The Perfect Score

He held out his hands, hoping he demonstrated just how much he didn’t understand what she was talking about.

Steph sighed and rolled her eyes. “Straight guys are just plain dumb,” she said. “Obviously, she already has someone in mind to play stud.”

“Or she’s just not attracted to me.”

Steph shook her head. “No way,” she said, loyally. “You’re irresistible.” She crossed her arms over her chest and cocked her head. “No, the only reason our little friend wasn’t playing Flirt Girl with you is that she’s saving up for someone else. So your job, my friend, is to convince her she’s got her eye on the wrong guy.”

“Uh-huh,” he said, beginning to wonder if he wouldn’t have been better off keeping his mouth shut. “And exactly how am I supposed to do that? Chocolate? Roses? Get her drunk and screw her brains out?”

“Not a bad plan,” Steph said, without skipping a beat. “But I think your best approach is to just ease your way into her life. Find out who she’s going after. And then make sure you’re in position to fill in the gaps if her plan stumbles.”

“And why would it stumble?” he asked.

“Who knows why these things go awry? But if she’s already in the mind frame of seduction. And if you’re already in her life. Well, then, wouldn’t her natural reaction be to turn to you?”

“You’re devious. You know that, right?”

“Oh yeah,” she said. “I know. The question is, am I right?”

He thought about that. About getting close to her. About the fact that Mattie Brown was the kind of woman he’d enjoy hanging out with. Talking with. Taking long walks with. And, of course, he’d enjoy running his hands over her naked body and driving her positively wild. That was a given.

But the friendship aspect? Yeah, he wanted that, too. And if by being her friend, he could be her lover…

His fingertip slowly traced the rim of the margarita glass. “Yeah,” he said slowly, after he’d thought it all over. “Yeah, I think you’re right.”

I HATE PRESSBOARD. THAT fake wood with veneer on it filled with packed sawdust that weighs umpteen million pounds.

So far, I’d managed to chip the corners of two pieces, strip the screw-hole out of a third piece, and mutilate my toe by dropping yet another piece right on it. All in the name of a lateral filing cabinet I didn’t want for a job I didn’t want.

Honestly.

And I was all the more irritated because my sister had called earlier, just to say “Hi,” she’d said. But when I’d told her about my furniture dilemma, she’d immediately launched into a narrative about how her boss had insisted she not work at home. He wants her to have a life, he said. And to make sure she was comfortable whenever she did have to work long hours at the office, he gave her an astronomical furniture budget and told her to go for it.

Even in furniture, Angie wins out. I tell you, it’s enough to drive a girl batty.

I shoved thoughts of my sister out of my head, and instead focused on the mess in front of me. What I needed was help. Immediately, an image of Mike filled my head. Nice Mike. Cute Mike. Mike with the awesome upper body.

I shook myself. Bad Mattie. Bad. Bad.

Still…I did need to get that margarita glass back. And if he asked me what I was doing—and if I told him I was having a heck of a time assembling some furniture—and if he offered to help me out…well, who was I to say no?

Having thus justified seeing him one more time, I stood and headed to the door. I paused to check my face and hair in the mirror I keep hanging there, decided I looked respectable if not awesome, and pulled open the door to reveal the man himself.

“Mike! I was just coming to see you!”

He held up my margarita glass. “Desperate to get it back?”

“No, of course not,” I said, even though that had totally been my planned excuse. “I, um, was hoping you could give me a hand.” I stepped back from the door and ushered him in.

He brushed past me, glanced around, then turned to face me directly. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but did a sawmill erupt in here?”

“Very funny.” I plucked the glass out of his hand. “Will you help me if I offer to fill this back up for you?”

He flashed me a grin, charming, but with a hint of mischief. “With an offer like that, how could I refuse?”

Since I’m not a fool, I immediately slapped an Allen wrench into his open palm and pointed him toward the instructions (balled up under the television stand where I’d kicked them in a fit of pique.) He scored points by not even looking at me funny as he bent to dig them out.

I retreated to the kitchen to make the margaritas.

Not that retreated really describes it. The apartment is only about seven hundred square feet consisting of a big rectangle filled with a living area, a dining area and a kitchen area, pretty much all open to each other unless you’re standing way back by the fridge.

Between the dining area (carpeted) and the kitchen area (tiled) were two stairs leading up to a tiny bathroom on the left and a decent-size bedroom on the right. That’s it. End of grand tour.

It’s not much, but you’d think differently if you saw the check I wrote every month. Studio City doesn’t come cheap.

All of which is to say that even though I couldn’t see Mike the whole time, I could hear him. And it felt nice and cozy—and scarily domestic—to be working in the kitchen while he was shuffling pieces of wood and muttering to himself.

Since making margaritas requires little more than dumping ice and alcohol into a blender and pressing On, it didn’t take me too long to whip up a batch. Even so, in the short time that I was gone, Mike had managed to assemble an entire base section of the cabinet.

“Wow. You’re good.” I handed him his drink then sat on the floor next to him, looking at what he’d accomplished in only a few minutes, compared to the nothing I’d accomplished in hours.

“Call it a guy thing,” he said, then he flashed that grin again. I really like that grin, and I felt my stomach do one of those flip-flop numbers.

I turned away, suddenly feeling shy. “So, um, what can I do to help?”

“Just keep bringing the margaritas. I’ve got a handle on everything else.”

“And you’re sure you don’t mind?”

He looked up at me, and I felt warm and tingly all over. More, I knew that he was telling me the absolute truth when he said, “No. I don’t mind at all.”

And so that’s how it happened. He worked and I sat there watching him. Watching and sipping and serving margaritas as the two of us got more and more tipsy.

“So how come the sudden need for new furniture?” he asked later. By this time he’d finished assembling (in about one-bazillionth of the time it would have taken me), and was kicked back, leaning against my new cabinet, a margarita loose in his hand.

Technically we still barely knew each other. But we’d spent the last hour chatting in close quarters, and there was something about him that made me feel as though we were old friends. It was a nice feeling; one I hadn’t experienced with a guy since high school, actually. And I told him the ins and outs of my job. “I know I have a good deal, so I hate to gripe. I mean, my checking account is nice and full. But my ideas? They’re starting to dwindle. It’s like I’m losing touch with some spark of creativity.”

I took in a breath and let it out slowly. “It’s scary. But being jobless is scarier still. Especially if you were raised in a family like mine where the mighty paycheck is king, the power job is emperor and social prestige is God himself.”

He watched me intently while I told all of this. Not in a way that made me uncomfortable, but as if everything I had to say was important. And when I finished, he was nodding a little. “I know exactly what you’re going through,” he said. “It took all my courage to quit my day job and start freelancing. Hardest thing I’ve done in my life.”

“But it’s paid off for you,” I said. “Right?”

“Absolutely.” He’d told me earlier a bit about what he does—designing computer games and writing the script for them and everything—and he’d become less geeky in my eyes. I mean, writing scripts was what I wanted to do.

“So do you think I’m being a coward?” I asked. At the same time, I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted an answer. I realized that I valued his opinion. If he did think I was foolish for sticking it out with John, what would that mean? Because I didn’t think I had the courage to chuck it with John Layman Productions. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But at the same time, the thought of Mike thinking I was acting like an idiot bothered me a lot more than I’d expected. Or, honestly, wanted to admit.

Lucky for me, he didn’t criticize. Instead, he just said that everyone has a different path to get where they want to be. “So long as you can see the path—and so long as you don’t let that creative spark die—then you’re on track. But at the same time, you have to keep your eyes open for places where the path veers. Otherwise, you could end up missing the exit that leads to the job you really want.”

“Love the highway analogy,” I said, teasing. But I was happy he hadn’t called me a fool. I kept my thoughts to myself, though, because I was calling myself an idiot and a fool and a coward. I’d stopped seeing the path long ago, and had been working simply for a paycheck for years. That burning desire to sell a screenplay was still burning in my gut, but it was as if I was stymied in how to go about it. Burning out from the inside. The idea terrified me, and yet I didn’t know how to turn the situation around.

I didn’t tell Mike that, though, for fear he’d think less of me. And for reasons I didn’t want to analyze, I really wanted him to see me in a good light.

So I did what I always do when I want to avoid an issue—I changed the subject.

“Well,” I said, standing up, “you’ve earned your margarita by assembling the thing, but if you want to earn a meal to go with it, you’re going to have to put some muscle into it.”

“Yeah?” he said, grinning at the challenge in my voice.

“Doesn’t do me much good in the middle of my living room,” I said. “And I’m too weak and fragile a female to move it all by myself.”

That earned me a guffaw, and I liked him even more.

“Okay,” I admitted. “Not weak and fragile, but slightly tipsy and definitely lazy. Does the code of chivalry require that knights come to the aid of drunken maidens?”

“Absolutely,” he said. “So long as the knight is equally drunk.”

“I guess you qualify, then.”

He downed the last few ounces of his margarita, his eyes never leaving mine. “Yes, ma’am. I guess I do.”

“Right.” I cleared my throat, fighting the warm fuzzy feeling growing in my tummy, and trying to convince myself it was alcohol induced and not related to the man. He was, I reminded myself, perfectly good friend material. But for a slot on my boyfriend list? Nope. Not a possibility. Mike was far too Dex-like, and that was a well I didn’t intend to drink from again.

“So,” I continued. “Um, how about moving it over there?” I pointed toward my very cluttered desk and the space on my floor now occupied with scraps of paper related to various John Layman Productions. And, of course, a dozen fan magazines. Won’t do for a Layman exec not to know all about the up-and-coming celebs.

While Mike got a grip on the cabinet, I scurried over and shoved all that detritus out of the way. He hoisted the thing himself, turning down my request to give him a hand, then worked it across the room.

“Wow,” I said, once it was in place. “You’re a handy guy to have around.”

“Lucky for you I live right across the hall,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said, feeling warm all over. “Very lucky.”

Our eyes met, and it was one of those moments you read about in romance novels. Unfortunately, I didn’t want that kind of moment because he was friend—not fling—material. So I cleared my throat and looked away, and then he did the same, and suddenly we were out of romance novel land and into the world of awkward reality.

Gee, what an improvement. Not.

When he’d turned from me, he’d ended up facing my desktop, and now he pointed at a stack of papers. “What’s this?”

I peered toward him and saw the pile of Cullen’s mail. Immediately, I blushed. Stupid, because Mike couldn’t know (at least not for sure) that I thought he was cute or was fighting warm fuzzies in my tummy. And he also couldn’t know that I thought Cullen was hot, and I was currently concocting a plan for nailing him.

But stupid or not, I blushed, and then I stammered as I covered, explaining that I was bringing in the mail for our neighbor who was off in Aruba at the moment.

“Right,” Mike said, nodding thoughtfully. “The guy who lives there.” He pointed to my western wall. “He’s some sort of model?”

I nodded and shrugged at the same time, trying to convey careless indifference. I also tried not to look at Mike, but I didn’t do a very good job. I don’t know why I suddenly felt so ridiculous—as if the idea of trying to hook up with Cullen was the goofiest idea ever conceived on the planet—but I did. And I felt all the more embarrassed because Mike was there to see me wallow in my own idiocy.

Honestly, the man was wreaking havoc with my emotions. And my confidence. And my self-control.

If he was going to be my friend—and I really did want him to be—I was going to have to learn to pull myself together. At the very least, I was going to have to avoid alcohol around him. I mean, surely it was the margaritas making me so stupid. What else could it be?

I realized he was looking at me, his expression thoughtful, as if I were a puzzle he’d just solved. I wasn’t sure I liked that, so I got up and started moving around, wishing I could take back the last few minutes. He got up, too, and I had the odd feeling that he wanted to rewind, as well.

I started gathering all the various tools and bits of trash left over from the assembly project, and after a few seconds Mike bent down to help me. “You keep feeding me margaritas,” he said. “I feel like I should do something in return.”

I gestured at the file cabinet. “Um, I think you did.”

“You’re right,” he said dryly. “You still owe me big-time.”

I laughed. “True enough. How can I pay up?” The second I said the words, I regretted them. There’d been something buzzing in the air between us earlier, but I really wanted to ignore that.

“I could use some assembly-type help myself,” he said. “Maybe tomorrow evening?”

“You’re kidding, right? You saw the mess when you got here. If you need something demolished, I’m your girl. Assembled, not so much.”

“What I need is someone to help me hang some shelves. Takes about three hands, and unfortunately, I’ve only got two. All you’ll have to do is stand where I tell you and hold something still. I think even you can handle that,” he added wryly.

“Oh, thanks. Thanks a lot.”

We shared a quick grin, and then he said, very casually, “I’m also a whiz at ordering pizza, so I’m happy to feed you. And maybe we could watch a movie, too.” He pointed to one of the framed movie posters I have hanging in the corner by my desk, this one of William Powell and Myrna Loy in The Thin Man. “I take it you’re a fan of classic movies?”

“Oh yeah. And especially The Thin Man series. Sophisticated comedy. They just don’t make them like that anymore.”

“No, they don’t,” he said, a little distractedly. “Why don’t we watch that movie?”

“The Thin Man?” I asked. “That would be terrific. I heard they finally released it on DVD, but I haven’t gotten around to buying it. Are you a fan? Do you have a copy?”

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