Page 32 of Sunny Side Up

fourteen

Ted Manns wasted no time taking SONNY to the next level.

Within two days of our partnership, Ted had found us a manufacturer in Astoria and struck a deal with them to run sample production before our launch.

The space was perfect: an enormous, buzzing workshop filled with sewing machines, bolts of fabric, giant glass jars of beads and shells, towering equipment that hummed along with the skilled artisans in white overcoats.

Natural light poured in through giant industrial windows, music flowing from the speakers overhead.

Avery and I arrived together. My nerves had been rising with every ding of the Astoria-bound subway.

The samples had already gone into first-round production: Would they look like they did in my head?

Would I love them? Hate them? Also, I could no longer hear “Queens” or “Astoria” without thinking about Dennis.

I considered texting him a photo of the intersecting street signs that greeted us outside the station.

I looked around for the Korean restaurant he’d told me about on Valentine’s Day, the one his friend’s parents owned, the one he said he wanted to bring me to.

I wished with all my might that he’d magically appear, right now, and we’d call out to one another, What are you doing here? !

Avery grabbed my hand and squeezed it, refocusing my attention.

We walked through the heavy revolving doors together, then headed back toward the big iron freight elevators, covered in stickers for old bands and travel destinations.

Just as the doors were closing, promising to propel us up to the third floor, we heard a voice.

“Hold the door!”

I stuck my hand out, hoping it wouldn’t get eaten by this ancient elevator, and smiled when I saw Ted’s familiar, handsome face.

Even though he was carrying a tray of coffees and had presumably raced down the hall to the elevator bay, he didn’t have a hair out of place.

He was again dressed head to toe in what I can only assume was the silent luxury of Brunello: a stone-colored half zip on top of gray cashmere trousers and worn-in Loro Piana loafers.

His cozy-professional outfit made me want to jump into his arms.

“Afternoon coffee pick-me-up?” We accepted, gladly. “Sunny, you look gorgeous today, if I may say so,” Ted continued.

I was instantly flustered. I could feel his eyes on me and knew Avery was watching with interest. She had teased me a few times that he had a crush on me. This wasn’t helping my protests.

“Thanks for coming,” I said, as the doors opened, determined to bring the conversation back to business. “We can’t wait to see the samples.”

“I love getting to see this side of the business,” Ted said. “This is where actual things get made. Not just phone calls or spreadsheets. Products you can touch and feel, you know?” He gave a wink.

When I held that first suit in my hands, I started tearing up.

It was a replica of the black one we’d made for Harbour Island, but with more official reinforcement and design.

Dreamworthy. The other suits were off to a great start, but I wanted them to feel even sexier.

Especially the one in my favorite fabric: green Lurex that sparkled and shimmered in the sun.

Kateryna repinned a hemline on one of the fit models, showing where we could update some of the seams and curves.

We finished with marching orders for our next round of designs and a few new patterns we hoped to incorporate in our first line.

Including a juicy tomato blue striped bikini I wanted to wear immediately.

“Looks like it’s all moving along swimmingly ,” Ted said, with a raised eyebrow. “As long as we keep up this pace, we should make our summer launch, no problem.” His dad joke slightly embarrassed me.

“I know we can do it,” I said. And it was true. I’d never felt more motivated in my life.

After Ted left, Kateryna and Avery both wiggled their eyebrows in my direction. Noticing the other had picked up on the same thing, they both started laughing.

“He can’t stop flirting with you,” Avery said with a grin.

I felt a blush coat my face. “I’m sorry, guys! It’s not going to interfere with SONNY at all. I know we kissed but—”

“ What! ” both Kateryna and Avery exclaimed at the exact same time.

My cheeks warmed, getting pinker by the minute. “Did I not mention that?” I said under my breath.

Avery loved diving into my dating life, though.

At a certain point, I’d given up on being cagey about it with her: She was a Sunny Side Up loyalist. The morning after every new SSU post, Avery came into the office with bullet-pointed feedback, ready to go, about all my dalliances.

Before I’d given the apps a break, Avery had even threatened to start a March Madness bracket for my Wedding Date Contenders.

I gave Avery and Kateryna an extremely G-rated retelling of my date with Ted at Rao’s, turning the sexual tension into “butterflies,” the heart-racing make-out session into a civilized goodnight kiss.

When I finished, I threatened to never divulge another detail if we didn’t get back to work.

It was Friday and I was antsy to go home early.

We actually did manage to wrap up early. Avery and Kateryna were two of the most efficient, hardest-working women I knew. The three of us made a great team. Ted’s afternoon coffee drop-off had also helped significantly.

And speaking of: When I walked outside, there he was. Or his idling SUV rather.

Ted opened the back passenger door and stepped out as I got closer, then reached for my hands, which I gladly gave him.

“I’m off the clock,” he said, pulling me into him.

“Here on pleasure, not business.” That intoxicating scent that he radiated—vetiver and amber—overtook the urge to laugh at his corny greeting.

“It’s 4 p.m., officially my weekend. I know you said you’d planned to leave around this time, so I was hoping to catch you on your way out. ”

I looked all the way up at the building I’d come out of to make sure Avery and Kateryna weren’t snooping from a window. They’d be down any minute, too. If they caught me right now, I’d never hear the end of it.

I felt my phone buzz in my bag. Then another. Then another.

“Hold that thought,” I said. It was probably Avery, trying to finish our daily productivity recap, which she insisted on.

She said she couldn’t end her days without it.

The girl needed to get out of the warehouse, so I took my phone out, swiped through the notifications, and was shocked to see three texts from Dennis:

Dennis: Hey Sunny, it’s Dennis.

Dennis: Wanted to see what you were up to later.

Dennis: Or this weekend, or whenever. Georgie said she wants to meet the Golden Girls.

There has to be a name for that—like Murphy’s Law, but worse—where the person you’ve been willing to text you, the name you’ve almost made yourself sick hoping to see pop up on your screen, finally reaches out… but there’s someone else standing in front of you, waiting for your kiss.

A dog date is a friend date , I told myself. I clicked my phone off, threw it back in my bag, and looked up at Ted.

“Sorry about that.” Then I reached my hand behind his head, brushed my fingers up across his neck, through the back of his hair, and kissed him like he was leaving for the war.

While catching his breath, Ted gestured toward his car. “May I give you a ride downtown?” His voice had changed, once again, from the business Ted I’d seen upstairs to someone different down here on the street.

“Oh, no, you don’t have to do that. I was just gonna take the subway. I’m in Chelsea, all the way west. Completely out of your way to drop me off.”

“I’d be happy to take you home, but I wasn’t planning on dropping you off,” he said.

Oh. In that case.

I let myself into the back seat. Ted followed, introduced me to his driver, then asked for my address.

Ted’s hand had found its way up under the hem of my mid-calf-length satin skirt.

As we drove downtown, his hand moved farther up my leg, along my thigh-high boots—the same ones I’d worn during our first dinner together at Rao’s. I wondered if he knew just how high they went.

As if trying to torture us both, he slowed down the closer his fingertips got to the seam where leather met skin.

Once he found the edge, he took his other hand, turned my chin toward his, leaned in, and kissed me with the intensity of a man who’d been holding everything in.

I kissed him back, suddenly starved for more, ready to swing my leg over so that I could straddle him right there in the car.

But he pulled back, hand cupping my jaw now, and stared directly into my eyes.

He said nothing, waiting for me to beg him to go further. My lips parted, and I nodded, no sound able to come out.

Ted pointed out the window. “I’ve always loved that building over there. Can you see it?”

Caught off guard by the sudden change of topic, still in a swirling fog of anticipation, I turned my head to look.

He moved closer to me, then slid his hand all the way up between my thighs, and as he held his own gaze straight ahead, down the middle of the lane, he moved my silk thong to the side, grazed me with his fingertips, then tiptoed two fingers slowly, agonizingly slowly, inside of me.

“Great architecture,” I managed to whisper. For the sake of the driver, really.

We couldn’t get into my apartment building fast enough.

Keys fumbling, doors flinging open, giant backward steps toward the elevator.

I slammed my hand on the call button, the doors parted, and he pressed me against the elevator’s mirror.

“I’ve been wanting to do this since the moment I met you,” he murmured into my ear.

His hand up inside my sweater, under my bra, palm on my breast. My leg wrapped around his, pulling him into me, the silent luxury of his pants strained with what was underneath, our mouths and tongues in a primal, synchronized dance, and his smell. That smell. I was delirious.

The doors opened and I grabbed his arm, dragging him after me, down the hall toward my apartment. More keys fumbling, dogs barking, kicking off shoes, frantic undressing. We walked into the kitchen as one tangled being.

I pressed the blinds’ remote control about a million times until they finally began to shut.

I was completely naked, except for my boots.

He was, too, save for his socks and shirt, which still had some buttons attached.

On anyone else, it would have looked ridiculous.

On him, it was something out of a fantasy: the hot businessman, finally home after a long work trip, so starved for his wife, who’d been all alone, touching herself while thinking of him, that he didn’t have time for the bullshit of fully undressing.

He spread my legs with his hands and pulled me to the edge of the counter, my hands gripping the marble, delightfully cold against everything else. His warm breath high up between my thighs, then his expert tongue, his expert tongue, that tongue— Oh. My. God.

I cried out in ecstasy, head back, mouth to the ceiling.

Then he stood up and pulled me down so that, in one movement, he was inside of me.

After a few moments, we readjusted, my back now against the refrigerator, his hand holding my leg up while he sent electric shocks straight through me with his rhythmic, masterful thrusting.

We ended on the floor of my kitchen, Ted on his back, me on top, plush kitchen runner below my knees (which, thank god, had finally arrived).

My hands on his shoulders. Ted looking up at me in awe.

He grabbed my ass, gripped it tight, nearly changing my rhythm; but I was close, so close, too close for that.

I was the one in charge this round, and I rocked both of us into deep oblivion.