Trophy Husband by Lauren Blakely Page A

French fry into
the ketchup. “When you finally gave me your last name and well –”
He stops himself, shifts gears a bit, then resumes. “And then when
I did and saw you were this big Web personality...”
    I laugh once. “Hardly.”
    “Anyway, I added you to my
RSS feed and started watching your show every day, even though, I
have to say, I’m not into fashion. But I watched it because…” his
voice trails off again, and I want to fill in the gaps. I want to
script what’s unsaid. Because you thought
I was cute too? But I can’t let myself
hope. Hope leads to disappointment. “And then when you talked about
the dates you went on and how they flopped, that’s when it hit me.
I could send you some of my viewers. Because they’re young and
hopefully somewhat cool.”
    “And I’ve gotten pictures from about five
hundred of them!”
    “And I’m sure some of them are dorks like
most guys are, but you never know, right?”
    “There were some good ones in the crop it
seemed.”
    He pretends to blow on his fingernails, the
sign for being too hot to handle. “Damn, maybe I am good at this
matchmaking thing.” Then he becomes serious and asks, “So I have to
ask, is this for real?”
    “For real?”
    “Yeah, for real. I mean, it’s funny. Don’t
get me wrong. I think it’s a hilarious storyline. But it’s a
storyline, right? It’s a game and all, but are you actually going
to go through with this?”
    “What do you mean, go through with it?” I
ask, dodging the very thorny question of will I say “I do.” Because
for me, frankly, this isn’t about the “I do” portion. It’s about
the trophy aspect. It’s about the catch. And, I suppose, what
landing such a prize might say about me. That I can move on. That I
am over Todd. That he’s not the only one who wins.
    Chris takes a bite of his chicken sandwich,
chews, then says again, “Yeah. Are you really looking for a Trophy
Husband?”
    I furrow my brow and pretend to be all
thoughtful. “Hmmm…I’ve always thought a pool boy would be nice.
Even a cabana boy.”
    He laughs. “So it’s kind of a joke.”
    “No. My ex-fiancé left me at the altar last
year for a college student he met and married in Vegas the night
before our wedding. He’s thirty-four and she’s twenty-one now, and
I think it’s royally unfair that men can do that and women
can’t.”
    He puts the sandwich down and looks at me
intensely. Seriously. “Your ex-fiancé is a complete asshole for a
million reasons, but most of all because he’d have to be crazy to
leave you.”
    “Thank you. Thank you for saying that.”
    “It’s his loss, McKenna,” Chris says in this
kind of fierce tone that makes my stomach execute a few
loop-de-loops. Is he flirting with me? How do I even flirt
back?
    I do what I do best and turn the questions
back on him. “What about you? Maybe you should be a Trophy
Husband.”
    He laughs.
    I look at him pointedly, my eyes open wide.
“Well, why not?”
    “Well, um…” he stammers. He seems slightly
uncomfortable. My cue to keep going.
    I egg him on. “After all, you encouraged
your viewers to throw their names in the hat. Maybe you should too.
Maybe you could be a Trophy Husband, Chris.”
    He starts blushing, his cheeks turning a
faint shade of red.
    “You’re blushing!”
    “Yeah, well…”
    “It’s kind of cute actually.”
    “Thanks, that’s what I was hoping for. Cute
blushing.”
    “You don’t like the sound
of cute blushing ?”
    “It’s not very manly, now is it?”
    I soften a bit. “Why are you blushing?”
    “I just don’t think I’m Trophy Husband
material,” he says, kind of sweetly, a little innocently.
    “Well, why not? Are you already a
husband?”
    “No, that’s not it.”
    “So what then? You could be a prize catch,
Chris,” I say, and he smiles.
    Actually, it’s more like a grin.
    “I appreciate that. I really do.”
    “Well?”
    He sighs, then puts his
hands on the table. “I don’t think I meet