“Okay. Here’s one he didn’t pee on.” She handed me an oatmeal raisin granola bar that was squashed on one side.
Not my favorite, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, especially if it didn’t have turtle pee on it. I scarfed it down while Nicole gave me sidelong glances that made me feel like I was eating a puppy. The girl was strangely possessive over everything she owned, which for some reason sparked a sense of protectiveness toward her.
Charlotte and three other interns came trailing up the sidewalk toward us. She wore a different pair of black boots today with several buckles up to the knees, a simple black skirt, and a plaid cap-sleeved shirt. The ends of her glossy black hair had turned a bright shade of purple that matched the eyeliner curling toward her temples. Yesterday, Janice had pulled her to the side to privately discuss toning her wardrobe down to blend in, to not make a spectacle, to fit inside a box. This must be Charlotte doing the exact opposite. I envied her courage.
“Lunch is on me today,” I said to reassure Nicole, then waved at Charlotte. “And ten o’clock snacks.”
Nicole finally looked away, the look of horror on her face fading, along with the oranges striping the sky. “We get paid our first check at the end of this week.”
A paid internship, here of all places, was a really sweet deal, even if it was just a couple hundred a week. “We should celebrate on Friday. Go out or something.”
“We most definitely should go out,” Charlotte said, her bootsclunking up the steps toward us.
Nicole traced a few of the numbers scrawled across her hand in the center of her palm with a gentle caress. “Maybe.”
“What she means is definitely,” Charlotte said, sliding in next to Nicole. “There’s a great country bar I’ve been dying to check out.”
I screwed up my face into what must’ve been a giant question mark. She didn’t seem the type. “As in country music?”
“As in cowboys,” Charlotte said with a wink.
Nicole smoothed the handles of her bag with a sigh. “Does it bother you guys that we’re being pitted against each other for a job?”
“Honestly? It takes some of the enjoyment out of it,” I said. “But this internship isn’t exactly what I expected. It’s only the second day and I shouldn’t complain, but I thought we would be knee-deep in historical documents and books, not practicing the proper way to put on rubber gloves and hold a pair of tweezers for three hours. I already know that from graduate school.”
Charlotte held up her hands as if to ward off any judgement. “And I’m sorry, but Janice’s mustache is ridiculously distracting.”
Nicole laughed. “I’ve read that mustaches are one of the many things to look forward to the older we get.”
“Awesome,” I said, wadding up the granola bar wrapper in my fist. “I’m going to start carrying around razor blades, one in each hand, to shave everything in sight. I’ll just explain to security that I have a deep-seated fear of anything hairy sprouting from my upper lip, and William will totally pass them through security, no problem.”
True, I did like the feel of the silky ends of my hair curled over my lip while I read, but a real one on my face? Nope, nope, and nope.
At the mention of William, a flush scattered between Nicole’s freckles.
“That’s why William was totally checking you out the other day,” I said and grinned. “You stood out because you don’t have a mustache.”
“Yet.” Nicole shook her head at the sky. “I don’t have oneyet. But it could be that the longer we intern here, the bushier our mustaches will eventually be.”
“Yep.” Charlotte hauled herself to her feet as other interns assembled on the stairs. “You’re both as nuts as I am. Let’s be friends.”
I looped my arm through Nicole’s, and with a shared smile, we pushed ourselves up for day two ofBattle Royale, library edition.
When Janice opened the staff entrance door for us, Rick slid past her to hold it open. Rick. Here. Again. His mouth stretched in a wide grin that highlighted the scars on his chin, and he’d color coordinated his gray eyes with his tie and pants. His dress shirt sleeves were rolled up to his forearms as if in preparation to don a pair of tweezers like the rest of us, but his presence tainted the magical building he stood in and instantly darkened the rest of my day. Why was he here?
When his gaze met mine, I blanked my face even though my pulse roared in my ears.
“A word, Paige?” he said as I filed past him inside.
I couldn’t contain my sigh, which caught Charlotte’s eagle eyes in front of me.
“Are you two old friends?” she asked.
“We go way back,” Rick said, as soon as the last intern shuffled inside.
Charlotte tipped up her chin, as if deciding whether or not to believe him. “See you in the cloakroom, Paige.”
“Yeah,” I said, my voice tight.
