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“I get it now,” she said, not bothering with a greeting when he finally answered after eight hundred million rings.
“Cassie? What time is it? Huh?”
“Sex. I get it now.”
“What?” Suddenly he wasn’t groggy any more, and she laughed, picturing him sitting bolt upright in bed. “You had sex?”
“No! I made out with a guy. Outside, against a wall. Ack—it sounds so juvenile.”
“Oh my God. Who was this guy?”
“That rich guy from the restaurant.”
“You made out with Ebenezer Scrooge?”
She kind of relished being the one with news for once. Usually these calls were about Danny relating his latest exploits. “Actually it turns out his name is Jack Winter.”
“Jack Winter of Winter Enterprises?”
“Um, I guess so?”
“He’s worth, like, a billion dollars, Cass! He’s always on those annual Canadian Business roundups of the richest people. He’s like the thirty-fifth richest Canadian or something. But no one really knows because it’s a private company.”
Danny had majored in business, and given that he wasn’t on the eight hundred million year plan like Cassie, he had spent several years working in marketing. He knew about stuff like who was the thirty-fifth richest Canadian.
“What does Winter Enterprises do?” Please don’t let it be something like killing puppies.
“Real estate development. Commercial buildings at first, resort properties now mostly.”
“That’s okay, right?”
“What do you mean okay? Are you going to invest? Have his babies? Do you need a background check to make out with him?”
“No! Stop asking me questions. I just made out with him once. It’s done.”
“Yeah, but you get sex now. The man singlehandedly makes you quote-unquote get sex, and that’s it? You’re throwing him over?”
“I was exaggerating. It was just that he was…”
“What are you trying to say? That he was better than Mark? Wait.” There was a theatrical pause. Cassie knew what was coming, but she let him have his fun. “Are you trying to say he was better than I was?”
“I’m saying I get what all the fuss is about now.” Sex used to seem to Cassie like just another complication. Going to school, working more than full time, the odd social event—it was more than enough. Why waste time fumbling around awkwardly with strangers when she could produce reliable, efficient results with her trusty Hitachi Magic Wand?
“Welcome to the human race, my friend. I’m just a little miffed that I couldn’t have been the agent of this wonderful revelation.” Danny was forever trying to push her at guys. He’d been advocating casual sex for years, and for years Cassie had ignored him, going home alone when he caught the eye of some handsome stranger at a bar on their nights out. “What did he smell like?”
What did he smell like? Danny was such a weirdo. “Um, scotch?”
“Scotch isn’t a smell; it’s a taste.
“It is too a smell. He smelled peaty.”
“Like a bog?”
“Like scotch! Peat and…lemon?” She surprised herself with that last bit. It was true, though she hadn’t been able to put her finger on the lemon part until she’d been pressed.
“So he’s like a lemon tree growing in a bog.”
She burst out laughing.
“Cassie, wait—you know how it works, right?”
“Yes, I know how it works, Danny!”
“I don’t mean how it works works, I mean condoms and stuff.” He paused. “And heartbreak.”
“I’m not an idiot. Use condoms. Don’t get your heart broken. That about cover it?”
“It’s just that you can be so innocent in some ways, Cass.”
“Gah! It’s not happening again anyway,” she reminded him. “At least not with him.”
“But he’s opened the floodgates, hasn’t he?”
“Mmmm.”
“Well, good. And remember, he’s not the only man in the world. He may be the only thirty-fifth-richest-person-in-Canada man in the world, but a girl can be too picky. The point is, the floodgates are open. Yay!”
Yes, Jack Winter had opened the floodgates. Opened them, ripped them right off the hinges, and splintered them into a million tiny pieces.
…
The next night Jack hardly spoke to Cassie. Thursday marked the beginning of the weekend in some ways, and the bar was much more crowded. He sat on the end stool as had become his new habit, tucked against the wall, but instead of a long stretch of empty stools between him and Miss Alana of the Ants, he was hemmed in by a trio of intoxicated lawyer types out for ladies’ night. Try as he might to work his way through another month of invoices, he couldn’t make his brain perform the necessary steps. So he gave up and turned his attention to the Wexler pitch. How he was going to get through it without Carl was another unanswered question, but at least the work was something he excelled at—figuring out how to get people to do what he wanted them to.
