Man of the Year by Bianca Giovanni Page A

his blog, so I sneak out and stand on a box so I can look over the crowd and snap a few shots with my iPhone. There are easily two hundred people here and I’m glad that we’ve allotted at least an hour for the signing.
    As I look down at James, I can’t help but smile at the way he really pays attention to each person he meets, particularly the younger girls who seem nervous to meet him. He looks in their eyes, jokes with them to ease their tension and calls them “sweetheart” a lot. He’s such a natural flirt that every single one of them leaves with that fluttery look you’d see when a girl talks to her high school crush. A goth girl with black hair parted over her eye seems incredibly meek when he shakes her hand, but after two seconds, she’s giggling and kissing his cheek when her friend takes a picture of the two of them. This is how he’s always operated. It’s disarming. He can instantly make any girl relax and that’s been the foundation of all his sexual accomplishments. James Laird: Pussy Whisperer.
    I’m feeling a bit smug as the signing starts to wrap up. These girls all know James Langdon, the confident hottie who makes a girl drop her panties with just a hello. I know mild-mannered James Laird, the goofy dude who once texted me a picture of him wearing a leather duster with no shirt because he thought it made him look “way badass”.
    When we step behind the curtain, he graciously thanks Shawnna, who enthusiastically thanks him back. I can see why he likes her so much. She’s so outwardly warm and friendly, plus she’s proud of him in that “you did good, kid” kind of way he never got from his parents.
    As we’re getting ready to leave, a tattooed guy who was carrying boxes out to the front earlier comes darting over to Shawnna.
    “We’re out of the dildos and I’ve only got, like, three vibrators left,” he says breathlessly.
    “But there are more in the truck, right?” she asks.
    He shakes his head. “Not the Langdon ones.”
    “Shit, Kenny, I thought we brought two hundred of them!” she says, shaking her head.
    “We did, Shawnna,” he replies. “After he signed, they started selling out. One lady bought ten, said she was going to give them out at her friend’s bachelorette party. People are getting pissed. This one chick offered me $300 bucks if I’d sell her the one I was getting for another lady. I thought they were gonna go to blows over it, man.”
    “Alright, let’s start doing coupons, maybe 10% off for the inconvenience and send people to the site to order them,” Shawnna strategizes.
    “Ok, I’ll tell ‘em,” he nods, “but I don’t think they’ll be happy.”
    “I’ll be out there in a flash,” she nods before turning to us. “You two should probably leave out this way,” she says, moving the banner so we can slip out the side. “Don’t want to start a riot.”
    “Thanks, babe,” James says, kissing her cheek and taking my hand.
    “See you kids soon,” she smiles.
    When we've escaped the horde of horny ladies clamoring for all things James Langdon, I turn and give him a big grin.
    “What?” he asks.
    “She sold two hundred of them already,” I giggle.
    “Yeah, kid,” he says with a cocky smirk. “I don’t know how to put this, but I’m kind of a big deal. People know me,” he jokes, quoting Anchorman. “I have many leather bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany.”
    I laugh loudly and lean into him before tugging at his collar so he’ll bend down enough for me to kiss him without standing on my tiptoes.
    Maybe I’m ignorant, but I never knew there was such a market for sex toys. James has made a substantial chunk of money from these things—and I mean very substantial—and people are raving about them.
    I smile inwardly when I recall the day he went to go make the molds. I was getting out of the shower when he ambushed me in the bathroom and snapped a picture with his phone because he said he needed it for