Page 11 of Mr. Not Nice Guy

August drags his gaze back up to mine, and his breathing has quietly picked up. I can see not only all the gears turning again, but one quick glance at his lap and the obvious bulge straining his slacks tells me I’ve got the upper hand.

At least for right now.

Pushing myself to stand up straight, I step around him and allow my hip to brush his shoulder as I walk away. And I don’t need to look back to know he’s watching me leave.

Game on, Mr.NotNice Guy.

3

August

Scarlett is putting on quite a show for me, Brennan, Luke, and Jimmy, the founder of the record label, while we do sound tests for a few of her original songs. And the outfit she chose for this casual assignment is like something out of Bettie Page’s pin-up wardrobe.

A green polka dot crop-top that puts her ample cleavage on full display per usual—Scarlett clearlylovesshowing off her extraordinary rack. Couple that with a matching green, skin-tight skirt, and shiny, red Mary Jane pumps, and the four of us are basically watching a damn peep show.

The boop-boop-be-doop wiggling she does forevery single songdoesn’t exactly help either.

But, hey! I found my fucking unicorn.

It’s just too bad this fucking unicorn has just the right kind of dirt on me to ruin the sterling reputation that I’ve staked my entire career upon. And lest I forget that my fuckingcareeris literally the only thing I’ve got going for me in life.

Thanks, Liza!

Well…to be fair, it’s not actually Liza’s fault.

Liza is simply the person upon whom I naively hung a bunch of stupid hopes and dreams of having something to live for outside of work. I’m an only child, not particularly close with my parents, and have never been very connected to anything outside of a passion for music and musicians. I never really thought about settling down or starting a family, but when I was dating Liza, she fit so well into the passion and career I’d carved out that it seemed like we could be something real and lasting. Beyond that, she’s always been a remarkable woman. Beautiful, smart, driven, funny, kind. And the fact that she was actually receptive to not only dating me, but also dating me for as long as we did, caused me to think it could be something I could want for the long haul.

But Liza never wanted that same thing withme.

Liza was hung up onConnor, her first love, who treated her like total shit when they dated before she went to college, but who she managed to work things out with years after she and I broke up.

In retrospect, it did seem fatalistic, and I can’t fault her or even have any hard feelings about it or her.

Italsoseemed fatalistic when she happened to show up in my life again after Connor’s tragic death, but then again…Brennanwas apparently far more fatalistic for her, and here we fucking are.

I amhappy for her though. It was clear from the beginning that she was just emotionally unavailable to me, she never felt for me what I felt for her, but she was and is still a wonderful woman, whom I do want all the best for. It’s not her fault that the best thing for her never was—and was never supposed to be—me.

Love is funny like that. It’s the last thing in the world that anyone can control.

Love has a mind of its own, and we’re all just along for the ride.

So, I simply got off.

I removed myself from the ride altogether, and resigned to the fact that my life is my career, and that was that, and I’m perfectly content with it.

Butnow,I’ve got this mother fucking unicorn that could potentially ruinthatfor me.

As common as it is in this industry, I refuse to be one of those sleazy managers who gets romantically involved with their artists. So, I need Scarlett to keep her fucking trap shut, because if anyone finds out that we’ve already hooked up, they’re going to have all my interaction with her under a goddamn microscope.

The very first thing I learned upon taking my job at this small, tight-knit record label is that these mother fuckersgossiplike nobody’s fucking business. Your personal business becomeseveryone’sbusiness, and no fucking thank you.

Fortunately, after a week of officially managing Scarlett, she hasn’t actually mentioned our one-night-stand, but shehasalready managed to cause a stir of the worst kind. The kind of stir that leads me to believe she’s only one tawdry remark from spilling the salacious beans about how we met.

Case in point: Her insistence upon wiggling her ass and jiggling her tits all through her sound tests this afternoon. She’s seated at a piano, drawing one finger seductively down the center of her cleavage as she croons through the climax of song number three.

Jimmy flips a switch to activate the microphone inside the sound booth where we’re all watching her through soundproof glass.

“That’s friggin’fantastic,” he gushes, causing Scarlett to flash a bright, red-lipstick grin and clasp the headphones clamped over her shiny, but totally fucking fake purple hair, which Idoactually remember liking. I likeda lotof things about her. But that was before I realized she is problematic asfuckand could cost me the career that’s the only thing I’ve got going for me. “You got a really authentic big band sound. You like the Andrews Sisters?”

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