Page 20

Eleven

I don’t slip out of Ozzy Wylder’s bed in the dead of night. Our hate-sex fuckathon is no Olympic vault. I don’t run down the mat, spring onto the table, perform fabulous gymnastics midair, and then stick my landing. It’s not over and done within ninety seconds.

Naked Ozzy is irresistible. He senses my weakness for his body and tosses the sheets onto the floor. He becomes even more outrageous and outspoken. He dirty talks. He whispers compliments. I’m going to walk bowlegged into my presentation.

Ozzy falls asleep at five. He has an arm wrapped around my waist. One hand cups my boob, which he declared his undying love to forty minutes ago when we ran out of condoms and I suggested he fuck my tits instead.

My legs ache, my vagina demands a vacation, and I can see why Ozzy’s so popular.

He’s sprawled on his back. He looks cuddly and adorable.

I still hate him. Mostly.

I sit up cautiously. I need to leave. Abandon the sex ship. I’ve banged my neighbor and arch-nemesis. I can’t avoid him without breaking my lease. I will forever have to avoid the mail room, unless he forgets who I am again. It’s possible. Embarrassment is an unpleasant caboose on the orgasm train.

After unwinding Ozzy’s arm from my midsection, I tiptoe across the floor.

It’s good that he’s a minimalist, because his loft is as empty as the rest of his unit.

He has a mattress on the floor, but no headboard.

I judge him for his lack of furniture, and never mind the stupid, beachy sheets and his deliciously puffy duvet that pretends to be a cloud.

He shifts. He mumbles. It’s a miracle he didn’t talk the whole time we were banging.

I stare back at his naked, hot body and briefly consider taking a picture.

I sort of want the souvenir, but my phone is in my loft, plus it feels creepy.

Ethics suck. I settle for a mental snapshot and file it under “so much fun, so bad for me.”

I find my sweatpants at the top of the stairs, but my panties have vanished into a black hole.

Oh well. Since my tank top is downstairs and I have to visit the lobby for a replacement key card, I steal one of Ozzy’s T-shirts and his hoodie.

The hoodie is from a surf spot somewhere exotic.

A palm tree frolics over my left boob; a smiling sun exhorts me to seas the day . I’ll get right on that.

Before I can launch myself down the stairs and carry off my act of theft, Ozzy rolls over and opens his eyes. He doesn’t bother grabbing for the sheet. I hold my breath. Is he awake for real? My last hookup slept like a hundred-year-old vampire at dawn.

“Don’t go.” His voice is sleep roughened. Sexy. I want to crawl back in bed with him and forget about my career.

I should apologize for waking him up. Or make more noise. Run?

“Places to go,” I blurt out. “Code to write. Presentations to make.”

There’s a moment of awkwardness after I share my calendar update.

Well, I feel awkward. Ozzy is just himself.

He hums some more. Rolls to his feet. Flashes his tight, bitable butt at me, which is probably unpremeditated because he bends over (I snap another mental picture) and swipes his shorts from the floor.

I edge down the stairs while he pulls them on.

He follows me, bounding like a gazelle. “Do you want to get breakfast?”

“No.”

I estimate there is twenty feet between me and the door. I pick up speed.

“Coffee?”

“No.”

“I feel like we should talk about what happened.”

I don’t. Ten feet. Five. A large, inked-up hand presses against the door in front of my face, then rapidly retreats as if its owner has just realized that holding me hostage could be misconstrued.

“I want breakfast,” he says. “Coffee. But I’d settle for a thank you. Maybe a thank-you card.” He runs the offending hand through his hair. It stands on end. “Should I take it personally that you’re sneaking out?”

Ozzy likes to do the leaving. Noted.

I open the door. I have to tug on it because he’s still mostly in my way. “Why are you following me?”

“I’m seeing you home,” he grumbles.

“I love—live—ten feet away from you!” My Freudian slip has me blushing, but fortunately he’s too busy rolling his eyes dramatically at the ceiling to notice. His look says he plans on being inflexible on this point.

“Shoes?” He holds a pair of blue athletic slides out to me. I’m barefoot, so I take them. They are ridiculously too huge. They slap against the soles of my feet as I stomp toward the elevator. I can’t risk the stairs in these. I’ll stumble-slide to my death.

“I could get the new key for you,” he volunteers.

“I’ve got it.”

I step into the elevator when the door opens and then jam my finger on the Close Door button.

“Out.” I shoo him away when he tries to join me. “Let’s never talk to each other again.”

“You don’t hate all of me,” he announces as the door closes.

He’s right.

That unhappy thought sits in the back of my head as I get a new key card from downstairs. It’s disturbingly present as the elevator crawls back up to the third floor. It has not been vanquished by the time I’m back in my place.

I have sex hair, a cotton-candy beehive of a mess on top of my head. It takes me a good hour to de-sex-marathon my person and get ready for work.

When I come out, there’s a coffee cup on my doorstep.

Despite my lack of sleep and sore inner thigh muscles, I make it to work on time. Rosie and I consume cup after cup of coffee in preparation for our midmorning demo and follow it with doughnuts.

Exhausted from my all-night sex marathon, I stumble into the unisex bathroom to finger comb my hair.

The beard burn on my throat announces: Ozzy was here.

I debate painting over his mark with some concealer, but it seems like too much work.

Instead, I section my hair and pull it forward on either side of my face. I’m in incognito mode.

Rosie is not fooled. She points to my lips accusingly. They are fuller, redder. They announce to the entire office: Pandora got laid last night.

“I have so many questions,” she says, whipping out her makeup bag. She eyes my hair and adds a mini Drybar brush to the pile on the counter. “And no time. I need a full explanation of where you were last night, young lady.”

“I’m older than you.” I inspect myself in the mirror.

“Details,” she prompts. “Please. What happened, with who, and when?”

“My neighbor,” I mumble. “Ozzy. Last night. His place. OMG. Am I surfer groupie now?”

Rosie makes a WHAAAT face. She’s confused. “Who?”

“My neighbor is— was —a celebrity surfer.”

“Ooooh.” Rosie abandons her hair and makeup attempt to peck frantically at her phone. “Was the sex good? Did he live up to his reputation? Is your surfer Ozzy WYLDER?”

I squint at her. “Do you follow surfing?”

This is not a work-appropriate conversation. She is an intern. I am her team lead, even if lately we’ve veered into friendship territory.

“No, but I’m projecting my own celebrity crush onto yours. It’s—”

“Don’t tell me.” I’m mortified. I should stop this conversation.

Rosie redirects herself. “I thought you were rehearsing your presentation last night.”

She means: There’s no sex in our slide deck!

“I was, but my neighbor was making so much noise that I had to ask him to turn his music down. And then he wouldn’t, so I yelled at him.”

Rosie stares at me as if I’m a stranger.

I shrug. “And then we hate-fucked. The end.”

“I’m not sure you hate each other as much as you think you do,” she observes.

She drags the brush through my hair. “Also, when I said be like Shonda, I didn’t mean that you should apply her year of yes rule to your sex life.

” She pauses. “Not that that’s a bad idea.

We should ask Shonda if she tried that.”

As we are never, ever going to meet Shonda Rhimes and interrogate her inappropriately about her sex life, I just nod.

“At least you’re relaxed,” Rosie observes. This of course has the effect of making me poker up.

Still, I hold it together. Rosie runs the slideshow for me, mouthing helpful prompts when I lose my train of thought.

The presentation is just ten minutes and I’m overprepared.

Plus, my code is solid, my prototype fully functional.

I’m trying to make this a no-brainer for my audience, so that they’ll green-light the full development.

It requires me to sell, and then sell some more.

Point out all the ways my redesign of our app makes it better.

More likely to sell a thousand vacations.

Awesome. I’m unexpectedly grateful for Rosie’s help.

I’m not rowing this boat entirely by myself. I have a wingwoman.

By the time we reach the last slide, the executive team (who have an average age of twenty-three) want a go-to-market strategy and to know who my target audience is.

Bob repeatedly asks if my algorithm is a “sure thing,” oblivious to the inappropriate overtones of his question.

The venture capitalist, who is representing the company board and who is brilliant at turning ideas into money, sprinkles phrases like total addressable market and customer acquisition costs into the discussion.

I’m terrified of looking stupid in front of him.

I’ve only ever wanted to be seen, and seen by everyone I work with, in any capacity.

It’s simultaneously my main motivation and the albatross around my neck, which leads to me working day and night in order to code more, better, perfect.

The heart of Pandora Fyffe is a computer chip that tries to substitute codes for feelings, and then when people treat her like an automaton, she curls angrily up in her shell.

Win or lose (and I’m all in on winning), the people in this room see me. It scares me.

What if I’m not enough?