Pearl was standing there with her hands clasped in front of her. She had on blue jeans that hugged her curves well. She was built like a woman who knew how to take care of herself, but also wasn’t terrified to take a bite of ice cream. Just the right balance, if you asked me. And it was all the kind of shit I shouldn’t be noticing, but sue me. I was a man, and even if my girlfriend had just tried to rip my heart out and stomp on it with that tiny balled creep–yes, I was going to keep fixating on how small his balls were because that shit definitely mattered. I mean, if you wanted to bake a cake, would you grab the little bag of flour or the big one? You’d grab the big one.
Either way, I was starting to wonder if I’d ever really given Annabelle the chance to rip my heart out in the first place. Could you really break someone’s heart if they never gave it to you?
Fuck if I knew.
“Anyway. I’m sorry my ex and your ex met, I guess,” I said. I raised my hand to wave, but Pearl hurried after me.
“Hold on,” she said, grabbing my wrist. Distantly, I noticed most of the crowd around the corkboard had cleared. Maybe it was the duo of janitors cleaning up what was left of Pearl’s vomit a few feet away, or maybe the drama wasn’t that exciting when it wasn’t your own significant other getting caught cheating. “The fake boyfriend thing. I could use one of those.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You could?”
“It’s my family,” she said. “They warned me over and over about Eric. I’m already going to be getting ‘I told you’ out the wazoo. As soon as they get tired of that, they’re going to try to set me up with this someone. They don’t think it’s possible for someone to be happy and single. The ideas are incompatible to them, and they’ll never stop trying to push some new guy on me, but I don’t need that right now. I don’t know if I could handle it. So, if they thought I was with somebody…”
Holy shit. I’d tossed that thing out as a half-hearted joke. But to tell the truth, maybe I was on to something. And if Pearl was game, it could be a win-win. “You’re serious?”
“I mean, if you are,” she said. “It’s not like we’d have to do anything, right?”
That simple question flooded my brain with a sudden and vivid image of me grabbing her by that braid and tugging it back to tilt her chin up to mine. I saw myself kissing her deep and hard, cupping that tight ass in her jeans with a big hand and pulling her into me.
I blinked. “Yeah. We’d never have to see each other. Just make excuses if anyone asks. You could say I work in another state. Who cares, right? All that matters is we are both in on it.”
“For how long?” she asked.
“Honestly? Fuck women. No offense. And not literally. I mean, I’m done with all of it. The good ones wind up realizing they’re better off without me, and the bad ones end up like Annabelle. It’s a loss no matter how I play, so maybe I just won’t play anymore. I’m yours as long as you want me.”
Her cheeks went red at that, and my cock–the little bastard–definitely noticed. Clearly, there was mutual attraction between us, but acting on it would be problematic for a number of reasons. One, I was supposed to take some time to clear my head after a nasty breakup, right? You couldn’t trust yourself when you were in a state like this. Two, I really meant what I said. Fuck women. Agreeing to a relationship might as well have been like agreeing to climb into a burning airplane with no parachute. It was going to end in flames, the only question was when. And last but not least, I was tired of the endless dance. Maybe I could just put my head down, focus on work, and actually enjoy life without wondering when my relationship was going to detonate.
“Okay,” she said quietly. “Same. I’m not looking to date again. I don’t think I could handle another Eric. It’s just not worth it.”
Definitely not, I thought. Not with balls that small. I stuck my hand out. “Then it’s a deal. Be mine,” I added with a sarcastic twist of my lips.
“I’m yours,” she said, smiling back as she took my hand and shook.
My cock twitched, as if it was a dog looking up at its owner to make sure it heard that last part–the part about treats. Easy, prick. You’re going into an early retirement.
Her hand was soft and small. I felt like I had to be careful not to break it, but I shook slowly, eyes locked on hers. “Oh, give me your phone,” I said. “I’ll put my number in. If anybody needs convincing that we’re together, just have them call me. I’ll play along with whatever.”
She fished out her phone–a silly little bejeweled case with one of those popper things to hold on the back. I flicked my thumb up and saw she had no password. “You don’t have a password on your phone?” I asked. “What if somebody gets it and finds your nudes?”
Her eyes went a little wider. “Uh, I don’t keep nudes on there.”
“Oh, smart.” I tapped the side of my temple. “You keep them somewhere safer. I like that.”
She didn’t reply as I navigated to her contacts and saved myself in her phone as “Sweet Cheeks”. I fired off a quick text to myself and wrote “Thinking of you” with a few heart emojis and a kissy face. I handed it back to her and she looked down at the phone and read, cheeks flushing again. “Really?” she asked.
“Hey, it’s just pretend, right?”
Pearl nodded, gave a little wave, and walked off toward one of the cubicle offices on the main floor. I watched her go and saw a woman rush up and start talking to her quickly. Pearl smiled, said something, and split off from the woman to disappear behind a fuzzy, carpeted partition.
I scratched my head. Just pretend. As in, I just had to pretend a very real part of me didn’t wish I’d sworn off women, because I was tempted as hell to give that particular one a shot.
And look at me making good decisions. I didn’t chase after her. I didn’t secretly make plans to seduce her now that I had her number in my phone. All I planned to do was put my cock on lockdown like it was 2019 all over again, go upstairs to meet with Pollard Marketing’s CEO in my exercise clothes, and get to work.
Except I pulled out my phone in the elevator and stared at the text I’d sent to myself from her phone. I grinned, then typed out a quick response. After all, wouldn’t it look weird if her “boyfriend” didn’t respond when she texted something so sweet?
I snapped a quick selfie of myself winking and smiling, then typed out my message below it. I grinned as I reread it and thought maybe I shouldn’t, but hey, how many good decisions was a guy expected to be able to make in one day?
4
PEARL
I rubbed my eyes, which still felt thick and dry. My computer screen stared back at me, almost accusingly. Why aren’t you working harder, Pearl? Why isn’t your assignment finished yet, Pearl? Don’t you want that promotion, Pearl?
I wanted to argue with that voice, but arguing with your own internal voices was not healthy behavior. At least that’s what I’d been told.
Of course I wanted the promotion, but my brain felt like a gas station burrito that just did a thirty second tour in a grease-splattered microwave. Molten hot on the outside, but ice cold on the inside. I was all over the place. Yesterday, I stumbled upon what I was now referring to in my own head as “The Crackening, 2022.” I hoped it wouldn’t ever be necessary to clarify to myself which crackening I was referring to, but you could never be too careful.