Free No Time Like Mardi Gras by Kimberly Lang Page B

he’d never put his name on The Ex Factor. Speculations—on Callie’s blog, the other sites that’d reblogged the story and the sites just commenting on the situation—were that the Ex-Man was Prince Charming.
    And since the Ex-Man had his own email address listed right there on The Ex Factor page, it hadn’t taken too long for his in-box to explode.
    That was how he’d found out about Callie’s article. He’d been tempted to pull down the article—if not the entire site—in retaliation, but that would only feed that speculation that Prince Charming and Ex-Man were one and the same. And it wouldn’t really accomplish much anyway now; the story was already out there, taking on a life of its own.
    No one had come forward with any information about Jamie, but it seemed there were plenty of women ready and willing to take her place in this freaky fairy tale. He had hundreds of messages, pictures, offers—some very scary, possibly-illegal-in-some-states offers—and his in-box probably contained more naked breasts than Bourbon Street on Fat Tuesday.
    If he wanted a date, he had his choice of women.
    It was more than a little mind-blowing. Callie had always insisted that he didn’t look like a typical geek, and he’d long fought against the stereotype, but stereotypes wouldn’t be stereotypes unless they had some truth to them. Women were often interested in him—until he told them what he did, and then they seemed to be put off by the worry he might be into freaky cosplay or quote Yoda to them.
    Added to that was the sheer number of hours he’d spent developing No Quarter while still holding down a job to pay his rent.... Well, there hadn’t been a lot of time available for dating anyway.
    So while he hadn’t lived the life of a monk, he wasn’t exactly master of the dating universe, either. And while he was semi-famous in the gaming community, he wasn’t exactly a celebrity, so the attentions of a horde of women were a little disconcerting.
    Even more so was the fact none of these women knew for certain who he was.
    And even if he did want the attention, now was not a great time. They were less than three weeks away from the release date, and his attention really needed to be on Dungeons of Zhorg.
    Eric was really the face and voice of Rainstorm—he looked the part, a perfect hipster geek who could enthuse with the very best of them, and the true geeks could relate to him better—so the PR was mostly on him. That kept him busy enough that Colin hadn’t seen him in days while he played the code monkey, troubleshooting and patching. It was a good distribution of labor—and one that he quite liked—but being trapped at his computer made the distraction of his in-box almost too much—like a train wreck he couldn’t not watch.
    If Callie had stopped to think for even a second before plastering his private life across the internet—however pseudoanonymously—she’d have realized her little article had the potential to turn into a freakin’ circus. And she, probably more than anyone, knew how much he hated the chaos. She’d been there in some of the worst times, when his mom was so depressed she couldn’t get out of bed or so manic she was bouncing off the walls, and he’d been left wandering through the rubble. She’d been the one to pull him out of his games and back into the real world, giving moral support as he tried to get it all under control.
    So the fact she’d intentionally created chaos in his personal life— especially at a time when he had plenty on his plate already.... Well, obviously she hadn’t thought it through—or else she simply didn’t care anymore and would do anything to bring publicity to her blog.
    They were supposedly friends these days, but with friends like that... Jesus.
    Around noon, he heard a quiet knock on his door. Figuring it was Elise, whom he’d promised to take to lunch, he didn’t bother turning around. “Give me five minutes.”
    “Five minutes is