I assumed that was his way of asking me to step aside so he could take the next customer.

A few people were milling around at the other end of the counter, so I went to join them and proceeded to do what everyone else was doing: look down at my cell phone. Fisher had texted a few minutes ago.

Fisher: Good luck working on the marketing today. I know that’s your favorite part!

I texted back.

Stella: Thank you! I’m nervous but excited.

He then sent me a picture of a man from the newest dating site he’d joined. The guy wore only a pair of tight, gray boxers. His smile was nice, and he had good hair. But when I panned down to the rest of him, my eyes bulged. Now I knew why he’d sent it to me. Another text arrived underneath.

Fisher: You told me to stop picking men by their abs and look for a genuine smile. That thing is definitely smiling. ;)

Stella: That can’t be real…

I lifted my phone closer and zoomed in on the bulge. No way was that all him. The guy had to have a banana stuffed in there somewhere. No, forget that, it was definitely a zucchini. Did penises even come in that size? Surely none that I’d ever seen.

A deep voice over my shoulder startled me.

“And to think I start my morning off by browsing The Wall Street Journal…”

I jumped, and my cell phone tumbled from my hands, hitting the floor. I bent to scoop it up and scowled. “Oh my God, why would you sneak up on me like that?”

Hudson chuckled. “How could I pass up interrupting when you’re watching porn?”

“I’m not watching porn.” I felt my face redden. “My friend sent me a picture of a guy from a dating site.”

He looked skeptical. “Uh-huh.”

Embarrassed, I tried to convince him it was the truth by holding up the phone to show him—only to realize I’d been zooming in on the guy’s dick. “No, really…”

Hudson held up his hand to block the view. “I’ll take your word for it. Thanks. But I’m glad to see you and your friend are both focusing on the important qualities in a man.”

I shook my head. Awesome. I kept making one good impression after another with this guy. I sighed in defeat.

“Simone!” the barista yelled.

I heard him, but it didn’t click at first.

“Simone!”

Shoot—that was me. I stepped up to the counter and retrieved my coffee and muffin. Hudson was shaking his head when I returned to where he stood.

“What?” I asked.

“A new alias?”

“The kid who took my order wasn’t listening when I said my name.”

Hudson gave a skeptical nod. “Right.”

“No, really.”

He shrugged. “What reason would I have to not believe you?”

I rolled my eyes.

“Hudson!” The barista yelled.

Hudson smirked. “He seems capable of getting my name right.” After he grabbed his coffee, he nodded toward the door. “You heading to the office?”

“Yeah.”

We walked out of the store and down the street side by side.

“Your daughter is absolutely adorable,” I said. “She cracked me up without even trying yesterday.”

Hudson shook his head. “Thank you. She’s six going on twenty-six and has no filter.”

“She sings beautifully, too.”

“Let me guess, Dolly while sitting on the toilet?”

I laughed. “‘Jolene’. I take it this is a frequent occurrence?”

“The toilet and the bathtub are her preferred performance venues.”

“Ah,” I said. “That’s probably because of the great clue sticks.”

Hudson smiled unguardedly. “Indeed.”

A homeless woman sat in front of the building next to ours. She had a shopping cart full of cans and bottles and was rolling change from a plastic cup into paper coin wrappers. At our building, Hudson opened the door for me.

“Can you…” I dug into my purse. “Hang on one second.”

I left Hudson holding the door open and walked back to the woman. Extending my hand with what I could offer, I said, “I’m sort of broke, too. But I want you to have this.”

She smiled. “Thank you.”

When I returned to Hudson, his forehead was wrinkled. “Did you give her money?”

I shook my head. “I gave her my Hershey bar.”

He looked at me funny, but nodded before pushing the button for the elevator.

“So are you a big country-music fan?” I asked. “Is that where your daughter gets her love of Dolly?”

“Nope. And neither is my ex-wife or anyone else we know. She just heard one of Dolly’s songs on the radio in the car once and liked it. She started singing the parts she could remember at home and then took it upon herself to ask her singing teacher to teach her the full song. Now it’s the only artist she sings. She knows a dozen Dolly songs by heart.”

“That’s awesome.”

“Last year for Halloween, when all the other little girls wanted to be Disney princesses, Charlie wanted her mother to stuff socks in her shirt and buy her a platinum wig.”

“Wow, going platinum and stuffing. It’s like she’s thirteen already.”

Hudson groaned. “I don’t even want to think about that.”

We got into the elevator together to ride up to the offices. The minute the doors slid closed, a familiar smell invaded my nose. Instinctively, I leaned toward him to get a better whiff.

Hudson raised a single brow. “What are you doing?”

“You have a smell on you that isn’t cologne, body wash, or shampoo. I’m trying to identify it.” Sniff. Sniff. “I know it. I just can’t place it.”

“I’m guessing you’re the type of person who has an incessant need to know the answer to a problem. Will it drive you crazy if you don’t?”

I sniffed again. “It absolutely will.”

The elevator dinged, indicating our arrival on the fourteenth floor. Hudson held out his hand for me to exit first and then unlocked the door to the office. Once we were inside, he walked around the empty reception desk and flicked a bunch of switches to turn the lights on.

I waited on the other side. “So what’s the smell? Some kind of a lotion, maybe?”

Hudson smirked. “Nope.” He turned and began walking into the back with long strides.

“Wait… Where are you going?”

He spoke without turning. “To my office to work. You should try doing the same.”

“But you didn’t tell me what the smell is.”

I heard him chuckle as he continued to walk. “Have a good day, Simone.”

 

***

 

Olivia and I spent the morning going over some initial advertising plans, but her marketing manager really wanted to see how things worked in action. So I took them over to the lab that would be producing the perfumes and brought along a sample kit to show them the process each order would go through. I loved how excited they were to learn more about the product.

After we’d finished, Olivia had to go to a meeting, and the marketing manager was heading to meet a friend for a late lunch, so I stuck around the lab for a while before grabbing a train back to the office.