Fuck. They were all so screwed.
Five
Thea stared at the paper in front of her until her eyes unfocused and the black digits blurred into ants crawling across the page. No matter how many times she ran the numbers, they didn’t work. She slapped her hand on the center of the page, shifting her gaze to her ruby-red nails. She couldn’t afford a house, but shecouldafford a manicure. Time to try out a new color. Beige, maybe. Pale pink. Something safe and soothing.
The chirp of the phone jolted her out of her nail-care fugue, and she tapped her Bluetooth earpiece. “105.5 FM, how may I direct your call?
“You may direct yourself to the buzzer because I’m pulling in with your Monday pick-me-up lunch.”
Thea’s stomach growled in response. She hadn’t stopped for breakfast that morning, so Faith’s timing was perfect. “On it.”
“See you in three minutes.”
She yanked off the earpiece and dropped it next to the phone, setting the calls to go to voice mail for the next thirty minutes. When Faith Fox’s tall form appeared on the security-camera feed, Thea held down the button that unlocked the door and allowed her friend to push it open with her shoulder. She hurried around the reception desk to grab one of the carryout bags and peeked inside. “Soup. Oh my Godyes.”
“Bread too. Can’t have soup without fresh bread. Conference room?”
Thea nodded and led the way down the hall, stopping to snag the paperwork sitting on her desk. She and Faith settled into one corner of the long, glossy table and unpacked their lunches.
“Thanks again for the delivery.” She talked around a mouthful of minestrone. “We should do this more often.”
Faith grimaced. “I wish we could. But no offense, babe, more time for lunch means things at work are slow. I love you, but I’d rather be too busy to leave the office.”
Faith nibbled at the edge of her baguette, expression tense. She worked at an educational nonprofit that was always on the brink of running out of funding, so busy was better in terms of keeping the lights on.
“How ’bout that state funding?” Thea hadn’t seen her friend for almost a month while Faith had been wrestling with Beaucoeur BUILD’s budgetary needs.
“Still writing letters to our rep.” Faith dropped the bread onto her napkin as if it had offended her.
“You’ll figure it out. You always do.”
“I do, don’t I?” She gave a breezy toss of her blue-streaked white-blond hair, and they both laughed.
Thea had been Faith’s biggest fan since they’d been paired up during the dissection unit in sophomore biology class. Back then, Faith was the prototype rich girl, polite and preppy and tightly wound. But just before college, she’d told her overbearing parents to go to hell, ditched her country club wardrobe, and started carving out her own path. Thea still admired the hell out of her for that bravery.
Faith tapped a finger on the printout resting between them. “What’s this?”
“Oh, nothing. Just thedeath of my dreams.”
Faith gave her a “lower it a notch, drama queen” look and picked up the proposed budget. “Ah. The princess house.”
“The princess house.” Thea propped her chin on her hand and watched as Faith’s eyes skimmed down the rows of numbers. Her friend was the only person in the world who knew why she wanted that house so badly; she hadn’t even discussed it with her mom. Every time she visited, her stepdad was hanging around, badgering her about one life shortcoming or another, which wasn’t exactly conducive to sharing childhood real estate fantasies. And she wasn’t even sure her mom wanted to hear them in the first place. The laughing Carly who’d been married to Lee Blackwell was night-and-day different from Peter Johnson’s brittle, agreeable wife, and it left Thea feeling like the only person on earth who remembered her dad.
Actually, that wasn’t true. Aiden remembered him. His generous mouth had curved in sympathy when she’d told him about the fairy tales her dad had spun for her, and he’d shared a memory himself, giving her a piece of her dad that she hadn’t had before. Emotion caught in her throat, and she swallowed hard.
“Hey, ladies. Can I crash?” Mabel Bowen, the station’s morning-show cohost, stood in the doorway with a lunch sack and a big smile.
“Sure!” Anything to chase away her melancholy. Amazing what a powerful bite grief had, even decades after her father’s death.
“No boyfriends allowed.” Faith lifted a brow. “It’s girl time.”
Thea’s smile froze on her face. Her oldest friend and her newest one didn’t know each other well, but when they were together, it always felt a little like letting a pair of alpha dogs sniff it out. They were each gorgeous and confident in their own way, leaving her feeling like the nervous diplomat between two nuclear powers.
Mabel floated into the room, unconcerned. “Jake got stuck on a conference call with some kind of numbers emergency, so it’s a man-free zone today.”
She claimed the seat on the other side of Thea, who was now surrounded by blond glamazons. She bet their feet always touched the ground no matter how tall the chairs were. Lucky bitches.
“We were just figuring out how Thea can afford her dream house.” Faith slid the sheets across to Mabel, who set her partially unwrapped sandwich back down.
