Catalina’s desk and hiked my purse strap higher on my shoulder. “You keep on kicking names and taking ass, girl. I’m going to go home and keep on putting hours in polishing up my presentation.”