Calendar Girl (April) Chapter 1: Mia Meets Mason, and I Have Fun With Alliteration

This Friday is the last day to sign up for our used book club to get the first book! We’re gonna send out a used book (that we actually like!) quarterly to members, and the end of this week is the deadline to get one in January! Take a look!

Calendar Girl (April) Chapter 1:

Mason is terrible. Let’s just get that out of the way quickly. Not terrible like the main character is inexplicably smitten with him while we all stand on the sidelines making angry comments about this, but terrible in the way that we’ll probably find out he has a heart of gold later and Mia will help bring it to the surface as a friend and/or lover.

“Well, hey there, sweet thang,” were the first words out of his sexy assed mouth. Too bad the words, along with the way his eyes traced over me sent my temperature rising…and not in a good way. Mason Murphy leaned against a limo. He had aviator sunglasses, coppery brown hair, and a smirk that probably melted panties of all his baseball fans. Fortunately for me, I’d been around several hotter than hot men the last few months and wasn’t impressed.

I held out my hand. He pursed his lips, pushed his glasses on top of his head, gracing me with stunning green eyes. They were as dark as emeralds and just as pretty.

“What, no kiss?”

I narrowed my brows, cocked a hip, and crossed my arms over one another. “Seriously? You’re going with that?”

His head shot back and he pulled his glasses off his head than proceeded to dangle the end of one side in his mouth. Again, he looked me up and down. “Feisty. I like a girl that’s a bit of a challenge.”

He gets handsy with Mia too and points out she’s an escort, and she’s like, “I am an escort who literally escorts you to things” as though it’s weird he missed the memo on this one, but she is definitely in the right for setting him straight.

Mia undermines herself a bit by constantly telling us how sexy he is, but she makes sure to be disgusted with him when he offers her champagne – before noon! – or when he tells her she’ll “get into the swing of things,” as he pretends to swing a baseball bat (lest we forget he’s a baseball player) without a hint of humor.

I smiled knowing I won that round. “I may have been hired to be your girlfriend for the month, but I’m not your whore.” His eyebrows drew together. “Having sex with a client is optional on my part and not part of my contract. You should have read the fine print, buddy because you’re about to find out what a month of celibacy looks like.”

His mouth dropped open, shock the prevailing response. “You’re fucking kidding?” he smirked.

We find out later this chapter that his PR people hired Mia, but you’d think they would have made this fact clear to him if they were doing their jobs properly. That seems like a glaring oversight.

Mason looked at me, an unidentifiable expression on his handsome face. “Then what do you propose we do sweetness?” [Note: I am very angry there is not a comma before “sweetness” I feel I must draw attention to this.] He grinned, his eyes glancing along my legs and up over my chest to finally land on my face. The words were nice but lacked sincerity.

“First, you stop calling me sweetness.”

He jumped in before I could continue. “Shouldn’t a man have a nickname for his girl?”

I pinched my lips together to think about it. I supposed he was right. “Perhaps, if the way you said it didn’t sound so douchey.”

I really have met quite a few douchebags in my day, if I do say so myself, but I cannot recall any of them speaking like this. It does not read like the douchebags of our time.

Despite this, Mia again tells us how horny she is and how she’s getting wet for this guy! Can you believe it? I’d actually have more respect for Mia if she just slept with him to satisfy her needs AND get the extra money.

Mia steers the conversation to regular getting-to-know you topics, and Mason transforms into a person capable of sounding normal.

I have to tell you this, but I am actually really frightened that Mason and his three brothers will get a spin-off romance series where each of them will find love. They sound suspiciously like the Maddox Bros, especially since their mother died of cancer when they were younger. If we find out later that her dying words were about her boys finding love, we’re doomed.

Mason nodded. “Yeah, Brayden bartends and goes to community college during the day. Got a chick knocked up right out of high school.” I cringed. “Bitch left the kid with him and ran off.” My mouth dropped open and I gasped. How could a woman abandon her own flesh and blood? Then again, Mom did the same thing. Still, hearing it happened to some other child boils my blood. “So Bray lives with Dad and his daughter Eleanor.”

This is obviously who the second book would be about (after Mason of course.)

Eleanor. “That’s an old-fashioned name,” I offered.

He smiled and looked out the window wistfully. “Yeah, it was after our mom.”

“Are your parents separated?”

He shook his head. “Nah, Mom died ten years back. Breast cancer took her young. So it’s just been us guys for a long time.”

To Mason’s credit, he does not respond with a sarcastic, “Yes, by death,” which I immediately did when I read Mia’s very very stupid question. Why would he respond that way about the name if his parents were separated? Read the room, Mia. Mason resumes his misogyny immediately after this display of humanity. Referring to a vagina as a “snatch” is always gross, but particularly so two seconds after talking about his mother’s death.

When they get to Mason’s house, we meet Rachel, Mason’s PR representative. Right away, Mia figures out that Mason and Rachel are into each other. I suppose Mia’s purpose here will be to help these two find their way to each other. I can’t say that I am excited to read this.

For some reason, Mia feels the need to confront Rachel about her interest in Mason, which she quickly denies. Ooooh Mia has got you figured out the way I have got the plot for this book figured out! We’re all good at this.

She nodded mutely and then her eyes widened suddenly. “No! What? Um you have the wrong impression. I merely have a professional relationship with Mr. Murphy.” She ended her verbal diatribe with a firm crossing of her arms and mighty pursing of her lips.

“I just wanted to make sure that you both were briefed for tomorrow. It will be your first public appearance as a,” she cleared her throat and pushed a long strand of blonde hair behind her ear. It didn’t stay, slipping delicately down her jawline once more. Again, Mason’s eyes were riveted to her, to that piece of hair as if he wanted to touch it, be the one to push it back, caress her skin. His hands gripped into the meat of his thighs. “As uh, a couple,” she finished. “You’ll need to make it look realistic. Hand holding when outside of the stands, small touches, smiling…erm,” she cleared her throat and winced as if it pained her to finish. “Kissing, that kind of thing. Do you have any problems with that, Ms. Saunders?” she asked.

Oh man, this must be torture for Rachel! This sure has turned out to be a crazy set of circumstances Mia has found herself in. Mia accuses Rachel of being the one who isn’t okay with the kissing, and as a professional, Rachel is horrified, but I bet as a woman in love she is tortured. She quickly focuses and tries to explain to the readers why this whole situation makes any sense.

“The team has spent long hours planning this. We understand it’s an unconventional approach, but Mr. Murphy has not presented the public with an idol people look up to. Along with some other things, he’ll need to change the frequent bar brawls, excessive drinking, even the occasional cigarette is a no-go. The team believes that the horde of women he’s paraded around all last season, never being seen with the same woman twice did very little to help his image. We’re committed to turning that around and you’re step one.”

Why not just start with drinking less? You would save money 1) by not hiring a $100,000 escort and 2) by not buying booze. That seems like the sensible solution.

Mason whines about how he’s fucked up, and Mia comforts him. Then Mason kisses Mia, and she forgets all about Rachel and just gets super into the kiss. When they break apart, Rachel has left. Maybe it’s because she’s jealous, or maybe because her work here is done.

Mia asks Mason about liking Rachel but he doesn’t take the bait. This book is really weird.