Page 34 of The Fix Up

“I never said life coach,” Ben reminded him. “Holly owns a PR and branding firm. She’s going to rebrand me into a polished, professional CEO.”

Parker laughed and leaned against the doorframe looking amused. “I hope you charged double. You’ve got your work cut out for you with this one.”

Holly smiled at Parker, and Ben tried not to notice the faint burn of jealousy flaring in his gut. “How do you mean?” she asked, glancing from Parker to Ben. “This could actually be pretty helpful to the process, you know—hearing firsthand from your closest friends where your strengths and weaknesses lie.”

“Oh, don’t even get me started on Ben’s weaknesses.” Parker grinned and shot Ben a look he recognized as a subtle request for permission. Parker might joke, but he wasn’t the sort of guy to throw his buddy under the bus.

Ben just shrugged. Parker was right that Holly had her work cut out for her, so she might as well know what she was dealing with.

“Let’s see,” Parker said, pretending to ponder. “There’s the time Ben tried to pick up a woman by offering to defrag her hard drive.”

“She slapped me, if I remember right,” Ben mused.

“Well, it does sound kinda dirty,” Holly pointed out.

“Then there’s the time a couple years ago when none of us had seen him for a week,” Parker said, getting comfortable now. “We went down to the engineering lab and found out he’d been working for ten days straight on some new chemical breakthrough or something. He’d been taking sponge baths in the bathroom sink and eating nothing but carrot sticks and Cool Ranch Doritos.”

“They were Salsa Verde Doritos,” Ben said.

“My mistake.” Parker scratched his chin. “Or how about the time we finally persuaded him to take a break and treat himself to a Hawaii vacation.”

“That sounds nice,” Holly said, and Ben couldn’t help picturing her in a bikini frolicking on the sand.

“Sure it does,” Parker agreed. “Only instead of taking surfing lessons and drinking mai-tais on the beach, Ben spent the whole trip studying the flora and fauna of the islands.”

“I wonder if I still have that research paper. I discovered a new species of fungus.” Ben glanced at Holly, wondering if she was second-guessing her decision to take him on or take off her bra in his house. She smiled at him, and Ben felt his heart dissolve in his chest.

“Ben’s the best guy I know, though,” Parker said. “He’d throw himself in front of a train to save anyone he loves.”

“That doesn’t sound very sensible,” Ben said. “The average velocity of a locomotive is?—”

“Shut up, brainiac—I’m trying to sing your praises here.” Parker turned back to Holly. “I met Ben our first year in grad school. I was twenty-three, but Ben was only nineteen. The dude went to college at sixteen and finished in less than three years. Anyway, one night we hooked him up with a fake ID and dragged him out barhopping with us. Sure enough, Ben got busted.”

“What?” Holly looked at him. “You got arrested?”

Ben quirked an eyebrow at her. “That surprises you?”

“Kinda.” She turned back to Parker. “So what happened?”

“The cops were doing this big sting operation trying to break up this ring of guys producing fake IDs. They offered to let Ben go if he told them where he got it, but Ben refused to turn in his friends. Wouldn’t give them any names, not even when they held him in jail for three days and made him miss a test that could screw up his whole GPA.”

“Wow.”

Parker laughed. “I finally went in there and turnedmyselfin so the dumbass wouldn’t rot in jail forever. But he would have, if it had come to it. The guy’s loyal to a fault.”

Holly was giving him an appraising look, which made Ben uncomfortable. He wasn’t used to being the center of attention, which was probably one more thing he’d need to overcome if he wanted to be a CEO. God, the list was getting long.

“Sounds like you’re giving me some nice raw material to work with,” she said. “I’m eager to get started.”

“Have fun with that,” Parker told her, then turned to Ben. “I’ve gotta go, but I’ll see you at the gym tomorrow?”

“I’ll do my best,” Ben said.

“Later,” Parker called, heading out the door. “Take good care of him, Holly.”

“I plan to,” she murmured as she pulled the door closed and turned back to Ben. “That was enlightening.”

“I’m glad you thought so. Have a seat.”

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