Free Love on the Rocks (with Salt) by Charlene Ross

on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition
this year. We both have green eyes, and we are both women. Of course I’m not an
emaciated lollipop with a boob job, and we have different color
hair, but other than that…”
    “ Touché,” Tom says to me, tipping
his hat.
    “ Zing. She got you there, buddy,”
Bill says. “I’m gonna like hanging out with you.”
    “ I haven’t decided if you guys get
to or not.”
    Tom looks at me with those deep brown eyes and
says, “You’re feisty. I like that.”
    Oh my God. Tom may have quite the ego, but he
is so sexy. Feisty. No one has ever called me feisty before. I was
just trying to be funny. I don’t know if I can keep all this
feistiness up.
    I see Natalie walking toward us. I might have
to kill her. She’s so beautiful with her blonde hair, pale blue
eyes and perfect figure. And she’s not wearing a cowboy
hat!
    “ Hey, Tom. Hey, Bill. It didn’t
take you two players long to swoop down on Laney. You can smell new
meat a mile away.”
    “ Natalie is the friend you’re
waiting for?” Bill asks.
    “ Yeah,” I say, a little confused.
“How do you all know each other?”
    “ From the clubs,” Bill
answers.
    “ The clubs?”
    “ Sure,” Natalie answers. “You go
to a different club every night of the week. You get to know the
people. I bet these two spotted you the second you walked in the
door. They’ve probably got a bet going to see who gets to go home
with you tonight. Don’t be too swayed by Tom’s looks. Bill’s
smarter and funnier. And he makes a hell of a lot more money. He’s
a screenwriter. Tom’s a writer too, but unless things have changed,
he hasn’t sold a script. How is it you pay the rent, Tom? Painting
rich women’s toenails?”
    My head is spinning. I don’t know where to
start. Do they really have a bet over who gets to sleep with me?
Should I be flattered or insulted? And a different club every
night? How do they get up and go to work the next
morning?
    Trying my best to sound feisty, what I manage
to say is, “You’re a pedicurist?”
    “ I’m a writer. My day job is
massage therapy specializing in reflexology. You’d be surprised
what you can find out about people’s health by massaging their
feet.” He says this in a way that makes me want to rip my boots off
so he can show me exactly what he specializes in.
    “ Oh,” I reply. So much for
feisty.
    I don’t know whether I should be grossed out
or intrigued. Who doesn’t love having their feet massaged? But
maybe this guy is some creep with a foot fetish.
    “ Come on,” Natalie says to me. “My
friends from work are over there.”
    As Natalie grabs my arm and pulls me across
the floor, I turn to Tom and Bill and thank them for the drink. Tom
winks at me, and my heart melts a little. Arrogant or not, that guy
is sexy.
    I met Natalie when I moved into her apartment
building after Kyle and I split up four months ago. She’s an
assistant at a small record label, and this is my first night
tagging along with record-industry types. Other than the multiple
piercings, tattoos, and of course the cowboy hats, they don’t look
much different from the people I work with.
    “ This is Laney’s first time
clubbing in Hollywood,” says Natalie.
    “ You have got to be kidding,” says
her friend Jasmine. “Did you just move here?”
    “ I’m originally from Thousand
Oaks,” I answer. “I lived with my boyfriend for about five years in
the Valley, but we broke up a few months ago. We never went to
clubs on the Westside.”
    Jasmine and Natalie’s other friend, Holden,
exchange a look that confirms my worst fear: I am a total loser who
has no business being here. I should take off this stupid cowboy
hat and get my lame ass home. I look past Jasmine and Holden for
Mr. Pearl Snaps—maybe he’d like to take me.
    “ So, what do you do, Laney?”
Jasmine asks me.
    “ I design wedding dresses at a
shop on Rodeo. I’ve designed a lot of dresses for