A stool opens up in front of where Georgina is currently pouring Josh’s Scotch and I quickly snag it. “Ah, you googled me.”
“I did. No shame in that. While I was sitting in the lecture hall, waiting for the start of the program. I’d heard your name for the first time while walking to the event, so I figured it would heighten my experience if I knew a little something about you in advance. I also devoured every photo of you I could find.”
I chuckle. “Did you google all the panelists to ‘heighten your experience,’ or just me?”
“Just you. I’d heard you’re smoking hot, and I wanted to see for myself.”
“And?”
She slides Josh’s Scotch toward me. “And you didn’t disappoint.”
I take a sip of my beer to hide my wide smile. This girl could teach a master class in sexy flirting. “After all the photos you ‘devoured,’ the real-life version of me didn’t disappoint?”
“The real-life version of you made my ovaries vibrate.”
Holy fuck. I can’t believe it, but I feel myself blushing. When was the last time that happened to me? “If I haven’t made it clear enough, I find you smoking hot, too. Seriously, you’re absolutely stunning, Georgina.”
She bats her eyelashes. “Thank you.”
“If I’d seen you while waiting for the panel to start, and somehow knew your name, I would have sat there googling the shit out of you, too, including devouring every photo of you in existence online.”
“Sorry to say, you would have been disappointed. I’m boring online. Not a single scandalous photo out there.”
“No? Come on. There’s got to be something scandalous out there. Maybe some naughty photos with a male stripper at a drunken twenty-first birthday party?”
She grabs a shaker for Henn’s martini. “Nope. Your online presence is way more scandalous and naughty than mine.”
“Uh oh. What photos of me did you see?” I gasp in mock horror. “You saw my crown jewels, didn’t you?”
She freezes mid-shake on the shaker. “You’re telling me there’s a photo of your crown jewels out there, and I missed it? Shit on a shingle! I’m embarrassed to call myself an aspiring investigative journalist.”
I chuckle. “No, no. I have no idea if anything like that exists. I’m just saying it could. I’ve jumped fully naked off more than a couple yachts and diving cliffs in my day. Gone surfing and kayaking and waterskiing buck naked while shitfaced. I even went snowboarding naked down a private bunny slope once, after losing a bet at a party. Almost froze my ass, dick, and nuts clean off.”
She giggles.
“It wasn’t a laughing matter at the time. Unfortunately, the shrinkage factor was off the charts.”
She laughs even harder.
“After all the crazy stuff I’ve done,” I say, “God only knows what photos of me could be out there. I haven’t googled myself in a long time to find out, so I really don’t know.”
She slides Henn’s martini onto the bar. “Why haven’t you googled yourself in a while? Shouldn’t a guy like you keep up with what the world is saying about you?”
I take a long swig of my beer. “I used to keep up with that stuff, back when I was first coming up. I considered myself a student of the fame industrial complex. The cult of celebrity. I was ahead of my time, well aware the secret to my success was positioning myself as an ‘influencer.’ But once I got to the top of the heap, I realized keeping up to date on what people think of me—or, rather, of the online avatar they think is me—is a colossal waste of time. I’m not real to them, so who gives a shit what they think?”
She bends over to grab something behind the bar, and, as she does, I peek at her outrageous cleavage. Goddamn, I can’t wait to suck those incredible tits. That’s the first thing I’m gonna do when I get her to my house: peel off that shirt and absolutely devour those—
Oh. She’s straightened up again and is staring at me—fully aware I just got hopelessly lost in fantasies about her tits for a minute there.
“I looked at your Instagram,” she says, running a rag across the bar. “Looks like your avatar is having a pretty exciting life.”
“He is.”
“Sadly, though, I saw no evidence he’s gone naked-snowboarding recently.”
I finish off my beer and shrug. “Partying is an important part of my job.”
“Poor, poor Reed has to work so damned hard.”
I laugh. “I’m not complaining. I have fun. But make no mistake about it: I really do work hard. Very hard. You might have read on my Wikipedia page, I’ve got a few businesses to run?”
“Honestly, I was too focused on drooling over photos of you in your swim trunks to read too much about what you do for a living. And it’s a good thing I didn’t waste my time reading about all that stuff, anyway, seeing as how you’re only planning to ‘seduce’ me. Who gives a crap what either of us does, or likes, or dreams about, or feels passionately about, when the only endgame is you getting me into your bed, right?” With that, she slides a refilled beer glass in front of me, even though I didn’t order it. “A gift from me, Mr. Rivers. Because I can only imagine how thirsty seduction makes a guy. Especially when he’s trying to seduce a young, stupid thing like me who’s running around in her mommy’s heels, play-acting confidence.” With that, she turns on her heel and strides to the other end of the bar to tend to another customer.