“She just hasn’t met him,” Nick says to her, like I’m not even here.
“No, she hasn’t met her Nico.” With a warm smile, she brushes her hand against his cheek.
They’ve been married for sixty-two years, and still, he looks at her with pure affection and she touches him like she can’t help it.
That doesn’t seem like the worst thing in the world.
With a shake of my head, I focus on my food. Unlike Sutton, I don’t believe that a love like that is bound to find me.
THREE
SAVANNAH
Calliope’s Column
Why sex doesn’t have to involve love…
“Delete.”I jab the backspace over and over until the page is blank again. “Why I suck at writing sex columns.” I type the words into the headline with a roll of my eyes and delete that too. Stating the obvious won’t save this column.
When I arrived this morning, I found a calendar invite from Cat, my boss, in my inbox. The subject of the meeting she scheduled for Monday? The Calliope column. The writing is on the wall. If I don’t come up with something brilliant before then, she’s gonna can it.
Josie showed me the ad revenue from the last quarter, and my low numbers mean it’s more difficult to attract ads. If the numbers don’t change, there’s no softening the blow. I’ll be out of a job.
“Fuck.” With a red painted nail between my teeth, I bite down. I can’t lose this job. Unlike my friends, I don’t have family around to help while I’m in flux. I left home at eighteen and never returned. My mother calls me for money after she spends all her earnings at the casino or the bar.
One would think a woman who’s worked in a casino for twenty-five years would know that the house always wins. She swears themoney she spends is an investment because eventually one of the big spenders at the tables will fall for her, and then she’ll be set for life.
Maybe if she had even one redeemable quality outside her still slim figure and oversized breasts, someone would be interested in more than a weekend.
I certainly couldn’t spend more than a couple of days in her presence. Fortunately, she doesn’t guilt me into coming home for the holidays or anything like that. Oh no. She’s always got plans, and in the four years I’ve been in Boston, she hasn’t made the trip to see me once.
My apartment might be small, but rent is high in this city. Without this job, I’d be lucky to hold on to it for three months.
Unease swirls in my stomach.
Nope. We’re not going there. I cannot return to Vegas.
“What am I going to write about?” I say aloud.
“What a great question.” Josie pops up on the other side of the half wall of my cubicle, a bright smile on her face. “And I happen to have an answer.”
One thing I love about Josie is that even though she grew up around immense wealth, her style doesn’t scream traditionalJolielike every other girl in this office. Most of the women here are the definition of a pick-me girl. They wear the most expensive designers and go broke doing it. Josie, on the other hand, loves thrifting. She couldn’t care less who made a piece, as long as she likes it. Right now she’s wearing tight purple leather pants few people could pull off with a cream fringe vest over a black leotard. Her strawberry-blond hair is pulled to the side in a loose French braid, and the pretty freckles dotting her cheeks and the bridge of her nose act as a better blush than any I’ve seen on the market.
I wave her into my cubicle. “Don’t just stand there, talk.”
Every bit of wall space around my desk is covered. One wall has an oversized calendar where I keep track of every plan Addie makes for us. And her games. Since it’s her last season in the PWHL, we’re even more dedicated to going to as many as we can.
The opposite wall is adorned with Post-its in a variety of colors, each with a random idea written on it.
I glared at them when I sat down this morning, frustrated that not asingle one sparked any kind of motivation to write. The other wall is plastered with pictures of me with the girls over the last few years.
The newest addition is a photo of the four of us jumping off the pier in Monhegan, Maine. It’s from this summer, when we stayed at Sutton’s parents’ cottage for a long weekend.
It’s taken from behind, and my ass is ginormous in comparison to the other girls, but still, I love the image. The water is ice cold even in August, but Sutton acted like it was warm.
Josie hops up on the edge of my desk, tugging her oversized turquoise bag onto her lap, and pulls out a photo album. “Last night after you girls left, I was searching for a book in my dad’s library, and I came across this.” She holds up the green leather album and wiggles it.
I roll back a couple of inches. “Listen, I know they aren’t biologically your parents, but if that is like a couple’s boudoir photo shoot or something, then I’m gonna side-eye the shit out of you.”
