“And here we are now, indeed.”
“And you, McKenna Bell?”
I tell him my story, growing up in Sherman Oaks, college at UCLA, a few years at Violet Summers, the fashion brand, then launching The Fashion Hound with Todd’s help, then the sale. “So there you go. You know my story. What’s yours?”
“I just told you my story,” he reminds me playfully. Then I feel him tapping my foot once, twice under the table. Is he playing footsie? Is this how flirting works?
My face turns red. I don’t know what to say. I don’t even know anymore what I meant when I said what’s your story. How is it I can be so good at suggesting how to assemble outfits, but so bad at knowing how to interact with a handsome man?
“You mean am I involved with anyone?” he asks.
Fire engine red now. I am totally, one hundred percent fire engine red. Was I that obvious?
“Sure,” I manage to say, but the word comes out all choppy, as if it has ten syllables.
He shakes his head. “No.”
I fight the urge to grin broadly like the Cheshire Cat.
“But you, you’ve got men all over,” Chris adds.
Yes, but you’re the one I really want to date. If only you were twenty-three….Why did I have to take that oath with my girlfriends? You can’t break a girlfriend oath. That’s like fifty years of bad luck if you do. Not to mention it’s against the code. I can’t go against the girl code, no matter how much I want to forget Trophy Husbands right now, and focus only on how the heck I can date this one guy.
“I narrowed the candidates down to about twenty of your guys and then my brain just stopped. I couldn’t figure out how to weed them down to some sort of reasonable number.”
But none of those twenty are as devastatingly handsome as you.
He shakes his head, amused at my predicament, then lays his hands on the table. “Have your viewers vote on the top five.”
My eyes widen. “Chris! That is a great idea. That’s really perfect. It involves viewers more. Makes them feel more vested in the show. Gives them a voice.”
“Exactly. They feel a part of it. They are a part of it. They will have had a role, a hand, in picking your next mate. You can even have them decide who gets a second date and so on. You can shoot video of the dates and post clips and let them choose.”
“I love it! It becomes even more of an interactive show.” I point at him a few times, shaking my head appreciatively. “You rock,” I say, wishing he could be one of the twenty, one of the five. And then I could date him. And dating him wouldn’t be political, it wouldn’t be to get even, it wouldn’t be to make a point. It would be for the simplest of reasons. Because I want to.
He smiles back at me, his sea-green eyes sparkling. I think again of Hawaii, of a beach, of a secluded island cove when I look into them. For a second, I feel like I am being hypnotized. Maybe I actually am. Because I can’t seem to take my eyes off of him. I can’t seem to break the gaze, nor can he, and now he’s looking at me in this more intense way, not just the flirty way, but in a way that takes my breath away. A way that says I wasn’t wrong, I wasn’t crazy, I wasn’t delusional for thinking there were unsaid things at lunch. He looks at me as if he wants to know me, wants to see inside me, wants me to open up to him. And that’s when it occurs to me. That’s when everything comes together in one crystal-clear blaze of brilliance.
Business. I am good at business. So I keep it on the business level.
I lower my voice. “Chris, I have a fabulous business idea. I think you should be one of the initial twenty.”
He laughs, kind of surprised. “You’re not serious. Are you?”
I nod several times. “This is a business proposition pure and simple. You’re a businessman and I’m a businesswoman, right?”
“Right.”
“And you are trying to reach girl gamers for your show. You said that two days ago. Well, let’s do more than a promo. Let’s make you a candidate. You said your Wikipedia page has you at twenty-three anyway. So you could be twenty-three, you can pass for it, and obviously viewers will vote for you. They’ll pick you as one of the five to date. And then you’ll be on my show in a bigger way than just a promo. You’ll be a contender. You know as well as I do that brand integration is the way to go.”
“I love it when you talk dirty, McKenna.”
“You know it’s true,” I say emphatically. “You become part of the Trophy Husband project, then my viewers will get to know you, they’ll check out your show, they’ll check out you and bam. You are well on your path as you reach out to female gamers.”
“Okay,” he says slowly. “I like the way you’re thinking. I like everything you’re saying. And yes, I do need to get the word out about my new show. But there’s one teensy, tiny little problem.” He holds up his thumb and index finger to show a small amount of space.
“What’s that?”
He holds up his hands, as if to protect himself. “Now, this isn’t personal. This isn’t about you. But, I don’t want to be a Trophy Husband.”
I give him a look. A look that says you can’t be serious. A look that rebuilds my barriers and protects me from letting him see too far into me, into the truth of this business deal. That it’s not merely for business. But that the game might be the only way I can move closer to him without revealing all that I feel for him. In my body and in my heart. “Chris, this is a business deal. You and I are business partners. I am not asking you to move in, I am not asking you to be my man, I am not even asking you to be my boyfriend,” I say, deliberately not adding husband to the list. I make a mental note of the fact that I can’t even breathe the word husband, let alone bear to utter it.
“But I kind of thought that was what this contest was all about.”
“Yes and no. It’s about proving a point,” I say, returning to my platform, like a politician. My talking points. Because the more he questions me, the more I lose sight of my goals. The more I lose sight of the game. Because there’s no game with him whatsoever. Everything I feel for him is so scarily real, but I can’t let him know that though.
“So you’re not actually going to go through with this? The marriage thing?”
“All I want to do is prove that a woman can play a man’s game. So play with me. It makes things interesting to have you on the show.” I pause, then continue. “This is the Web. People want to laugh, they want to be entertained. They want to see people do wild things they can’t do on regular TV. They want us to be daring. They want us to do the things they can’t do.”