I always thought the feeling of being hit by lightning while a choir of angels sings, would happen when I met my one true love, but right now I’m having a stronger sense of destiny looking though the professor’s feed than I’ve had with any boyfriend. I may have searched high and low, but perhaps I was looking in all the wrong places. The land of Nowhere actually exists, and there’s a single resident who’s crazy-popular enough to become an instant bestseller.
Hot diggity. I may win this thing yet.
_______________
I lean forward as I watch Joanna’s face. She’s gripping her phone tightly, mouth open as she scans the screen.
God, please let her confirm my opinion, otherwise I’m just a crazy person who’s grasping at straws out of desperation.
She takes her time, and I don’t know if she’s keeping her face passive to drive me insane, or if she genuinely has no reaction to what she’d reading. If it’s the second, I’m sunk. If it’s the first, I’m going to beat her viciously with my Chris Hemsworth body pillow.
I hear the door to the apartment open and close, followed by the soft murmuring of my sister and her boyfriend arriving home. Normally, I’d go out and greet them, but right now I have more important things to do. Like holding myself back from shaking Joanna until she tells me what the heckity-heck she’s thinking.
Just when I’m starting to believe the power of Professor Feelgood is all in my head, I see the exact reaction I’d hoped for: Joanna’s face goes a deep red, and then there are random shallow exhales every time she clicks on a new post.
Yessssssss!
This is major. Despite working together for two years, I’ve never seen Joanna lose her cool. But in this moment, her perfect blonde curls and flawless makeup can’t hide how gobsmacked she is.
“Oh, my God,” she says, her gaze flicking to me and then away.
“Right?”
Her chest rises and falls rapidly, and her fingers are almost shaking. “Oh … my God.”
“I know.”
“Oh, my GOD.”
She starts fanning herself with her hand, and I know exactly how fast and hot her blood is pounding. How her skin is screaming from too much sensation.
I get up the courage to ask her my most burning question. “Tell me you’re feeling what I’m feeling.”
She nods. “I absolutely am.” When she glances up at me, her mouth is agape. “Holy hotness, Asha.”
I lean back against my headboard, relief tempering my erratic heartbeat. “Just to be clear––you’re turned on, right?”
She goes back to her screen. “Sooooooo turned on.”
My sister Eden pokes her head around the edge of the doorway to my bedroom and eyes us suspiciously. I’m not sure what she expected to find, but I’m certain it wasn’t me and Joanna sitting on my bed, caressing our phones.
“What the hell, you two?” she asks, eyes narrowed. “Are you watching porn together?”
I smile and beckon her over. “In a way.”
I hand her my phone and watch her face to gauge her reaction. As she thumb scrolls through his timeline, I know that Eden will be the real test here. Her innate cynicism and lack of patience means she’s immune to most forms of emotional manipulation. If she digs the Professor, then I’m home free.
I hold my breath in tense anticipation. Roughly thirty seconds later, I get my answer.
She frowns, her mouth opens, and then the apples of her cheeks brighten with color.
We’ve both inherited our late mother’s peaches-and-cream coloring, and even though Eden’s auburn locks are curly, and I work hard to keep mine straight, there’s no mistaking how vibrantly our cheeks light up when we’re embarrassed. Or aroused.
“Oh, my God,” she says.
Joanna nods and points. “There it is.”
‘Oh … my God,” Eden says again, eyes working overtime as her voice becomes breathier every second.
I feel myself beaming in vindication. “It’s amazing, right?”
“Oh, my GOD!”
She jumps a little when her large, handsome boyfriend appears in the doorway.
“Okay,” Max says, narrowing his green eyes at Eden. “I’m usually the one who makes you sound like that. What the hell is going on in here?”
Joanna leans over and whispers, “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to seeing Mister Romance in your apartment. He’s, like, a unicorn among men. So freaking gorgeous, inside and out.”
I nod. “I know, right?”
Eden beckons him over, and when he’s next to her, she hands over my phone to show him what we’re looking at.
“It’s the Instagram feed of a guy calling himself Professor Feelgood,” she explains.
Max frowns as he scrolls through. “Whoa. Three million followers. How the hell is some guy I’ve never heard of so popular?”
Still running on excess adrenaline, I type the Professor’s name into my spreadsheet and highlight it in the brightest, most neon green I can find.
“Believe it or not, Max, but there are heaps of people who are massively Insta-famous but otherwise anonymous. Fashion bloggers, makeup artists, hot doctors and lawyers. But this guy? He’s got something … indefinable. It’s fascinating.”
As Max continues to scroll, Eden grips his bicep, and I don’t miss the way she strokes it lovingly.
“What do you think?” she asks.
Max shrugs. “Not really sure what I’m looking at. Arty photographs, lots of pics of international landmarks. Some angsty poetry.”
“It’s a journey of discovery,” Eden says, pointing to the screen. “If you start at the beginning, you’ll see he’s trying to find himself by traveling around the world. Then he meets someone he thinks is his soul mate, they have a passionate relationship, and he loses her. Now he’s trying to find ways of coping without her.”
Max nods. “Okay.” He looks between me, Eden, and Joanna. “Wait … you all find this sexy?”
We answer almost in unison. “Oh, my God, yes!”
“He should have called himself Professor Feelgood in my pants,” Joanna says, fanning herself again.
“Right?!” I say, nodding vigorously.
Eden laughs. “Absolutely.”
Max raises his eyebrows and turns to his girlfriend. “Is that right?”
Her smile falls, and she clears her throat before stretching up and kissing him gently. “Don’t get me wrong, no one will ever be as sexy as you, but … I can see the appeal. Good-looking guy, broken-hearted and pining for the woman of his dreams? That’s pretty attractive.”
Max hands the phone back to me. “How do you know he’s good looking? There are no pictures of his face.”
“Oh, he’s good looking,” Joanna says, still staring at her screen. “Just from the few flashes of that scruff-lined jaw, you can tell he’s a freaking dreamboat.”
“But what he looks like isn’t the point,” I say, glancing up from my laptop. “It’s his words that affect us, so much more than his body or face. They’re just so … soulful. Overflowing with passion.”
Joanna hands Max her phone. “Look, here’s a prime example. Read this out loud.”
Max looks at us all dubiously before holding up the phone and reciting what’s on the screen.
If people were colors, then she’d be bright yellow, like sunshine.
I’d be charcoal gray, like the sky before a storm.
But whenever I was with her, it was like I was standing in full sun,
bright and happy.
I was yellow, too.
I liked being yellow.
I tried to stay that way when she left. To keep her light inside of me.
But I’ve always been made of storm clouds, and eventually, she faded
and the gray descended again.
Sometimes, I hold my hand up to the sun,
and the warmth always reminds me of how it used to feel
when I held her fingers between mine.
When he finishes, Joanna and I
let out deep sighs.
Eden has a more … physical reaction. She looks at Max like she’s three seconds away from tearing his shirt in half and licking his chest.
Max doesn’t miss her wild expression. “You know, if you’re into this sort of thing, I have a ton of angsty poetry at my loft that I wrote a few years ago back.”
Eden moves closer and touches his abdomen. “Is that right?”
When Max nods, she puts her arms around his neck and pulls him down so they’re face to face. “Then it looks like you’ll be giving me a private reading later tonight.”
Max kisses her, and Joanna and I sigh again. It’s both wonderful and terrible being around people so in love. On the one hand, I’m over-the-moon happy that my sister has finally found someone worthy of her. On the other, they make love seem so easy and natural, I wonder if there’s something wrong with me for taking so long to find it.
After a few seconds of sucking on each other’s lips, Max pulls back, looking self-conscious as he shoves his hands in his pockets.
Oh, please. As if I’m not used to his body’s reaction to kissing my sister by now.
“Okay,” he says, giving Eden a final peck on the lips. “I gotta go supervise some new staff members on their dates tonight. See you at my place later?”
Eden nods. “Definitely.”
“Aw, Max,” I say. “You’re not staying for dinner? But I’ve already put in our pizza order. Extra pineapple, just for you.”
Max narrows his eyes. “You’re a monster, Asha. You know that, right?”
His loathing of fruit on pizzas is almost as passionate as his love for my sister, and that’s saying something.
Joanna laughs as Eden drags Max from the room. “Come on, big guy. We’re not getting into the pizza debate again. You get way too intense about the whole thing.”
“I’m not intense,” Max says, his voice fading as Eden pushes him toward the front door. “There’s a right and wrong way to eat pizza, and you and your sister do it wrong. End of story.”
As I continue typing up some preliminary notes expanding my book idea, I hear the apartment door open, and then some soft moaning and whispering. I have no doubt Max and Eden are saying their goodbyes by sucking face.
After a couple of minutes, I hear the front door close, and Eden comes back in and drops into the chair beside my bed with a deep sigh.
“Okay,” she says, pushing her hair away from her face. “Now that I’m free from a giant, man-shaped distraction, give me all the deets on this professor guy. Can I assume from you almost bouncing in your seat that you’re thinking of him for your bestseller project?”
“Maybe,” I say, trying to play it cool. “Do you think it’s totally crazy to try to publish this guy?”
Beside me, Joanna makes an excited noise as Eden’s eyes light up. “Not so much crazy as brilliant. His whole timeline reads like a like a sexy guy version of Eat, Pray, Love. If you can work with him to conjure up some kickass narrative, you could easily get a book out of it.”
Joanna nods enthusiastically. “Yesssss.”
“That’s what I’m thinking,” I say, allowing myself to get more excited. “And with how many followers he has, it’s sure to be a hit, right?”
Joanna sits up straighter. “Absolutely! Even if only one percent of his followers buy the book, he’d still storm onto the New York Times bestsellers list.” She waves her hands in excitement. “I’ll do up a spreadsheet for projected sales. I’ll even color code it so a blind man could see how amazing this could be.”
I smile. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
Despite Joanna’s obsession with all things fashion and pop culture, I’ve learned she’s an absolute demon with numbers. I guess that’s what comes from managing her own international wealth portfolio since she was eighteen. I suspect she has no financial reason to even work at Whiplash, but she does have a genuine love of books.
“Let’s do this,” I say, typing furiously. “If I’m going to win this proposal, I need to make the good professor seem like the goose who lays the golden eggs. Or more accurately, the man who writes the golden books. I don’t know that even with this guy’s following I’ll be able to compete with a new Rageheart book, but at least now I’ll go down swinging.”
“Shouldn’t you contact him first?” Eden says. “You know, in case he’s some sort of weirdo who doesn’t want to be a bestselling author?”
“Huh. You’re right.”
That puts the brakes on my momentum.
Someone knock on the front door.
“That’ll be our pizza.” Eden jumps up and leaves the room. After some murmuring with the delivery guy, I hear her laugh.
When she comes back, she’s smiling. “It seems Max accosted the pizza guy in the lobby.” She holds out the pizza box, and I see that Max has written in large, heavy letters, “THIS PIZZA IS AN ABOMINATION! CHANGE YOUR MONSTROUS WAYS BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!”
All three of us laugh. Then, the smell of delicious melted cheese reaches me, and my stomach growls so loudly, the other two look at me in surprise.
“I skipped lunch,” I say with a shrug.
“Okay,” Joanna says as she stands and moves over to Eden. “You message the professor, and we’ll get cocktails organized.”
As they leave, I call after them, “Whatever you’re drinking, I’ll take a double.”
When they’re gone, I sit and stare at my phone for a few minutes and just breathe. I don’t know why, but I’m stupidly nervous about messaging the professor. I think part of it is because I’m scared he’ll say no to the project, and another part is terrified he’ll say yes. This could be huge for me, or it could get me laughed out of an industry I love.
My finger hovers over the screen as I try to think of how to word my request.
“Hi, complete stranger! Please let me plunder your talent-mine of words and picture porn, so I can get a promotion and scream, ‘In your face!’ to Devin Boob-Ogler Shields.”
Hmmm. Not bad. May need some refining.
Something else I need to consider is that someone with that many followers probably gets a crapload of crazies invading his inbox every day, and I don’t want him to think I’m one of them.
I lean over and pick out my letters carefully with my forefinger. I start the message several times before deleting and doing it over. I don’t think of myself as shy, but there’s something about how honest and passionate the professor is that makes me desperate to impress him.
Ugh. This is taking forever.
I blow out a breath and decide to just go with the facts.
I include my phone number just in case he’d like to call instead of message, and I don’t miss the way my whole hand shakes as I press send.
I slump back and close my eyes. God, that was more stressful than my last pap smear.
Please let him say yes, please let him say yes.
If I miss out on this promotion I’ll not only be disappointed, Devin will technically become my superior, and that’s not cool in any universe. But beyond that, I think that the professor has a real, authentic voice and his potential book might actually inspire people. That would be even more satisfying.
“Come on, Ash!” Eden calls from the kitchen. “The pizza is getting cold. And your margarita is ready. I put it in our largest vase. Hope that’s okay.”
I launch off the bed and go join them. If I must be in hell while waiting for the professor to reply, I might as well get buzzed while I?
??m there.
FOUR
____________________
Pizza and Passion
THIRTY MINUTES LATER, OUR coffee table is a mess of plates, bits of half-eaten pizza, napkins, and smears of grease. Joanna and I are at opposite ends of the couch, each clutching huge margarita-filled tumblers that we sip through super-classy bendy straws. We’re onto our second refill, and already most of the bottle of Patron that Joanna was kind enough to donate is gone. Did I mention that my sister makes the strongest cocktails in the world?
Having fulfilled her bartending duties, Eden is slouched in our giant easy chair, her bare feet on the coffee table as she slowly sips her drink and rubs her belly.
“My man has a lot of amazing qualities,” she says. “But his pizza preferences are narrow-minded and wrong.” She closes her eyes and leans her head back. “Pineapple and pepperoni is the best. I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise.”
“Yeah!” I say, throwing up my hands. “Screw the patriarchal pizza system!”
Joanna bursts out laughing. Over the course of our friendship, I’ve come to recognize that we become equal parts judgey and giggly when we drink.
“Now, listen,” Joanna says, and I can see that it’s time for a judgey rant. “You know I love men … but let’s talk about unsolicited dick pics. I mean, seriously.”
I screw up my face. Having been dick-picced on more than one occasion, I know how weird and uncomfortable it is. “Why do men do that? Especially with girls they hardly know. Do they honestly believe it turns us on?”
Joanna nods. “I once had a prominent European royal send me a penis pic. It wasn’t the first time a foreign security force detained me so they could delete images off my phone, but it was certainly the most awkward. Those security agents did not want to see their boss’s peen.”
“Oh, God,” Eden laughs as she grabs the dirty plates and takes them into the kitchen. “You just gave me a mental image of Derek sending me a picture of his junk. I bet it’s all red and angry, just like him most days.”
Derek is Eden’s hardass boss and the two of them have one of the most confrontational professional relationships I’ve ever seen. At the mention of his name, I take a long sip of alcohol. Personally, I’ve always found Derek to be quite handsome.