Sex Says(21)

I had the instant urge, no, need, to haul ass out of that restaurant.

A guy like Reed Luca was dangerous. He was bad news.

Attraction, huh? Yeah, I was attracted to this asshole like a fucking magnet. My body wanted to blast off into orbit and rotate around his gravitational pull.

But I hated him.

And I’d keep on hating him, no matter how strong his appeal.

I stepped back and put some much-needed distance between us. “Er…thanks,” I muttered, and the chinstrap of my helmet strained against the movement of my jaw.

He grinned down at me. “You’re welcome.”

“So…I guess we’ve settled on a truce then, right?”

He held out both arms. “I, Reed Luca, solemnly promise that I will post no more YouTube videos about Lola Sexton or her column, Sex Says.”

“Thanks.” For fuck’s sake, how many times was I going to thank this guy?

My mind screamed abort abort abort, and I started to fidget on my feet. I knew I needed to nip this little powwow in the bud, but I had a proclivity for being really awkward and weird when it came to good-byes. Handshake? Hug? Just a simple see ya later? I never knew what the fuck to do.

So I did what any weirdo wearing a bike helmet adorned in sparkly pink paint would do; I held out my hand and offered an awkward shake and patted him on the shoulder with the other.

His smile grew wider as he took my hand into his.

“Friends?” he asked.

That forced a shocked laugh from my lungs. “Um…thanks, but no thanks,” I responded immediately. “Your little YouTube video is still gaining like one hundred views a freaking second as we speak. You and I—” I gestured to him and then to myself “—will never be friends.”

“Are you saying—” he started to say, but I instantly cut him off. There was absolutely no way in hell I would give this guy another opening to take me on another merry-go-round of crazy that was a conversation with him.

“Have a nice life, Reed Luca.”

And with that, I strode out of the restaurant and out toward Daisy while I silently prayed to every god out there to let me go the rest of my life without having to have another conversation, much less interaction, with that guy. Hell, I was going to make it my life’s mission to avoid him at all costs.

It wasn’t until I had gotten home, and my stomach started rumbling its needs, that I realized I had forgotten to stop at the bar and get my to-go boxes.

God, he even made me forget about food.

I never forgot about food.

Yeah, Reed Luca was bad fucking news.





Chilly morning air filled my lungs as I unscrewed the top of my thermos, pulled the cup from its resting place between my legs, and poured myself a steaming serving of wake the fuck up.

I inhaled the smell before taking a swig.

Life had been busy for the last three weeks, and I’d worked more hours than the nine-to-fivers I so often mourned for.

But I was living a dream, one I’d had for ages, and it didn’t get much better than that.

The fog looked segregated from up here, two stark lines forming along the banks of the channel as if an invisible wall kept it from settling over the water.

“Reed!”

I looked down about forty feet, along the sweet sweep of one of the magnificent cables on the Golden Gate Bridge to find the caller of my name, my coworker, Kenny.

“Yeah, Ken?” I asked innocently, swinging my feet back and forth as I took another sip of steaming sustenance.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“Coffee break,” I offered on a yell. I could see him shake his head despite the distance, completely unimpressed with my casual attitude. I got it, even though I might not show it. This was a short stint for me, a hobby, for all intents and purposes, but it wasn’t for Kenny. This was his everyday reality, his bread and butter, and the very thing he relied on to support his family.

When I looked back, he looked mad.

“Get back to work!”

I sighed and looked back out over the view.

I’d actually considered climbing to the top of this particular hill illegally numerous times in the past, but I came to the same conclusion each and every time: it was too risky.

I liked to live my life pretty freely, but I wasn’t dumb enough not to weigh actions by their cost in consequences. These days, with everything going on in the world, doing something as nefarious as climbing the Golden Gate Bridge without permission wouldn’t be seen as a simple misdemeanor. And being sentenced to spend the rest of my natural life behind bars for suspected terrorism would put a certain kind of hitch in my lifestyle.

Instead, I’d bided my time with day-to-day diverse jobs, changing it up when I grew bored or disinterested, until the right connection fell into my lap. Of course, it only fell after I’d shoved it by spending countless hours searching for the right people and the proper vetting. But then, yeah, it’d just fallen in my lap. The perfect job to get me where I needed to be—Golden Gate Bridge Touch-Up Painter. It’s a fancy title, but don’t let that fool you into thinking it’s dumb. It’s not. It’s the coolest fucking job on the planet—or, it had been for the last three weeks anyway.