Page 9 of Men or Paws

I nodded. “I had to go to the bathroom badly! And the second time was when the doorbell rang and I told you, him, to call me back.”

“How could you think he was me?” Josh asked.

“I thought you were testing out new material on me, like you always do!”

“Yeah, but we always do video, so you can see my facial expressions. Not once have we done that on the phone.”

“I know, I know,” I said. “I was distracted and assumed it was you. Who else could it be?”

“The real Rocco?” Josh said, rubbing his hands together. “Okay, forget about that for now. Tell me everything you said to him and don’t leave out anything. This could be new material for my tour.”

“You don’t want to know, and God help me, but I need to try to forget.” Heat traveled up my neck to my face after I realized what a huge mistake I had made.

“Come on,” Josh said. “Don’t keep me in suspense.” He leaned back against the counter, coffee in hand, ready to take a sip.

I paced back and forth in the kitchen. “Okay, don’t laugh.”

Josh’s lower lip trembled. “You know I can’t promise that.”

“Fine. I may have said he was the sexiest man alive and I was so fortunate to be talking with him.” I covered my face with my hands.

“That’s it?” Josh laughed, lowering his mug. “That’s tame! He hears that all the time from strangers on the street. What else?”

I shrugged. “I said he had nice hair. And then I told him just the thought of his firm buns was making me overheat.”

Josh’s eyes bulged out and he barked out an annoying laugh. “Much better!”

“Oh . . .” I thought about it a little more. “And I may have said that he has fake abs, hinted that he was in need of an acting coach, and accused him of stuffing his underwear to make his man-self look bigger.”

Josh snorted loudly and slapped the counter, his eyes tearing up as his laughter turned borderline hysterical. “This is so good!” He pulled out his phone and began typing. “I need to make a note of this before I forget.” He continued to laugh and tap on his phone. “Fake abs, stuffing his underwear, ha! That’s so good. I can’t wait to tell Oliver.”

I continued to pace. “Stop laughing. This is horrifying.”

Josh waved me off. “Quit worrying. It’s not that bad. Just call him back and tell him it was all a big misunderstanding. He knows who I am, so it’s not so far-fetched. You’ll both get a good laugh out of it, then you can go work for him. Easy peasy.”

I was about to sit down at the kitchen table, then stopped and jerked my head back in Josh’s direction. “There’s no way I’ll call him after embarrassing myself like that. Trust me, he does not want to hear from me ever again, let alone hire me. And I don’t have a problem with that since there’s no way I want to work for that type of person.”

Josh crossed his arms. “Why are you judging the guy if you’ve never met him? That’s not like you. Don’t believe what you read in the tabloids.”

“First of all, you should know I don’t read the tabloids,” I said. “Second, I actually met Rocco in person. One time, and it was one time too many, believe me. I didn’t want to say anything since you run in the same circles with him and have the same agent.”

Josh perked up with that. “Are you the mother of his secret love child?”

I laughed. “Yes, Uncle Josh. You nailed it on the head. What will I do now that the secret is out? I guess I can finally take the baby out of hiding.”

My brother laughed and slammed the rest of his coffee, setting down the empty cup. “Come on, give me the scoop. Tell me everything.”

I sighed, not really wanting to get into it, but knowing Josh would keep pressing me for information. “It’s not worth rehashing. He came into the restaurant back when I worked at Santo Domingo Grill. He behaved like a spoiled brat. End of story.”

Josh had a blank look on his face. “When did you work at Santo Domingo Grill? I don’t even remember that.”

“That was back when you got the writing gig forSaturday Night Liveand disappeared off the grid for a couple of years.”

“I didn’t disappear. I was busy. New York never sleeps.”

“Apparently, you didn’t either because you were never home. Anyway, I didn’t say anything because I was embarrassed that the job lasted a whole three weeks.”

“What happened?”