Page 6 of Meet Stan

Stan

I wasn’t a guy into repeat performances, if you catch my drift. None of my instincts were honed for that sort of thing. I didn’t ask Ivy for her phone number, and I never learned her last name. Standard operating procedure for Stan the Man, the Myth, the Legend.

I’d done the same thing more times than I could possibly remember or count. But for the first time, on the morning after the soiree and my hot as hell hookup, I felt regret. My first thought upon waking was that I would probably never see her again, and that felt like a shame.

Once my brain came online, I admonished myself for those thoughts. What was it Jonathon used to say before he met Amelia? Oh yeah.I don’t get soft spots for women. I only get one hard spot.

That was to be my mantra. I would be the holdout, the last man standing, the only bachelor left in the firm if I had to be. After all, love was just a chemical reaction in the brain.

You got ‘hooked’ on certain people, and your dopamine levels went up when they were around. Simple biology. I didn't want to get hooked on any one woman. I wanted to be free to roam as I pleased, like I’d told Chandler and Mason the night before.

I got up and did the three S combinations that men require to feel functional in society. The shit, the shave, and the shower. I have a thousand-dollar wet dry razor, so I handle the second two at the same time.

Once out of the shower, I paused to check out my reflection in the mirror. The Russian twists I’d added to my routine made my midsection look a bit bulky. I resolved to cut back on them while increasing work on my transverse abdominals.

It wasn’t vanity—okay, it wasn’t JUST vanity. If you’re successful, as I was without a doubt, people expected you to look successful. In ancient times that used to mean being fat with a proper double chin, to show you had access to surplus resources.

In the modern era, I’d aligned myself with the fitness geeks and worked hard to maintain my body. I found myself wondering what Ivy would think if she got the chance to see me naked. We’d done it hard, over a bench, up against a wall, but had remained mostly clothed the whole time.

Thinking about my hookup the day after in all the wrong ways felt weird, but I figured it was just a bit of infatuation. That was all. I could get her out of my head soon enough. For the time being, I needed to focus on work. Chandler was supposed to be introducing me to a new project manager I was going to work with while he was away on paternity leave.

I wasn’t looking forward to it. I’d heard it was some kind of workaholic, number-crunching nerd chick who got lucky and caught a massive accounting error. Worse, when people talked about her, they always praised her intelligence and I figured her high level of skill at her job virtually guaranteed we were going to butt heads. A lot of this belief had to do with the nature of the project itself: Mastercraft Beer and Ale.

In order to fully appreciate why the Mastercraft project was so near and dear to me, we have to spin back the clock to my college years. A couple of my fraternity brothers wanted to create a microbrew, and tap it at homecoming. So far, so good.

Only their sour, salty-ass beer was terrible, But it was a good experience, because at that same brewery I ran into Chocolate Chip Charlie. Charlie used to own a bakery for thirty years, which he eventually sold to get his dream of starting a brewery off the ground.

At that point, he was doing microbrew batches, but it was the best damn beer I’d ever had. Probably the perfect balance of flavor, boldness, and a head so thick you could balance a quarter on it.

I vowed that someday, when I made my fortune, I would look up Chocolate Chip Charlie and finance his brewery dreams.

Alas, when I made my first billion and decided to look up Charlie, he was already dead. I did speak with his son, Charlie Jr., who had built the microbrew into a modest market share but high prestige. Their beers and ales won a lot of awards, but they didn’t move a lot of product.

I vowed to change all of that. I’d finally acquired a controlling share in the brewery, after months of negotiation, and I wanted to expand, expand, expand. I believed in the product and the family dynasty behind it.

The problem is, the beer market was crowded as hell. It’s always crowded, and getting a foothold requires publicity as much as expert brewing techniques. I knew that the firm was going to have to spend a lot of money on promotion, and that always irks the bean counters like Chandler—and by proxy, his little minion of a project manager.

I headed into work and rode the elevator up to my office, hoping things would go smoothly. I had a lot tied up in the brewery, not just financially, but emotionally as well. I made promises to Charlie and his family I intended to keep. However, and unfortunately, business and ethics don’t always see eye to eye.

I knew I was in for an uphill battle, so I was feeling more than a little agitated as the morning wore on. When my assistant buzzed me and said that Chandler and his protege were outside, I sighed in resignation and put a smile on my face.

“Send them in, please.”

I stood up, wondering who this project manager was. Chandler entered the office first, blocking most of my view. I caught a flash of familiar auburn hair and felt my heart quicken.

No way. It can’t possibly be her.

Chandler stepped out of the way, and sure enough, there was my hook up standing there looking fresh as a daisy. Son of a bitch. I’d been wrong. She wasn’t a member of DM—she was a member of our firm all along.

Awkward? Yeah, with a capital A.

“Stanley Timmons,” he said, gesturing to me “Meet Ivy Newman. I’ve given her the purse strings for the Mastercraft project, so try not to be too much of a dick around her, okay?”

I smiled, and I think I even laughed a little bit. She’d already seen my dick, I remembered thinking.

“Ivy,” I said, thrusting my hand out. “Funny, you don’t look like a Newman.”

“Nice to see you again, Stan,” she said, cocking an eyebrow.

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