“Aurora.”
I startle out of my thoughts and whirl to face Bart, who’s just appeared by my desk.
“Yes,” I say automatically.
And I swear he knows what I’ve been thinking about, because Bart has the audacity to shoot a smug little smile at me.
“Getting ready for the auction?” he says. He runs one hand over his hair and puffs up slightly. “Any thoughts on what kind of date you want to take the lucky man on?”
“Not so far,” I say with a sweet smile as I blow his head off with the laser beams shooting from my eyes.
“Just ask the boss’s brother to come,” he says, and his smugness turns into something sour and grudging. “You two seemed to be hitting it off.”
Ah. I see.
I suppose Bart wouldn’t like it if someone else played with the toy he’d recently set down, especially if that someone was Roman—more attractive, more of a leader, moreeverything.
No worries there, Bart,I think as regret stirs in my chest.For better or worse, I sunk that ship.
In fact, that ship is about to disintegrate at the bottom of the ocean, because tomorrow will be my last day at Roman’s. He wasn’t there on Wednesday, and I haven’t heard if he’ll be around tomorrow.
I want to ask, but I don’t know if I should. There’s no point, and it might be better to have no expectations anyway. I’ll get paid, and that’s all that matters.
“That’s all that matters,” I repeat to myself.
“What?” Bart says.
I blink at him, my brows furrowing. “Are you still here? Did you need something?”
He just rolls his eyes, mutters something under his breath, and then drifts irritably away.
I, meanwhile, look at the clock on my computer screen and ignore the skeptical glance of the girl next to me—who, yes, always seems to catch me talking to myself.
“Two more hours,” I say. “Two more hours, and then the workday is over.”
“Ay-men,” the girl next to me says, and I nod.
“Ay-men.”
AURORA
Because Juliet is totallyfine with impracticality, she parks her car in the parking lot of my office building and then rides with me to the dress shop in downtown Boulder.
“I just think it’s cozier,” she says happily as she rolls her window down and shuffles through the playlist on her phone. “Riding together.”
She’s right—and it doesn’t hurt that she has good music on her phone. Earth, Wind & Fire begin to play, and as she turns the volume up, she begins to sing along.
Juliet sings and dances and does everything with complete abandon, and there’s something freeing about that, about being around her; her presence gives me permission to live that way as well, even if just for a few moments. So I sing too, the windows down, until it’s difficult to hear anything over the rushing wind.I don’t need to look at her to see her dancing in her seat, which pulls a smile to my lips.
It feels good. It feels so good, finding joy in tiny moments.
The drive from my office to the dress shop isn’t long, but it’s enough to rejuvenate me after the workday. I smooth my hands over my ponytail to make sure everything is more or less neat after having the windows open, and then we enter the shop and head straight to the back.
“There she is,” Juliet says, beaming at the rack of red dresses as they come into view. “Hello, beautiful.”
“Let’s see if they’ve got my size.”
We search the tags with practiced hands until we’ve grabbed two for me to try.
