Boycotts and Barflies (13 page)

Grace dropped her hand. “Well, now what do we do?” It would be hard to declare a winner if everyone quit the game.

Meg got a devilish smile across her face. “I was afraid of this. That means there’s only one thing to do. We up the ante, ladies!”

“What?” Bianca shrieked. Grace could tell she was counting on this whole bet going away by tomorrow or at least having the option to bail.

“Define ‘up the ante,’ Meg.”

Experience had taught them that Meg’s mind worked in strange and sinister

ways.

“To make sure we stick to our bet, we need to put in more money, double the  bet.”

“Another two hundred dollars? Are you serious?” Grace asked in amazement. 92

“Totally serious. Look, these guys are great, and don’t get me wrong, I like Ryan  a lot. A lot more than I want to admit even, but I think we should all take it slow  to make sure. Upping the bet will do that.”

“If you make us up the ante, I want something in return,” Bianca spoke up.

“A renegotiation of one of the rules, if you will.”

“You can’t have sex, Bianca,” Meg said bluntly.

“I know that, idiot, but if I’m putting four hundred dollars on the line, I want to  make sure he’s worth it. I want one kiss. A real kiss, with tongue and all. I’m not  losing all my money for some guy who kisses like a wet fish. And a few pecks

on the lips within the current rules won’t tell me squat!”

The best part of her argument was that she was totally serious. If Jack couldn’t  curl her toes with a kiss, he was out. He needed to have the power to turn her  legs to jelly and make her swoon or she wouldn’t waste her time and would  happily focus on the shoes.

Meg pondered the proposal for a long time, and then a wicked grin came over  her face. “Fine, Bianca, I accept your renegotiation. My counter offer is a ‘kiss  and tell’ clause. After each of us gets our kiss, we have to share all the delicious  or gory details. Do we have a deal?”

Meg was the first to put her hand out, followed by Bianca and finally Grace.

“I’m glad we got that settled, ladies. I’m going online to look for a fabulous

dress to go with the shoes because I’m so going to win this,” Meg said with  confidence.

Right as she turned for the computer, her cell phone started ringing on the table. When she heard the song that came on as the ringtone, her face turned bright red and she flew over to answer it.

“Hello?” she said quietly, and then Grace heard her sigh “Hi, Ry,” as she closed her bedroom door.

Grace and Bianca broke into hysterics. “Did you hear what he made his ringtone? Was that what I think it was?” Bianca asked in between laughs. “Boyz II Men? I swear, I thought she was going to die on the spot. I bet she’s kicking herself for upping the bet now,” Grace barely squeaked out before she shoved a pillow over her face to hide her hysterical laughter.

y

93

Her peaceful night’s sleep was disturbed, as usual, by Meg’s shrieking.

“Grace!” she screamed as she flung herself onto the bed, clutching Grace’s cell phone which was playing ‘Hot in Herre’ by Nelly.

“Thanks, Meg. Is that to remind me that I made an ass of myself the other night with Michael?” Grace yawned as she stretched.

“No, you idiot! It’s Michael on the phone —that’s his ringtone.” She chucked the phone at Grace, nearly hitting her in the face. “Well, answer it!”

She was bouncing up and down on the bed with excitement.

Grace took the phone and checked the caller ID, seeing Michael Andris in big bold letters . I’m not dreaming.

“Hello?” Her voice was tentative, her heart pounding in her chest. What a way to start the morning!

“Good Morning, Grace. Did I wake you up?” his husky voice asked, sounding very much like he had just woken up himself.

“No, technically Meg woke me up with her screaming. Nice ringtone, by the way.”

“It just recently became a favorite song of mine.”

His shameless flirting caught Grace off guard and she couldn’t help but giggle.  “Recently, huh?”

Meg, noticing her friend’s embarrassment, threw herself at Grace, trying to get close enough to hear what Michael was saying to put such a smile on her face. “Hang on a second. I need to take care of Meg.” Grace put the phone down on the bed and screamed. “Meg Tomlin, did I bother you last night when Ry called? No! Leave, or I’m going on eBay to find an old Boyz II Men shirt, and I’ll wear it every time you’re anywhere near him. Get out!”

Annoyed that her fun was ruined by her stubborn friend, Meg stomped out of the room, but not before shouting, “Bye, Michael. Watch out, Grace isnot a morning person!”

She took a deep breath and picked the phone back up. “Sorry about that, and for the record, I am a morning person—when I’m woken up the right way, that is.” All she heard was his deep laughter on the other end of the phone.

“Glad I could amuse you this morning.”

“I’m sorry, Grace, but that argument with Meg was too funny.” He pulled himself together. “So, why exactly are you going to buy used clothes on eBay?”he asked with great curiosity.

94

“Oh, nothing. Ryan called last night, and when Meg heard the ringtone he used,  she almost burst into flames on the spot.”

“What was it? Jack and I asked him last night, and he refused to tell us.

Hold on. Let me get Jack in on this. Give me a second to set up the three-way  call, OK?” Grace heard him click over and when he came back, she heard the  phone ringing at Jack’s apartment.

“God damn it, Michael. Do you know what time it is and, more importantly, do  you have any idea what Bianca and I were just doing in my dream?” Jack  groaned into the phone.

“Good morning, Jack,” Grace said sweetly into the phone.

“Who is this, and why are you calling from Michael’s phone?”

“It’s Grace, you idiot! And I’m so telling Bianca you’re having naughty dreams  about her.”

“Shit. Hi, Grace, you gave me a heart attack. Wait, where’s Michael? In the  shower?” he asked suspiciously.

“Right here, dumbass. It’s a three-way call. Grace has some info you might like  to hear, about a certain someone’s ringtone.”

“Awesome! Did Ryan call Meg? What’s the song? We gotta know so we can give  him shit for it. It’s sappy, isn’t it? I bet it’s sappy.”

Grace wasn’t sure where Meg was, so she whispered, just to be safe. “Well, he  called last night, and his ring tone was ‘I’ll Make Love to You’ by Boyz II Men.”  She had to move the phone far away from her ear because of the volume at  which they were laughing.

“He did not,” she heard Michael wail.

“He is such a sap,” Jack boomed.

Bianca stuck her head in Grace’s room just then, to find out why Meg was in the family room stomping around and swearing. Grace motioned for her to be quiet and then put the boys on speaker phone, quickly whispering in Bianca’s ear who she was on the phone with as well  as passing on the nugget about  Jack’s dream. When the guys finally stopped howling, Bianca pulled out her cell phone and dialed Jack’s cell.

“So, Jack, have you talked to Bianca yet?” Grace asked. Suddenly, music started playing in the background—the ringtone that Bianca had programmed into  Jack’s phone.

“Jack, do you need a moment alone?” Michael asked, laughing again.

“No way.” The girls heard Jack chuckle. “Damn she is one hot—Hello?”

95

Behind her, Grace could hear Bianca wishing Jack a good morning.

“Who is he talking to?” Michael asked.

“Bianca. That was her ringtone you just heard.”

Jack finally came back to the phone. “Um, guys, hey, I gotta go. I got a call on my cell I need to take. I’ll catch you later!” Immediately, Jack hung up.

“Can you tell her to call him about every hour? That should send him right over the edge. It might just help you win those shoes.”

Grace was distracted from her conversation with Michael when she caught partof the conversation between Bianca and Jack. “Gross, Bianca! Get out of here if you’re going to do that! And at this hour of the morning? Jeez!”

“What’s wrong?” Michael asked with great interest.

“I think she took Jack’s ringtone too seriously last night,” Grace laughed.

“I don’t need to listen to those two have phone sex this early in the morning.” “He called her last night?”

“Yep. Right after Ryan called Meg.”

“And what is his ringtone? Is it as bad as Ryan’s?” he asked cautiously.

“‘Talk Dirty to Me’ by Poison.”

They laughed for a few minutes before Michael calmed himself and could speak clearly. “Thank you, Grace.”

“For what?”

“For making me laugh my ass off before ten in the morning. I don’t think that’s

ever happened before. So what are your plans for today?”

“Not much. Meg will probably drag us to the mall and then tonight we’re

having a movie night. We’ll watch a bunch of girl movies and eat ice cream. A

real female bonding day. How about you, do you guys have to work?”

Thank you for evaluating PDF to ePub Converter.

To get full version, you need to purchase the software from:
http://www.pdf-epub-converter.com/convert-to-epub-purchase.html

“Yes, unfortunately.” He sounded genuinely disappointed.

“Well, just make sure you stay close to Vicki and let her swat the hell out of the

barflies tonight, OK?” Grace teased.

“Don’t worry; I’ll keep her by my side all night,” he chuckled.

“Good.”

“I should probably get going.”

She could hear him climbing out of bed, and her mind went right in the gutter. I

wonder what he’s wearing. Grace gave herself a mental slap and snapped her

to her senses.

“Will you do me a favor?” Grace asked shyly.

96

“Anything for you.” His voice was low and sexy. Grace could practically see the

smirk on his face.

“Keep your phone on you tonight, just in case, you know, I want to say hi.

OK?” she almost whispered.

“I promise. And Grace?”

“Yes?”

“I’ll miss you too.”

Grace hung up the phone and picked up her pillow. Pressing her face tightly to

it, she screamed.

I am so going to lose this bet!

97

Chapter 9

Their afternoon trip to the mall was an adventure, to say the least. Meg led them through store after store in search of the ‘perfect outfit’ for the next time they saw the guys. The girls stood in countless dressing rooms, trying on more outfits than Grace cared to remember in their never ending quest for glamour excellence.

The stress of finding clothes was often relieved by fits of laughter caused by a ringing cell phone. Furious giggles broke out across the ladies dressing room at  Nordstrom’s when their ridiculous ringtones reverberated through the small space. ‘I’ll Make Love to You’ started playing for all to hear until Meg could rummage through her purse to find her phone. Of course, that was nothing compared to the whistles that they heard when ‘Talk Dirty to Me’ blared out of  Bianca’s dressing room unexpectedly.

Grace managed to find quite a few things she liked even with all the distractions, and she was pleasantly surprised that she didn’t have to argue

with Meg nearly as much as she normally would have. They came home with  an armful of packages, ready for their movie night to begin. Grace went to her  room, put away all her purchases, and changed into the perfect fashion choice  for the evening’s fun: sweatpants and a black cami.

With Bianca’s help,  Grace managed to make spaghetti, salad, and garlic bread  for dinner, while Meg ran out to rent the movies. She was busy draining

the pasta when she heard the door slam and found Meg was grinning from ear  to ear, clutching  a movie box in her hand.

“What did you get there, smiley?” Bianca teased.

Meg ran into the kitchen and thrust the box at their faces. When Grace read the  title, she burst out laughing.

“‘On the Rocks’? You got ‘On the Rocks’? The bartender movie? I wonder  what

or who could have inspired that choice?” Grace laughed.

Meg just smirked and skipped off to set the table.

Over dinner and a nice bottle of wine, they spent the hour discussing their new  favorite subject—the guys—and their dream shoes if they each were to win the  bet. Meg and Bianca seemed much more confident than Grace that they would  be the last woman standing. Grace tried her best to fake confidence, but she  knew in her heart that she was taking it day by day, trying to focus on the

prize, which she often had to remind herself were the shoes, not Michael. In

her opinion, he was still way out of her league.

When the last dish was put into the dishwasher and the final sip of wine from  dinner had been drunk, Meg squealed and ran over to set up the movie .

Bianca opened a new bottle of wine and poured each of them a healthy glass  before they plopped themselves onto the couch for the evening’s festivities.

The movie began and the girls found themselves giggling a lot, thanks to the  wine, as they enjoyed the somewhat bizarre plot. Bianca and Meg began giving  their harsh critique of the actors.

“My yummy bartender Jack is much hotter than that guy,” Bianca gloated.

“I mean come on, he’s skin and bones. Does he even have any muscles at all on  that body? Now Jack can really fill out that T -shirt they wear. And when he

pops on his sunglasses …” Bianca dramatically fell back onto the couch and  sighed.

“And who’s that old guy? Does anyone think he’s sexy?” Meg scoffed at the poor  actor having to play the role of the lead actor’s sidekick. Even Grace had to  admit, he did leave a bit to be desired.

While the plot was, at best, lame, when the bar scenes came on they all  squealed like teenagers, then got very quiet, each of them lost in their own

personal fantasies about the guys dancing around behind the bar at The Vault,

looking unbelievably hot, while the girls shamelessly ogled them. They had

cracked open their third bottle of wine as the next bar scene came on, bottles

and glasses flying through the air.

Meg started  laughing. “I wonder if the boys can do that.”

99

Without even thinking and spurred on by the wine, Grace reached into her pocket and yanked out a cell phone, giggling. “Let’s find out.” She quickly dialed  Michael, knowing that he had promised to keep his phone with him at work.  Meg and Bianca paused the movie and waited to see what exactly Grace had up her sleeve.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Michael.”

“Hi, beautiful.”

“Are you talking to me, or some girl at the bar?” A tipsy Grace giggled  in the phone.

“Of course I’m talking to you. Don’t be silly. Hang on a minute; I can’t hear anything. This new DJ likes to play his music at a deafening level.” Grace heard him put the phone down and yell something to Jack. He mumbled something that Grace  couldn’t quite make out. Then everything became very quiet and she heard a door close.

“OK, I’m back. So, do you miss me already?” he teased in a sultry voice.

Grace blushed while Meg and Bianca started laughing, breaking her out of her  little trance.

“Yes, I do but that’s not why I called. So listen, the girls and I were watching  this movie. You may have heard of it … ‘On the Rocks?’”

He started howling with laughter. “Yes, unfortunately, after being a bartender  for quite some time now, I’m quite familiar with that box office bust. So what  do you want to know? I think I can guess, but I want you hear you say it.”

“We want to know if you guys can do those cool tricks they did in that one  scene in the movie?”

“Yes.”

“You can? Holy crap!” Grace was sure he could hear the awe in her voice, but

she didn’t care. Her mind was running wild with visions of Michael dancing

around behind the bar. Meg and Bianca vibrated on the couch beside her,

nearly bursting with excitement.

His low chuckle made her heart race. “Would you like us to show you?”

“Girls, Michael said they can do it, and he wants to know if we would like them

to show us.” Grace held the phone out so Michael could get the full effect as

they let out their girlie screams.

“Does that answer your question?” she laughed.

100

“OK, but you should know we don’t perform for free. It’ll cost you,” he said  mysteriously.

“Wait. Let me put you on speaker for this.” Grace clicked the button on the  phone and immediately Meg and Bianca started saying hello to Michael and  laughing hysterically.

“Ladies, are you drunk by any chance?” Michael asked, suddenly suspicious of  all the insane laughter.

“Yes, no … well, probably,” Grace stammered. He said something under his  breath that she swore sounded like perfect but she couldn’t be sure.

“OK, so listen. Jack, Ryan, and I are quite talented at bar tricks, and we would  be willing to do a little performance for you, but I mentioned to Grace that we  don’t work for free, so it will cost you. I have to talk to them, and then I’ll get  back to you with our price.”

“Fair enough,” Meg giggled as she tried to juggle some plastic cups like in the  movie. “We’d pay big money to see that, trust me.”

“I’m counting on that.”

Grace laughed and took Michael off speaker. “Hello again,” she sighed into the  phone.

“Hello. Are you having fun with your friends?”

“Yes, we are. So has Vicki been busy this evening in her swatting duties?”

“I have no idea. I decided to just ignore them all, but I think she did go after a girl who was leering at Jack a bit too much for her liking.”

“Good, Bianca will be happy. Sorry we kept you on the phone so long; I know  you’re busy. I better let you go,” Grace said sadly, even though she really  wanted to talk to him for another hour, or ten.

“Yeah, I’d better get back to work. Jack is already going to give me hell because  I had my phone on me in case you called.” His deep laughter sounded rough  and sexy. Actually, every sound from his mouth seemed to be sexy to her these  days.

“Will you  call me when you get home?”

“Grace, it’ll be real y late. I have to close tonight, and you’l be sound asleep.” “Please, I don’t care. I just want … to know you made it home in one piece.”

She cleverly used his own words from the other night back on him, which made Michael laugh.

“Fair enough. I’ll give you a call to say good night, how’s that?”

The sweetness of his words made her head spin. “Perfect. Bye, Michael.”

101

“Bye, beautiful.”

Grace hung up the phone and found Bianca and Meg smiling at her.

“What?”

“You do know that whenever you’re talking to him, you get this big smile on

your face, right?” Meg teased. Grace felt her cheeks go red as her friend leaned

over and gave her a big hug. “I’m happy for you.”

“Thanks.”

After a few more hours of painting nails and watching movies, it was time for

bed.

A combination of too much wine and the late hour made it impossible for Grace to keep her eyes open any longer, even though she desperately wanted to wait up for Michael’s call. Both Meg and Bianca had received calls already, so they were on cloud nine by the time they went to bed.

Grace gave them a hug and then, quite literally, stumbled into her bedroom. Already dressed for bed, she grabbed her cell phone and crawled under the thick covers. From the kitchen, she could hear the clanks of wine bottles being thrown in the trashcan and then Meg’s and Bianca’s bedroom doors closing as they retired for the night. Smiling, she drifted off to sleep, waiting for Michael to visit her in her dreams.

Soon enough, she was enjoying the sweetest dream; Michael was driving her to his apartment and they were laughing and holding hands. He smiled and turned some soft music on the radio when all of a sudden it  changed and words from “Hot in Herre” blared from the dashboard. Immediately, she woke herself up and began searching for the phone.

“Michael?” she whispered in her raspy voice, glancing at the clock with one squinty eye and saw it was four a.m.

“I told you that you’d be asleep,” he chuckled.

“I don’t care. I just wanted to hear your sexy voice. So shoot me,” Grace sighed. Did I just say that out loud? Great … She heard springs squeak on the other end of the phone as he crawled into his bed, snickering.

“Go to sleep, Grace, I’ll see you sooner than you think,” he whispered into the phone.

“OK,” she yawned. “Good night, Michael.”

“Good night, Grace.”

y

102

The next morning she wandered out of bed sometime around noon. Her head was pounding, and she had absolutely no desire to eat a thing. All the wine from the night before left her with the hangover of the century. Meg and Bianca must have recently woken up as well, because they were both still bleary eyed, savoring cups of co ffee.

“Good morning, ladies, do we all feel like shit this morning?” she asked as she joined them at the table, snagging a piece of toast from Meg’s plate.

“Total and complete shit,” Bianca mumbled, pushing her bowl of cereal away. “By the way, you were sl eep talking again, well, more like sleep yelling this time.”

“Sorry, what was it? My shopping list, reciting the Declaration of

Independence, or another conversation with my mom?” Grace bit into the piece of jelly-covered toast, hoping it would settle her  stomach.

“Um, no. It was mostly …” Meg shot Bianca a smirk across the table.

“Mostly what?” Grace was confused. Usually her nighttime ramblings made no

sense.

“Michael’s name.” They both burst into laughter.

Her face turned bright red. “What exactly did I say?” In a panic, she racked her  brain trying to remember her graphic dream from last night.