"That's what family does," he says, patting my back. "You don't need to thank me for that."
Mom appears from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dish towel. She walks over and rubs my arm. "Let’s get together soon for some viewings," she says. "I'm excited about working with you." Her eyes land on the notebook in my hands and she chuckles. "I see he finished it."
"You knew about this?"
"He's been working on it since day three of his recovery. Kept asking me to help him remember movies we've watched." She shakes her head, smiling. "I didn't have the heart to tell him that most of those grand gestures only work in fiction."
"I don't know, he's got some solid ideas," I joke, tucking the notebook into my bag.
"Don't tell him that. He'll start charging for consultations." Mom laughs and pulls me into a hug. "Fly safely and call me when you land."
39
LIV
Chloe weaves through the sea of suits gathering for after-work drinks at The Merchant, her Hermès bag on her arm and her phone pressed to her ear. She's wearing a fabulous bright orange pantsuit, and her blonde hair falls around her face like a well-coiffed cloud.
The bar is packed with the usual Monday evening crowd—investment bankers, executives, lawyers. The Merchant caters to a specific type: ambitious, well-paid, and perpetually networking.
It’s not my favorite spot—the drinks are overpriced and the crowd skews too heavily toward finance bros for my taste—but it's exactly halfway between my office and Chloe's, which makes it our default meeting place. We've been coming here for after-work drinks ever since she moved to Goldman, always ordering the same thing, always claiming the same table when we can get it. It's become our routine, one of the few constants in our chaotic schedules.
Leather banquettes line the walls, already claimed by groups who got here early enough to secure the prime real estate.
"I don't care if the client thinks the projections are aggressive," Chloe's saying into her phone. "If they wanted conservative estimates, they should have hired their grandmother's financial advisor."
She sits next to me, still talking, and holds up one finger in the universal gesture for 'give me thirty seconds to destroy this person's will to live.' I sip my martini and watch her work, admiring how she dismantles whatever poor soul dared to question her analysis.
"No, the numbers are what they are," she continues. "We've run the models three times. The assumptions are conservative, not aggressive." She pauses, listening, then sighs. "Fine. Schedule the call for Monday, but I'm not changing the methodology because it makes them uncomfortable. If they don’t want to make money, I’m not the right person for them."
Chloe hangs up and picks up the martini I’ve ordered for her. "Sorry," she says, dropping her phone into her purse "Clients who think they know better than the people they're paying a small fortune to advise them. It's like hiring a heart surgeon and then questioning whether they really need to cut you open."
"The eternal struggle," I agree. "How was your day?"
"I survived." She leans back, her sharp edges softening now that she's off the clock. "Thanks for the drink. But why are these glasses so tiny?” She gestures to the waiter for another round before she’s even taken her first sip.
She knows we’ll finish our first round faster than usual, which means this conversation is going exactly where I was afraid it would go. Chloe has a tell when she's about to push me on something uncomfortable—she orders more alcohol, establishing that we're settling in for the long haul.
“Anyway,” she says. “Enough about me. How are you holding up, honey? Is Sailor still calling? Are you still ignoring her?”
“Blair,” I correct her. “And no. She stopped after I ignored the thousand roses she sent to my office.”
I told Chloe everything after I confessed to Emma. Chloe’s seen me drunk-cry over Andy at three in the morning and I've held her hair back after she threw up tequila shots following her own breakup. We're past the point of trying to appear dignified for each other.
Chloe’s eyes widen. "A thousand roses? Jesus Christ, Liv." She takes a long sip of her martini. "That’s bold. So are you finally going to call her back?”
"What? No, of course not." My jaw tightens. "Why should I?"
"Well, maybe you should hear her out. I mean, she’s clearly quite the catch and?—"
"No," I cut Chloe off. "Are you saying I should give her a chance just because she’s wealthy? Would you have suggested the same if she actuallywasa struggling personal trainer?”
Chloe holds up her hands. "Whoa, chill out. I wasn't suggesting you need a sugar mama. But maybe the woman was scared you'd think differently of her because of her wealth." She pauses. "Maybe she wanted to know if you'd like her just for her."
She squeezes my hand. “Look, I know you've been burned, but you've also been completely closed off since Andy. You don't let people in anymore."
"You're one to talk," I fire back. "You name your hookups after weekdays. Tuesday, the lawyer with the tiny hands, Thursday, the hedge fund woman who cried during sex because she was married and felt guilty, and let's not forget Monday, the bartender who you only kept around because she made good martinis."
Chloe lets out a bitter laugh and holds up her glass in a toast. "She made them a hell of a lot better than this one, that’s for sure. And yes, I'm emotionally unavailable, just like halfthe successful women in this city who've been screwed over by people they trusted." She meets my eyes. "It takes one to know one, Liv."
