I start to cry. “You’re right,” I say, turning my face away from his gaze. “Nothing lasts forever.” Not even this perfect moment . . .
“Um, excuse me? Could you guys get off me, please?” the homeless guy underneath us says. We stand up, and Earl hands him a hundred-thousand-dollar bill as an apology. The man scampers off, as homeless people are wont to do.
“That was so kind of you, Mr. Grey,” I say.
“I can be kind . . . when I want to be.” That wickedness is lurking just behind every word he says.
I want him to save me from another hipster, to grab ahold of me, to kiss me. Kiss me, you arrogant man! But there are no other unicycling hipsters for me to throw myself in front of, no more homeless people to trip over.
“Anna, stay away from me,” Earl says, turning his back to me. What? Why is he saying this? He begins walking away, and then looks over his shoulder.
“I can be kind, but I can also be very, very cruel,” he says.
“I don’t care,” I say.
“Anna . . .” He pauses. “Good luck with your life.” He steps into his helicopter and flies away.
Tears are now streaming down my face. I guess I’m walking the fifty yards back to the Walmart parking lot.
Chapter Six
MY BOSS DIDN’T NOTICE I’d left work, so I finish out my shift. When I get home early in the evening, Kathleen is parked on the couch as usual. This time she’s watching Pretty Woman.
“What’s wrong, Anna?”
I try to walk swiftly past her to my room, but she throws the TV remote at my head, knocking me to the ground. “Ow,” I say, getting back up.
“Answer me,” she says. “Why have you been crying?”
“No reason,” I mutter.
“It was him, wasn’t it?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“Yes you do,” she says. “Mr. Long Fingers. Mr. Womb-Ticklers.”
I sigh. “Fine. Yes. I was at work, and he showed up. Just out of the blue. And he bought the company, and now he’s my boss. At least I think he is? It’s a little confusing. Anyway, we went on a romantic helicopter ride to Starbucks, and he knows so much about tea, and . . .”
“And what?”
“He saved me from some stupid Portlandia hipster on a unicycle.”
“And that’s it?” she says.
“Then he just told me off, like none of it meant anything to him.”
“What a jerk-faced jerk-face!”
“I know.”
“You’re too good for him,” Kathleen says.
I laugh. “Too good for Mr. Earl Grey? Please, girl.”
“No, really,” she says. “You’re hot property. I’d do you.”
“I think you did once,” I say.
“Oh yeah.”
“Anyway, I need to study,” I say, leaving Kathleen to her movie. I open my door . . . and find the handsomest man in the whole world, Earl Grey, sitting on my bed!
“What are you doing here?” I say. What a creeper!
“I could ask you the same thing,” he says.
“I live here,” I say.
“I bought the duplex from Kathleen’s parents this afternoon,” he says. “I’m your landlord now. So technically I live here too.” He pauses. “I heard what you said in the living room.”
“I knew you would.”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m not used to getting close to women I like.”
Aha! So he does like women.
“Here,” he says, handing me a package covered in Christmas wrapping paper.
“It’s not Christmas,” I say.
“It’s the only wrapping paper my assistant could find,” he says. “Don’t worry—I’ve already fired her for it.”
“Which assistant? One of your Barbie dolls?”
He looks at me, confused for a moment, and then says, “Now that you say that, I’m not entirely sure which assistant it was. I’ll fire them all when I return to Seattle, just to be sure.”
What a people person, my inner guidette whispers. I tell her to shove it. I take the present from him and begin tearing into it. “I’m supposed to be studying for my exams,” I say.
“Not anymore,” he says, smiling that wicked smile.
“What do you mean . . . ?”
“I mean, I bought Washington State University,” he says.
“But it’s a public university!”
“Not anymore,” he says, laughing.
The nerve of this insane, handsome man!
“You don’t have to take your tests—classes are canceled. Everyone will graduate with honors.”
Gulp.
“Finish opening the present, Anna.”
“Okay,” I say, peeling the last of the wrapping paper off to reveal a hardcover book covered in cloth. I’m too young to remember a time when print books were “a thing,” but Kathleen has shelves full of them. I open it to the title page: A Shore Thing by Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi.
“It’s Snooki’s debut novel. This is a first printing,” Earl says.
“How did you know I’m a Jersey Shore fan?”
“Let’s just say I had a hunch,” he says, glancing around the room at the half-dozen Jersey Shore posters plastered on the walls.
“This book is worth a fortune,” I say. “I can’t accept it.”
“You have to,” he says. “Please.”
It’s too much. I feel overwhelmed. First, he buys Walmart. Then, he buys my duplex. And then my school. And now, this . . . The book is over the line. I feel like he’s trying to buy me.
I toss the book at him, and he catches it. “I’m not a prostitute,” I say.
“Anna—”
I don’t give him a chance to finish whatever excuse he has prepared. I run from the room and grab Kathleen by the wrist. “I need a drink,” I say, slapping her in the face to wake her up and dragging her off the couch.
“I thought you’d never ask,” Kathleen says, slurring. We leave our duplex and our new landlord behind. What an insufferable, rich, handsome man!
Kathleen and I are pounding back Jägerbombs at Eclipse, our favorite watering hole near campus. Eclipse is loud, and the music drowns out my internal monologue so that I don’t have to listen to how attractive and desirable Earl Grey is. Kathleen called Jin as we left home, and he met us at the club in his tight-fitting My Little Pony shirt, the one that shows
