Her Halloween Treat (Men at Work 1)

“You had mind-blowing sex with a hot handyman with a beard and you said, ‘Too bad it didn’t work’ after? Do you know there are over one million words in the English language? There are more words in English than there are in French and German combined. And any of those one million words would have been better than those words. You could have said, ‘I like bacon-powered ghost boat parades,’ and it would have been a better sentence than that sentence you laid at the feet of that beautiful man and his majestic cock.”

“I didn’t say it was majestic. It’s a dick, not a bald eagle in flight. What I said was that his cock is ‘magnificent.’ And...can I ask something? Did ‘bacon-powered ghost boat parades’ really come off the top of your head? Or are you on some sort of drug I need to know about?”

“Joey. This isn’t about the ghost boat parades. This is about you and Chris and his magical cock.”

&n

bsp; “Magnificent. Not magical. It didn’t do any tricks. He didn’t pull a rabbit out of it.”

“He gave you not one but two screaming orgasms in the span of one hour. Sounds like magic to me.”

“I’m really not a screamer. It was more like two ‘incredibly loud moaning orgasms.’ And it was closer to forty-five minutes.”

“Can I have him if you don’t want him? I’ll take a pretty Portland boy with a beard.”

“No, you can’t have him. He’s in Oregon. You are not.”

“Fuck LA for a man who said he’d eat your pussy for the next six months. I’ll move to Oregon for that. I’m packing my bags right now.”

“No, you aren’t.”

“What if I was?” Kira asked, her voice finally calm again. “What if I did come to Oregon to hang out with you until the wedding? Hmm? What if I did meet this Chris Handyman of yours and he and I hit it off? Would you mind that? Would you mind if he and I got in his big diesel pickup truck and drove off into the sunset?”

“It’s Oregon in October. You won’t see the sunset. You’ll see the fog set. Although that is really pretty.”

“You’re not answering my question. Would you mind if I came to Lost Lake and went out on a nice dinner date with your handyman and took him back to my cabin and found out just how handy he is? Answer me.”

Joey didn’t want to answer that question. She didn’t want to talk about Chris anymore. Not when she lay in the bed they’d had sex in, on the sheets that still bore the slight warm and spicy scent of his skin, with the wineglass they’d shared still sitting on the nightstand.

“No. I would not like that. But I also wouldn’t stop you. He’s single. You’re single.”

“He shouldn’t be single, not if he’s that good in bed.”

“He’s that good in bed. And it didn’t work. As soon as he left to go to the bathroom after... I just couldn’t keep it together. All I could think about was how two years of my life were officially over. I didn’t get dumped because he found someone better or because he got a job somewhere else or something. The last two years of my life have been a lie. It might as well have not even happened. It’s all a waste. Two years, down the toilet.”

“Look, I know breakups are hard. And they’re ten times harder when somebody lies or cheats. I know. I’ve been there. But Ben was not your whole life. You have a job you love that you kick ass at. I was there before you were. I know how much we were making. And I know how much more we made after a year with you in charge of marketing. You’re a marketing genius and we all know it. Whether you stay or not, you have two years of work experience, two years of contacts, two years of successes, to put on your résumé. You have friends—me, for example—and what more do you need than me? And you live in fucking Honolulu, Hawaii, so close to the beach you can see actual whales from your apartment window. Can you really tell me that’s all down the toilet? Really? Go look. Go look in the toilet and tell me if you see any whales in it.”

“Kira...”

“Go. Look. For. Whales. In. Your. Toilet. Right. Now.”

Joey laughed. It was the first big good laugh she’d had all day. She needed that.

“I don’t have to look. I can tell you there are no whales in my toilet.”

“See? It wasn’t all a waste, then. And you can stop feeling sorry for yourself any minute now. Ben lied to you. He cheated. That makes him a cheating liar and cheating liars are not worth all the power you’re giving him. He doesn’t deserve the right to taint the past two years of your life when you and I both know that you had a pretty damn good two years.”

“I did. Yes. I absolutely had a good two years.”

“Good. Thank you. I needed to hear that. If you flush the past two years down the toilet, you flush me, too. And I don’t want to be flushed.”

“I won’t flush you.”

“I can’t tell you how relieved I am to hear that. Now, we need to figure out what to do about your handyman.”

“He’s not my handyman. He’s my brother’s handyman. And he’s probably not Dillon’s handyman anymore because everything on the cabin is done. He’s doing other jobs this week.”

“Anywhere close by?”