Page 14 of My Five Daddies

“Good.” He nods and goes back toeating.

I glance out the window of the conference room. Papers are spread out in front of us, invoices and bills and scouting reports on interesting acts, a ton of different stuff. Some of it has to do with Dustin and some doesn’t, though maybe in a sense it all does. This whole business, it’s one big tangled web, and it’s allinterrelated.

Sometimes too tangled. I’ve been friends with Will for a long, long time. We’ve shared a lot of things, though not exactly a woman, not like this atleast.

We both actually like this one. I can tell. He wouldn’t have kissed her like that if he didn’t. He would have backed off and asked my permission first if he was just looking to get some, just in case I had genuine feelings. But the fact that he just went for it, that says a lot tome.

I’m weirdly okay with it. I don’t feel jealous, even though I like her, too. I don’t know what it is about Tori, but she makes me smile in a way a woman hasn’t in a long time. Maybe I’m fucking jaded, I don’t know. What a cliché that would be, though. A jaded record executive looking for anything to make him feel aliveagain.

“You gonna eat?” Will asksme.

I pick up my sandwich and dig in, but I’m distracted. I keep thinking about Tori, the way she smiles at me, head half-cocked, lips slightly parted. Her hair’s so thick, I want to run my fingers through it, get a feel for the softness on myskin.

I bet Will’s thinking the same thing. She clearly likes him too, in fact I think she likes all of us. We’ve had a bunch of different hosts at Promise, each one charming and attractive, but they always seem so distant. So aloof. Or sometimes they seem like we owe them something, like because they’re hot and untouchable they’re somehow better than everyoneelse.

They’re never better. Frankly, they’re always the same. It’s the same pretty girl copied and pasted over and over again, at least until Tori showedup.

Tori’s different. She doesn’t ask us about how much we make, what kind of cars we own, shit like that. She doesn’t seem to care about that stuff at all, in fact. She’s so genuine, warm, and funny that I almost forget she’s working for thatplace.

I don’t love Promise, but I like what it represents. It’s our place, where the group can go and have fun and not care about anything else in the world. We’ve spent a lot of time over the years, tasted everything they have to offer, though lately we’ve all moved away from that. I thought we’d never had any real funagain.

And now there’s Tori, making me come alive. Making all of us comealive.

“Listen, I need to tell you something,” Will says as I finish my sandwich a few minuteslater.

“What’sup?”

“Before we get back to this,” he gestures at the mess of papers, “I want to talk aboutTori.”

“What about her? I already said it’s cool if you go forit.”

He shakes his head. “No, it’s something else. Something I found out lastnight.”

“What?”

He pauses. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Will so uncertain. “Well… she workshere.”

I stare at him blankly. “Here?” I ask. “I mean, she works atPromise?”

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “She’s just filling in forCara.”

“Hot blonde girl,” I say, well aware that I’m describing all of them. It’s a little joke we have: they’re all interchangeable hotblondes.

“Exactly,” he says. “Anyway, I mean she works here, at this company. Forus.”

I stare at him, genuinely surprised. “You’re shittingme.”

“Nope. She’s newapparently.”

“I can’t believe she doesn’t recognizeus.”

“Do you know everyone in everydepartment?”

I pause. “No.”

“Neither do I. Hell, I just saw some guy I’ve never noticed before walking in hereearlier.”

“Shit, I took a piss next to a guy I’ve never seen before like a half hour ago,” I say,laughing.

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