Page 44
I slam my palm to my forehead. BETTE. Stop flirting. There’s a pause.
I say, trying to get away from whatever the hell I was doing, “Rule one. No sabotage.”
He clears his throat. “No pranks. No calls.”
I don’t know what he means by the call thing. I kick off my shoes. I love a good shoe but some days I wish I was a flip-flop girl.
“No calls between us?” I say and my voice is little lower than I’d hoped.
He comes back, purring again like a damn jungle cat, “I didn’t mean that. For the first time in our twisted relationship, I’m enjoying something about you, and it all centers on this call.”
Suddenly, I’m thinking of his date, and I hate Leslie/Lee. Chicken Paul was right, I spend so much time obsessing about his next move, and making sure I’m perfect and on point at work, in email, on Zoom calls, and the phone. Shit. We might as well date each other with the amount of time spent in each other’s business. I need to put the Hulk to rest.
“Bette?”
“Here. Sorry,” I say quickly.
“Where did you go?”
I say, “Someplace darker than expected. I’m back to me now and putting this all behind me.”
He says, “Behind you? That’s an interesting thought.”
Oh, Christ. Do I masturbate or call HR?
“Sadly, not sure you could take that. It’s a pretty powerful place to be.” Stop my insanity. I slap my hand over my mouth. I want to win this conversation and have him leave the call first. I want him to want me. That’s wrong. Nope. Stop. Maybe I’ll gain an edge if he wants me. However, I’m a little lust addled by my sworn enemy. Shit, did he just gain an edge?
He says in a low rumble that could probably remove my thong without trying, “Fuck. We have got to get off the phone.”
My voice is sweeter. “And why is that? You still in public?”
“Not for long.” He’s gruff and urgent.
“Enjoy your date,” I coo at him.
“She’ll certainly enjoy it.” And now I’m incensed. Did I wind him up to go fuck Leslie/Lee? And then he says, “But I’m pretty sure I won’t enjoy it quite as much as I did this call. Have a good night, Bette Miller. Perhaps our next call we get down to the order of the day.”
I gasp out, “No. It’s a whole new world order, now.”
“Fuck, yeah it is.”
I hang up before I say anything else with no filter.
Why am I so obsessed with the person behind this stupid deep and calming voice. It wraps around sentences that are full of snark and makes them sound sultry. One minute I’m worked up about how much I hate him, and the next I’m just worked up. I’m hot and the thought of him touching my skin or taking me from behind has me diving for my vibrator. He’s definitely not an order chicken kind of guy.
HAYDEN
My cock and I have a good relationship, built on mutual admiration, respect, and sick, dirty thoughts. We’ve always been cool. But the last twenty-four hours I’ve hate-stroked to that woman six times. It’s like I’m sixteen again. She’s Benjamin Buttoned my cock.
I didn’t sleep with Lee with the terrible name and fabulous body. Instead, I bolted back to my place to evoke my fantasies of that fucking woman mixed with the one who is always the star of my deepest sexual moments. The one who ruined me and dashed all traces of my heart. I don’t date. I hook up because there’s no way for me to connect to women deeper than that. Literally, my heart’s not in it because I gave it away ages ago. And then that fucking Bette stirred me in a way I didn’t think was possible.
I loathe Bette Miller, but she fucks like a goddess in my mind. My shaft is starting to rouse again, thinking about it. It will weep in a minute. But while it gets its groove back, I’ve research to do.
Google Images search brings up Bette Midler once again. And a slew of women across this country, not one I’d like to fuck. She has to be hot. Today in my mind, her hair had honey highlights.
Her ad awards are listed, but the pictures are always of Sophie, her partner. There’s a picture of her at the AdAge Midwest banquet at a table in the back. Here’s what I know—she once wore a green dress. Her face is turned to the side and she’s sitting next to a man. Her hair is up and it could be red, or dark or dirty. That’s all I have to go on.
There’s no record of her in Chicago public schools and no amount of social media research returns a damn thing. She comes up on those research sites and I think she’s an organ donor and lives on Wells Street in Chicago. There’s twenty-seven other Bette Millers in Chicago. But I swear I heard the word Sedgwick over the loudspeaker when we were on the phone the other day. And I looked up the El train and Sedgwick is a stop near a Wells Street.
