Epilogue Olly
I nodded at Keaton to give him his cue. He stepped forward and nodded to the clients with a smile that only lightly betrayed his nerves. The well-fitted suit he was wearing made him look like he knew what he was talking about even if he wasn’t sure.
It also made me think about ripping the suit off his body – but that was just me.
“This is our mockup of what the footage will look like,” Keaton said.
He pressed the small button in his hands that controlled the projector and it began playing the video he’d made up.
The video was like all of the clips he’d made for us.
Thoroughly professional even when it didn’t need to be.
He always made videos that were release-worthy even when it was just a pitch.
Making him my video pitch specialist had been the smartest thing I ever did.
Sponsors who wanted video content were now seeking out our athletes specifically to work with him.
He was making the kind of name for himself as a commercial director that made me worry one day he’d want to strike out somewhere else.
Maybe alone. Maybe even into real filmmaking.
I would have to follow him if he did. I knew that now. I couldn’t be apart from him for any real length of time.
It had been two years and he still hadn’t moved out to sit with the content creation team. He still worked from my office. We’d had to put a new desk outside for our joint secretary.
But if he wanted to branch out then I wouldn’t stop him. This was a real talent he had. Maybe a once-in-a-generation talent. Ace was due for a promotion but there was nowhere left for him to go. It would be easy for me to step aside.
I was ready – whenever it finally happened.
“That’s incredible,” the client said. The pitch had finished playing and Keaton faced them now with a confident beam. “And you can do this with all three of the stars? I understand that one of them is signed with the Coleman Group, not you.”
“We work very closely with the Coleman Group,” Keaton informed him happily. “We’ve already got pre-approval from Caleb Coleman himself to go forward. You only have to pay once; we’ve agreed to split the fee between us after the fact.”
I knew from the look on the client’s face that they were sold.
The rest of the meeting seemed to drag on interminably now I knew that it was over anyway.
I kept glancing at Keaton and thinking about going home tonight.
As soon as we were done here. I thought about the new sheets we’d bought for the master bedroom.
How cool and luxurious the satin was against our bare skin.
“Well, I think we’re all in agreement here,” the client said, looking at me expectantly.
I put on my professional smile and nodded. “If you’re ready to sign,” I suggested. I gestured to the documents our secretary had written up earlier.
We were finally home within twenty minutes and it still wasn’t fast enough.
“You were excellent in there,” I told Keaton as we stepped through the door.
“Excellent, was I?” he chuckled. He loosened his tie as he kicked off his shoes and I drank in the sight of him hungrily.
“Radiant,” I said. “Exceptional.”
“I was nervous as hell,” Keaton said. “I’m glad they signed.”
“They all sign,” I reminded him as I hung up my coat on a peg. “Once they see your videos.”
Keaton waved a hand as if I was wrong. The pink on his cheeks didn’t lie. He was pleased by my compliments.
“It’s your pitches that turn them around,” he said. “They want to work with the best agent in the world. It’s nothing to do with me.”
“Oh yeah?” I waited until he was over the threshold of our entranceway and standing in the living room. “I’d like to turn you around.” I pounced and grabbed him around the waist. I spun him to face me and kissed him hungrily like I’d been wanting to kiss him all day.
“Mr. Harvey,” he said. He was all mock incredulity and disapproval. “How unprofessional!”
“You want me to do this like a professional?” I asked with a grin. “I hear they go for hours on the sets. You should know. Filmmaker.”
“I don’t make those kinds of films,” he said with a laugh and squirmed out of my grip. He headed for the stairs.
“Maybe you should start,” I suggested – and ran after him up the stairs. He yelped and ran for his life to the bedroom. He allowed me to catch him and throw him onto the bed. I crawled over him and tugged at the buttons on his shirt. “And you can start by losing this.”
“Yes, sir,” Keaton said and began wrenching his clothes off so eagerly I could only laugh – and join him.
It was only when I was deep inside him that the moment came over me as quick as the closing of shutters. I looked down at him in my bed and I knew. I would never be as happy as I was at this moment. This was it: the peak of my life.
Maybe that implied it was all downhill from here.
But there was something about Keaton’s smiling and writhing face below me that promised it wasn’t.
“Keaton Dunbar,” I said breathlessly as I came to a solid stop. I held myself over him on my hands.
“What? Don’t stop!” he half-yelled. “What is it?”
I swung my eyes over his form one more time. He was kissed by the sun streaming through the windows. Drops of sweat flecked his skin as he panted for breath. He was as gorgeous as he had ever been.
“Marry me,” I said.
He stared at me for a long moment.
“Will you keep moving if I say yes?”
“Yes,” I promised him with a grin. I gave an evil flick of my hips from side to side just to reinforce it.
He groaned long and low before opening his eyes and locking them with mine. “Then yes,” he said. “Just don’t ever stop like that again!”
And my future husband’s wish was my command.