The Sexpert

It’s the sculpture from the gallery last week. The people entwined and most definitely having sex.

“Who’s it from?” she asks.

“Andrew,” I say dreamily. “Andrew Hawthorne. We’re dating.”

“Wow,” she says again. “Score, Eden. He must really like you. Because my friend works at that gallery and I know how much the pieces start at.”

“How much?” I ask. “No, don’t tell me. It doesn’t matter.”

And it really doesn’t. Because my world has been righted again. OK. Yeah. He was totally weird over the weekend. But this is Monday now. And he sent me a gift. He probably had some emergency and had to… I dunno, leave town or something. Or he was on a deadline. Something very important like that because he’s a very important guy.

“Attention! Attention!”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. Pierce is back.

“The hours are ticking down, Sexpert. It’s lunch time, sweets. And your offer is going to expire in—what?” he says to someone. “I’m not being aggressive!” Andrew is up there still, giving him, what? Suggestions on how to handle this? Why is he up there and not down here asking if I like his gift? “You have five hours, Sexpert. After that, we’re calling in the lawyers.”

The speakers go dead again and I just look at Janet.

“He’s fucking lost his mind,” Janet says, bobbing back down into her chair and disappearing.

“Right?” I try to laugh it off. But… lawyers. It scares the fuck out of me. Because Zoey and I are both broke. And we won’t have any money from this Sexpert stuff for months. How will we fight back if he sues us?

We won’t be able to. We’ll just have to give in, I guess. Hand over our idea and let him have it. And I’ll probably get fired. No. I will definitely get fired. And that totally sucks. Because we didn’t steal anything. It’s just a weird misunderstanding. It’s not even anyone’s fault. Just… a weird misunderstanding.

I grab my phone to call Zoey and tell her what’s going on, but it rings in my hand.

And it’s Zoey. “Holy shit,” I say, answering. “I was just calling you.”

“Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my, God!”

“What?”

“We got a corporate sponsor!”

“What?” But she’s talking so fast, I can’t even understand her. “Zoey, slow down. What’s going on?”

“I got an email a couple hours ago from Pink Lady Media—“

“Yeah?”

“And they want us to work for them! This is huge, Eden! They said we could work from home, just keep doing what we’re doing and… and… they love us! We even get benefits!”

“How’d they find us! Like… hello? We’re anonymous!”

“Oh, it came into the Sexpert email. And I used a proxy to email them back. Then I went out and spent my diaper money on a burner phone so I could have a conference call with them. And oh, my God! We did it! Oh, shit! She’s calling me back on the other phone. Later.”

“Wow,” I say, breathing out. “Now what do I do?”

“Hey, cupcake.”

I look up and see Andrew staring down at me. “What was all that about?”

CHAPTER THIRTY – ANDREW

“What do you want?” She’s pretty cold. I can’t necessarily blame her. For being cold that is. I get it. I bailed on her and then disappeared for thirty-six hours. And she doesn’t know why.

Although, I must say, I’m having less of an easy-breezy time getting OK with the fact that after repeated attempts to get her to just be honest with me, she made the choice to continue to lie. So, in that regard, her righteous indignation sits a little less well.

I suppose I also made the choice to be lied to and go along for the ride, so there is an argument that I’m complicit in my own disappointment. But fuck it. I’m trying to get everyone out of this situation clean right now, so I’m gonna go ahead and cut myself some slack.

“What’s wrong?” I ask her, playing naïve.

“You ghosted on me out the blue for no reason.”

“Yeah? Was it more or less ghostly than the way you ghosted on me when you did?”

“Don’t—That’s—You—”

“Hey, I’m sorry. OK? I am. I had… I had an emergency and it couldn’t be helped and, honestly, it’s still kind of fucked up and I’m dealing with it. But you know what? You’re right. It was a bad move to just ditch out, and I’m sorry.” All of that is true.

“Well,” she says, meekly, pushing at her glasses in the most Edenly way possible, “OK. But just… It made me… sad.”

There’s the pout. That pout could cause a man to do things he wouldn’t normally do. Forget things he wouldn’t normally forget. And deny that the sky is blue, water is wet, and she’s the goddamn Sexpert.

“Well, I am sorry. I did not want to make you sad.” I bend down and force her to look up at me. She catches my eye and she shrugs.