Page 59 of Ellie Hayes and the Himbos
“Med school.”
“Med—” I goggle at him. “Medschool?”
He nods, lazily confident as ever, butmed school? Forhim? I’m really trying not to make assumptions, but…Doctor Tongue Zap?
Grant laughs. “Yo, Alistair was anerdback in the day.”
“I’m, like, real fuckin’ smart. A lot of people don’t know that, because I’m also hot, but yeah. You know how people know you’re smart, Ellie? Even though you’re hot? It’s like, she’s a smokeshow,andI bet she could recommend a good book? But with me, people see that I’m hot, and the most they can hope for is a rec for a good body spray.”
“And what self-tanner to avoid if they’d rather not look like a sparkle vampire?” Heather offers.
He brays out a laugh. “Right? That shit took forever to come off.” He shakes his head, examining his palms as if for lingering shimmer. “But, for sure. I’ve been accepted into a few programs—”
“Aren’t you only twenty-one?” Mark asks.
“Yeah. I came into UT with, like, half my undergraduate degree in the bag. But I didn’t want to be buried under a mountain of student debt. And there’s scholarships and stuff, but I’m cool taking my time right now. I’ll only be this”—he gestures toward himself with both hands; as always, we have no choice but to take him in—“for so long, you know?”
Heather rolls her eyes. “I think it’s pretty safe to say that barring disfigurement, you’ll just transition to a silver fox and end up representing different things.”
“Prolly. But I might start looking into those scholarships again, see what I need to do if I want to enroll in the next year or whatever.”
His eyes flit toward me, and for the first time, I see somethingother than vacant self-possession; the man is capable of doubt. “Do you, um, think that’s something you could help me with? Because there’ll be essays, and personal statements ’n’ shit, and I kind of write how I talk. I used to be better,” he says, pushing himself higher in the chair, though he’s still half reclining. “Like, talk better, but I think I’m out of practice. I’ve had my brain off for awhile.”
“Absolutely,” I say, happy for the chance to make up the time I’ve been underestimating him… even if it had been based on every interaction I’ve had with him up until—and kind of including—now. “And if you want to prime your brain a bit, I have it on good authority that I’m the right person to ask for a book recommendation.”
He frowns, then the lightbulb clicks on. Good Lord, he really has turned off his brain, hasn’t he? “Nice callback.”
“Alistair…” I shake my head, but I can’t help but smile. “You are a mystery. Wrapped in an enigma. And, generally, very little else.”
“And sometimes a plant!” He chuckles to himself for a moment, then cocks his head, brow furrowed. “It’s probably gonna take a while to get my brain back in gear, yeah?”
“I’ll start a reading list.”
22
IAN STANDS IN THE DOORWAYof the storage room Friday, eyeing me. “That’s it, by the way. That’syourI’m-going-to-fuck-with-you face.’ You have one now.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, but I can’t get the words out without laughing.
He grunts, smirking, and joins me at the table I use for folding laundry. “Should I assume it’s related to why Helen couldn’t look at me on her way out just now, and why Babs wasvery muchlooking at me?”
“May I remind you that you gave me total access to everything in the bins for pro shop decor,” I say. I spent the past hour going through the bins of Ian’s accolades for inspiration. He’s given me the go-ahead to take on that entire section of the lobby, and the Coffee Coup has agreed on a Saturday early next month to tackle everything he’s approved on the wish list, with a grand reveal that evening. I’d asked Helen and Babs back here to see if they’d be interested in taking on one particular element of my vision. I’ve ceded total control to them, which I think shows tremendous personal growth on my part.
Ian grins, and there’s a feral edge to it that makes my toes curl. “You found the nudes.”
“Babs did. She found the file while we were talking. You should have warned me.”
His smile dares me to ask why he hadn’t. “And ruin the surprise? Where’s the fun in that?”
I told up an outtake from the series. The photo I have dubbedThe Roarremains the indisputable winner of the day, and while there was no shortage of quality runners-up, the most delightful discovery had been among the candid shots. “Mr. Hammond, might one call this acock sock?”
He laughs. “If only they’d printed it in color. It was highlighter pink.”
“Oh, Babs would have loved that,” I say. He’d been captured in conversation with another man, who’s holding some kind of reflective screen. The resulting light has washed out the definition in Ian’s abdomen, but the contrasting darkness of his chest hair is stark, as is the apparatus over his penis.
The length being suggested by the sock varied from shot to shot, leaving the ladies and me no choice but to speculate how accurately it portrayed the resting state of Ian’s unit. There’s no question that the man is, as Babs put it, “proportional,” though there were some shots where the sock was stretched to an inhuman—but entertaining—size.
“I suspect she loved it anyway,” he says, and moves on to the other photos from the shoot. He pushes through the stack, laughing when he gets to a shot of himself in a squat, the sock obscene. “I put an empty Dr Pepper can in it at one point. Which ended up being pretty humbling once I took it out. It was a little roomy inthere after that.” I laugh, and he reaches for another stack of photos. “Did you get anything done back here, or did the cock sock derail you?”
