“Wait here, I’ll go get us a booth,” Aidan says, but I’m barely listening to him. My attention has been snagged by the two men on the stage, both of them wearing firemen uniforms. Their heavy bright jackets are open, though, and they're not wearing anything underneath. Their abs and toned muscles gleam under the spotlight, and I feel my jaw dropping a little as they throw their jackets over the crowd of shouting women, the sight of their naked (and extremely ripped) chests sending the crowd into a frenzy. No wonder Aidan used to work here; he fits right in with these guys.
“I still can’t believe you didn’t tell me you used to work here,” I say, but when I turn to the side I realize Aidan’s not there. I look around and I see him leaning by the counter, talking happily with a gorgeous man in a dark tailored suit, his jacket thrown over the counter and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. They shake hands, exchange a few words, and then Aidan makes a beeline toward me.
“Who’s that?” I ask him, following the tall man with my eyes as he steps through a Personnel Only door.
“That’s Austin Price, the owner,” he says, and then takes my arm again. “Lets go, he hooked us up with the best seats.”
Arm-in-arm with Aidan, I let him lead me to the upper level of the room. We walk up a set of stairs, and then he takes me to a booth that overlooks the stage. The walls are lined with couches, and there’s even a pole in the middle of the room. This booth probably services large groups, but we have it just to ourselves. I’m betting that this Austin guy must have liked Aidan a lot when he worked here.
We choose the seats closer to the floor-to-ceiling glass walls, the ones with the best view toward the stage, and I notice there’s a bucket with a bottle of champagne on a small table to the side, two glasses close to it.
“Oh, nice,” Aidan says, grabbing the bottle by the neck and popping the cork out with a quick flick of his thumb. Champagne gushes out in a torrent, and I hurry to get the glasses under the bottle.
“To Abby, the greatest writer ever,” he says, taking one of the glasses and raising it up with a grin.
“To Aidan, the second greatest writer ever,” I tease him with a chuckle, and we touch glasses. I down all of my champagne at once, and then search for my phone, rummaging inside my purse with one hand. Fishing it out, I head straight to the Rainforest website.
“Jesus, give it a rest, Abby. You checked the rankings a thousand times today and --”#p#分页标题#e#
“Oh, God. Oh, God,” I start, my eyes widening as I notice what’s on the screen. No way, this can’t be real.
“What is it?” Aidan asks, peering over my shoulder. “Holy fuck!” he exclaims as he sees what’s on the screen. “We’re at the fucking top!”
“We are,” I say, barely blinking as I try to process the fact that Big Dick is sitting at the Rainforest’s Top 10. “And we’re going up,” I continue, breathing fast as I notice the small Big Dick thumbnail overtaking the other books in the ranking, climbing steadily into the Top 5.
“Fuck,” Aidan breaths out, grabbing the bottle of champagne and refilling our glasses. It feels like we’ve barely finished drinking them when Big Dick finally tops the ranking, an orange ribbon with a bold #1 falling over the thumbnail. “Well, fuck me. We’re the best-selling book in the US.”
“We are,” I squeal, jumping up from my seat and hugging Aidan tightly. I press my mouth against his, kissing him heartily, and then just laugh. This is better than everything I could’ve dreamed of. Number one? Are you kidding me?
“Look,” Aidan grabs the cellphone out of my hands and hovers his index finger over the screen. “There are a lot of books going up too,” he says, narrowing his eyes. “Bad Boy Publishing,” he whispers, and I look down at the bright screen. All the books climbing in the ranking—and there are a lot of them—belong to Bad Boy Publishing.
“They’re unseating us,” Aidan whispers, watching as Big Dick falls from #1 into #7, and then crashes all the way down into #47. “Fuck, we can’t compete without a marketing budget.”
“Screw that,” I surprise myself, taking the cellphone out of his hands and throwing it back inside my purse. “We’ve made the top spot without a marketing budget! Do you know what that means? This is just the start!”
“Yeah, I guess,” he says, but I can tell he isn’t completely comfortable with the idea of having Bad Boy Publishing coming after us. I don’t like it, of course, but right now I’m so ecstatic over the fact that Big Dick made #1 that I can barely think of anything else.