The Boyfriend Designer - Christopher Harlan Page 0,21
when the soreness is going away. You always take it to such extreme places.”
Ah, my best friend the prude. “Excuse me, but there is nothing extreme about a guy jerking off. They all do it all the time. Like, right now, as we speak, imagine at least seventy-five percent of the male population’s right hands are occupied.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“Okay, fine, you’re right. Statistically at least some of the men are left-handed, so I guess maybe seventy percent right hand, five percent left hand. But dicks in hands all the same, Tor.”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do with you.”
“You’re going to listen to me because I know these things. But, more importantly, I got my little petty revenge. And the best part? I didn’t even plan it. It just kind of happened.”
“Sort of.”
“What do you mean, sort of?”
“I mean you may not have planned on him actually being attracted to you.”
I toss my hair all dramatically to the side. “Um, speak for yourself, but that part was never in question.”
She smiles. “Okay fine, the attraction part may have been—huge air quotes here, inevitable because, of course, look at you.”
“That’s better.”
“But the rest was no accident. You went to his little meet and greet. You knew he’d see you and probably come up to you after. You wanted this to happen, and I have my suspicions as to why.”
I give her a side eye, only facing forward. So I guess I’m giving her a front-side eye, if that’s a thing. Screw it, I’ll just give the upward eyebrow, it’s unmistakeable. “This again?” She’s obsessed with the idea of me being obsessed with Conor. Wait, can you be obsessed with an obsession? I’ll have to give that some thought later after I’m done being lectured. “Why would I even like someone like him, Tor?”
Her wide-eye return of serve makes me pull back. “Is that a real question? Need I remind you that your last three guys—and I hesitate to use the word ‘boyfriend’—each had something very similar to Conor.”
“What are you talking about?” Translation: I know exactly what you’re talking about, but I’m going to make you do all the work to actually spell it out.
“Jesse was tall with green eyes.” And a drug addict. “John was super dominant and controlling” That would explain the two restraining orders against him, yeah. “And Tom thought he was an influencer because he had like 1,000 followers on his dumb male fashion Insta page.” I remember, he was more interested in trying to get verified than having sex with me.
“What’s your point here, Tori?” That was a dumb question. I know what her point is, obviously.
“No judgement. Even though I hate what he does, he’s hot. I know you were mad at the whole Smash or Pass thing, but seeing him in person obviously threw you off. But he’s just like the others, only multiplied by a lot.”
Tori thinks I have no ability to stop myself from being attracted to jerks—that all it takes for me to fall hard is a pretty face and a nice body, followed by me going into a cycle of ignoring all of their bad traits until I eventually getting my heart broken.
“This isn’t like all the others, okay. And I don’t even like him, so it’s really not like all the others.”
“Shosh, come on. You can lie to a lot of people, but I’m not one of them. You know that by now. If you don’t want to admit you like Conor, that’s fine, I can’t force you. But you should at least be honest with yourself.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” I’m being a little bitchy, which is my way of admitting that she’s probably right. She knows this. That’s how in sync we are with one another. I change the subject, which is also my way of giving in. “So what am I doing tomorrow?”
“Same as you’ve seen me do. Pretty much interacting with fans, taking selfies, all that good stuff. You can go live on social media if you want. It’s totally up to you.”
“Sounds fun. I mean, I’ve seen you do it before, but I never felt any pressure because I was always the background girl—I would just keep the line from getting unruly and throw fools out if they acted up or got disrespectful. By the way, that was always my favorite part.”
“Keep your fingers crossed. Maybe you can throw someone out of your very own line this time.”