Page 31 of Meet Stan

“If you just do him, then you can get it out of your system,” Ginger said.

“Just do him?” I was laughing so hard the instructor gave us a dirty look. I tried to quiet down. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. He’s sort of in a position of authority.”

“But I thought you were a big shot project manager now. Doesn’t he have to listen to you?”

“Interim project manager, Ginger,” I said, emphasizing the interim part. “And it’s kind of murky. He is supposed to get my approval before he takes certain steps, and the first chance he got he tried to cut me out of the loop.”

“I know you’re angry at him, but that doesn’t mean you still don’t want to sit on his dick.”

“For fuck’s sake, Abby,” I said. “There are children present.”

“No there aren’t, we’re in a bar.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m with Abby on this one.” Kit arched her brows. “You clearly want to bone this dude.”

“Don’t you mean, she wants that dude to bone her?” Abby asked.

“Nobody’s boning anybody,” I blurted. “All right? Can we find another subject to discuss please? I mean, look at how shitty my painting looks compared to the other students.”

“Sorry, Picasso. Maybe you could watch some Bob Ross videos online? You know…”

Abby got a blank look on her face.

“Let’s put a nice happy little tree… right over here. Now don’t tell anyone, it’s our secret.”

“Oh god, that’s awful,” Ginger said.

“Hey,” Kit said, “with Ivy, it’s going to be more like ‘let’s put a nice, happy little cock hiding over here, it looks just like the one I want to sit on.”

“Please stop.”

After painting, we hit the restaurant, and guess what? They still gave me a hard time about ‘the guy at work.’ I wondered what they would think if they knew the real story. That I was being paid to be a pretend girlfriend to Stan so he could—really own his friends, I guess. I still wasn’t sure what his motivation was, other than a general nihilism about love I happened to share.

Only, I was starting to think that my girlfriends weren’t wrong. Maybe I really wasn’t as cynical about love as I tried to pretend to be.

I was grateful when they ate, because that was a time they couldn’t rib me. After dinner, we went out for karaoke. At last, the noise was too much for them to give me a hard time. Besides, we were having too much fun singing to worry about fucking with me over the guy from work I possibly wanted to bang.

I couldn’t get it out of my mind. Of course there was sexual tension between us. I mean, we’d slept together the first night we’d met, in what was supposed to be a one-night stand. Just wham, bam, thank you ma’am, and we go back to our regular lives.

Now I was in a long-term agreement with him, as well as working closely with him every day. It was enough to drive anyone buggy. I tried to tell myself that was the reason I felt the way I did. Proximity feelings. You spend a lot of time with someone, you might start to look at them as a natural life partner.

It didn’t help that we had to pretend to be in love. I was in doubt about my feelings, and how true they really were, but I wasn’t in doubt about my physical desires. I wanted to be with Stan again so much it hurt sometimes.

I tried to relax and have a good time with my friends, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Stan and I. Just what was going on between us? I really felt as if our fake relationship was moving rather quickly. Maybe moving into something that wasn’t so fake.

And if that were true, I had no idea what I was supposed to be feeling. It tore me up all night, to the point where Abby asked if I needed an Alka-seltzer, due to my sour expression.

After I refused, Abby had another genius idea &emdash; and half an hour later all four of us entered the biggest nightclub in the city.

Chapter Thirteen

Stan

My fake, totally pretend girlfriend Ivy was having a girl’s night out, giving me a break from the constant turmoil of my maybe-pretend, maybe-not feelings.

I decided I would have a guy’s night in, something I rarely got anymore because of the long hours I worked. With the kind of money I had at my disposal, I naturally had every modern game console known to man, and even a PC some tech nerd set up for me for the same purpose.

If only I had the time. At one point, all of the partners in the firm—Jonathon, Mason, Chandler, and myself—had played together in online shooters and the like. Jonathon had been the first one to stop showing up for our sessions. He was also the first of us to get married. Coincidence? Of course not.

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