The Sexpert

“But you… You’re in a towel. Here. Lemme—”

“No, no, it’s fine,” she says, clutching the towel around her and grabbing up the things of hers that are around the apartment. She heads out of the bedroom. I follow.

“Hey, listen,” I say. “I don’t know—” But that’s all I get out before she has her hand on the door. “Where are you going?”

“I need to get someone to let me into my place. I have to get back to work. I have to continue pulling material to help your friend Pierce ward off the threat from this Sexpert person.” She really leans into Sexpert.

“Oh, shit, yeah,” I say. “That’s so…”

“That’s so what?” she asks, after I trail off.

“Nothing. It’s just… funny. Because…”

“Because what?”

I take a long, long beat. We just stare at each other.

“Nothing,” I finally say.

“OK. Well, um, thanks for the… sexy… time… stuff.” She reaches out to shake my hand.

“Uh.” I raise my hands awkwardly. “OK.” I reach to shake as well, but she withdraws her hand.

“I… Ugh… Just… UGH!” she exclaims, and then she swings the door open, walks out, looks back, says, “Wha—?” and then she kind of knocks her fists against her forehead and she leaves.

After she’s gone, I turn to face the windows and see that the rain has stopped. The hazy, post rain sun is glinting off the mountain in the distance. And arcing the sky over the peak of Pike… A rainbow. It’s incredible. Roy G. Biv. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, tracing the sky.

And in a weird, optical illusion, it looks like it ends right at the spot where Eden and I were just a bit ago. And that’s when I also see that she left her underwear. Her discarded panties are still on the terrace, drying in the afternoon sun.

And I’ll be damned if it doesn’t look like that’s the exact spot where my rainbow ends.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN – EDEN

So.

Yeah.

That day was kinda fucked up.

I ducked into the stairs, dried myself off with the towel, then forced my soaking wet clothes back on my body, realizing—too late—that I left my underwear behind in Andrew’s penthouse like a token of my appreciation.

Yup. I’m classy like that.

Then I went back down to the office, found Cheryl, who was ranting to her co-worker about people throwing clothes off the balcony and they were gonna need to send out a memo on that, to ask for my key to be remade.

And then I went home, changed, went back to work where I promptly bumped into Myrtle—who somehow knew I’d just had sex—and…

Yeah.

“I haven’t seen him again.”

“Holy shit,” Zoey says.

I’m at her place. She lives in a one-bedroom apartment in the proper part of the Tech Center, just a bit north of me. Before she got pregnant she worked here in the TDH in the tech support department for Computer Solutions.

But daycare is so expensive for a newborn. There was no way she could afford to work after Stevie was born. And her baby daddy… well, she never told him she was pregnant because it was just a one-time thing. That’s why we started the Sexpert and she decided to make a go of her own web design business.

She had originally planned to go back to work once Stevie turned one—which is coming up quick—and last month that was still the plan since her business is still struggling and the whole Sexpert thing wasn’t panning out the way we’d hoped.

But now… well, everything has changed. We are actually making money off our crazy sexy plan.

She called me the day after all that nooner stuff went down with Andrew to discuss our future, so here I am.

Except she’s way more interested in my nooner than she is our future.

“That’s like… something out of a half-baked rom-com movie!” Zoey continues. Her eyes are bright with dreamy happiness. Then her smile drops. “Wait, didn’t you say Andrew was—”

“Yes,” I finish for her. “He invented Voice Lift and he’s Pierce’s BFF, so now he’s trying to figure out who I am. And he’s gonna, Zoey. He will.”

“So you’re for sure not going to see him again?”

“Nope,” I say. With as much conviction as I can muster up. Because God, he’s all I can think about since we hooked up. That afternoon was like something out of a movie. So ridiculous and hot, and fun, and… not real, I add silently. To force myself to believe it was just one of those meaningless sexy encounters.

“Did he call you?”

“Yes. And I don’t even know how he got my number.” I secretly think it was Myrtle, but I have no proof. “But I hung up and blocked him immediately. As soon as I heard his voice,” I say quickly. “Don’t worry, there’s no chance of him getting through now.”

“But he works in your building,” she says.