Page 64 of The Close-Up
“I’m serious.” Harper squirts a hefty amount of ketchup onto her own basket of fries. “The way you laid the smackdown on that guy was a whole new level of epic.”
“That guy either isn’t aware of or doesn’t care how much he’s hurting his fiancée’s feelings. He’s too busy enjoying the ego boost from his friend. And there’s a slew of men out there just like him. No wonder Simon has made this a career. Crappy men are everywhere.”
“You should put it in the next episode,” Harper says. “People will go crazy for you.”
I shake my head, then gulp from my water glass. “No way. This series is about Simon, not me.”
“You were in his interview episodes. And the strip club episode.”
“Those are totally different. Of course I’d be in the interview episodes—I was the one asking him questions. And I was in the strip club scene for just a bit to help with the setup and when I asked him interview questions. I’m meant to observe and document the subject. I’m never supposed to make it about me. And that clip I sent you of me going off on Derek was definitely all me, not Simon. There’s no reason it should be in the show. I just showed it to you because I know you love it when a jerk gets told off.”
Harper shakes her head, clearly tired of listening to me. “Speaking of Simon, I still can’t believe you’ve been working together for over two months and you haven’t once fooled around with him.”
I take a gigantic bite of my sandwich, hoping that Harper doesn’t notice how red I’m turning at the thought of what almost went down between Simon and me during the couples’ retreat in Tahoe.
I wait the several seconds it takes for me to clear that huge bite of food before I look up at Harper. When I do, she’s frowning at me, clearly suspicious.
“Spill,” she says.
“There’s nothing to spill.”
“Bullshit. You’re as red as a beet. Did something happen between you two?”
Throwing my head back, I let out a groan. “Of course not.” I sigh, realizing that I can’t lie to Harper to save my life. “At least not in the way you think,” I finally admit.
Her eyes go wide just as a giddy smile spreads across her full face. “Tell me!”
I give her a quickened version of how Simon walked in on me mid-orgasm in the bathtub and how I invited him to join me right before everyone barged into the house. Her eyes are bulging when I finish.
“Shit,” she whispers, a dazed look on her face. “That’s just...whoa.”
I shake my head and wave my hand, like I’m brushing away that memory. “It’s fine. We’ve moved past it.”
I ignore the way she narrows an eye at me.
“Did you tell Landon?” she asks.
“Of course not. It happened before we even met. And it’s not like we’re official. We don’t owe each other that kind of honesty,” I say. “Plus, could you imagine how awkward that would make things between him and Simon? They’re already not fans of each other.”
“So you’re liking Landon still?”
“It’s going well so far.”
He’s amped things up and is sending flirty texts more often, much to my pleasant surprise.
“Landon aside, you must have given Simon some excellent spank bank material.” She slurps the rest of her Diet Coke, then consolidates the trash from her empty basket with mine.
“God, Harper.”
She raises an eyebrow. It’s a look that silently conveys the phrase “you can’t be serious.”
We dump our trash in a wastebasket by the door, snake around the crazy-long line at the register, then make our way back outside and walk in the direction of Nob Hill.
“Naomi, Simon walked in on you. In the bathtub. Naked. And wet. I can promise you that image has been burned into his brain and he’s fantasized about you. Multiple times.”
We walk along the busy sidewalks in silence as I let what she’s said soak into my brain. When we stop at a stoplight, I turn to her.
“That’s ridiculous. He’s dating someone right now. That incident we had is probably the last thing on his mind.”
