#AvailableNow~~Fluffy by Julia Kent
Sandy’s 4.5 Blush Review
First of all – I didn’t know what a fluffer was either!
The Oxford Dictionary says – In the pornographic film industry: a person employed to stimulate a male actor to ensure that he has an erection when required.
Learn something new every day. Well….Alrighty then….on to my review of Fluffy by Julie Kent.
Mallory has lost her job as a professional home stager. She is down to her last unemployment check, is about to lose her apartment and not a prospect in sight. Then a Craigslist ad catches her attention. “Professional fluffier needed. Four hours work. Cash paid at end.” Cash at the end? Just what Mallory needed so she responds and gets the job. It all seems great until she gets to the house and that’s where the comedy or errors starts.
She’s not needed to make the home sale ready beautiful. Her “client” is a huge, very naked man in need of keeping his “johnson” up and ready so he can perform in the porn movie being shot. Mallory is trying to get out of this slippery situation when the police show up.
The police. AND Will Latham is with them. WILL Lotham…my high school crush. Who is even more delicious now than he was then. Turns out he owns the house, he’s raging mad, thinks Mallory is part of the film and drugged out of her mind.
Things get sorted out but not before a very embarrass picture of Mallory ends up all over the internet. Their small town rumor mill goes crazy! Then Will offers her a way out of her present predicament. One month as a consultant for his company. If her skills help his homes sell then they both win.
Will is not the man that Mallory thought he was and now she has a chance to see it. Mallory is not what Will thought either. How these two move forward from the constraints of their past is the heart of Fluffy. Back in high school, Will was crushing on Mallory too but neither one said anything. Now is his chance and he’s taking it. Soon the working friendship evolves into more in a way that touched me.
Though at times I felt like “seriously? This chick cannot be this naive!?” I totally loved the Pretty in Pink and Sixteen Candles references. Julia Kent totally won me over. A high school reunion, mean girls, great friends, cooky parents, an EPIC kiss and a swoony male lead oh my! A winning recipe injected with plenty of laugh out loud humor.
I’m totally having a John Hughes marathon right now. ?
living. Real estate agents love me, and my work stands on its own merits.
decades. I didn’t even know there was a more… lascivious definition of the
term.
intervention. My last unemployment check was in the bank. I was desperate. Rent
was due. The ad said cash paid at the end of the day.
in making a certain kind of movie. Turns out a “fluffer” doesn’t arrange
decorative pillows on a couch.
helping other people to be hard.
movie set. Will Lotham – my high school crush. The owner of the house where
we’re filming. Illegally. In a vacation rental.
staging gig turned into a nightmare involving pictures of me with a naked star,
Will rescuing me from an arrest, and a humiliating lesson in my own naivete.
what’s easier than I ever imagined?
tonight. I have a date,” I blurt out, remembering David. The dating app. The
asshole who isn’t an asshole.
haven’t met him, so that judgment remains withheld.
Will asks, intrigued.
date. You know, that thing where you go out with someone who has no intention
of really getting to know you and you spend the entire time eating bread that
doesn’t taste as good as your date claims and trying to decide whether to
initiate rescue-text sequences with your mom.”
your idea of a date?”
actual experience of every date I’ve had since college.”
dating the wrong guys.” He holds my gaze for just a little too long. I look
away.
keep fishing in the pond if I ever want to catch a different one.”
the way you talk to your dates, I am beginning to understand why they all turn
out so badly.”
accuse me of being a bad date. I’m a great date! I Google the guy in advance
and read his LinkedIn profile. I make sure I don’t wear super-tall heels in
case he lied about his height on his dating profile. I pretend to care about
all his hobbies and don’t reveal that I’m secretly tallying all the
micro-aggressions he’s sending my way during appetizers and wine. And if he
makes it to dessert, well–” I falter.
it to dessert, do you?” Will asks, eyebrows up. He drops them quickly, wincing.
not that I don’t. He doesn’t!”
you?”
It’s just that he always has a thing.”
emergency. Or a dog with a twisted bowel. Or a grandma in the ER.”
guys used the twisted-canine-intestine thing?”
sit down and sag against his teenage desk, elbows sliding forward, fingers deep
in my hair. “I looked it up. There’s an entire subreddit devoted to inventive
ways to get out of a bad date.”
here you are.” He leans against the edge of his desk. “Trying again.”
masochist.”
gleam. “Maybe you should start your dates with that line. ‘Hi. I’m Mallory
Monahan. I’m a masochist.’ You’d definitely make it to dessert.”
writes romantic comedy with an edge. From billionaires to BBWs to new adult
rock stars, Julia finds a sensual, goofy joy in every contemporary romance she
writes. Unlike Shannon from Shopping for
a Billionaire, she did not meet her husband after dropping her phone in a
men’s room toilet (and he isn’t a billionaire). She lives in New England with
her husband and three sons in a household where the toilet seat is never, ever,
down.
