“Calm down! I’m here visiting my bestie.” My stepsister waved a hand glittering with expensive jewelry at Cressida, who was standing next to her.
Cressida raised an eyebrow.
“I can’t believe you’re sleeping with your boss,” Shannyn drawled, looking at her nails. “Though that’s totally on-brand for you. You had a crush on our art teacher in school and stalked the poor man.”
“No, I didn’t!” I said, indignant. “That was a rumor you made up because you’re an awful person!”
Maeve grabbed my arm. “Come on,” she urged. “Let’s go see if Holly can replace your lunch.”
“Oh, that was yours?” Cressida asked in feigned innocence. She smirked. “I thought it was garbage someone was leaving in the fridge, so I threw it out.”
My eye was twitching. “You threw out my pasta…”
“Oops.”
Maeve hauled me out of the break-room kitchen before I could strangle Cressida in a fit of anger.
“She’s here to ruin my life,” I said as Maeve pushed me into the elevator. I leaned over, resting my hands on my knees. “I thought I was never going to have to see her again, and here she is.”
“Just focus on work,” Maeve said, rubbing my shoulders. “And the pasta.”
“I need something stronger than pasta.”
“Holly,” my friend called, waving when we stepped off the elevator. “It’s an emergency. She needs a plate of pasta, stat!”
Holly quickly made me an order and slid the piping-hot plate in front of me.
“This is chili mac ‘n’ cheese with chorizo,” she said.
“Thanks,” I said, taking a bite. “I’m spinning out. My sister is totally after Beck.”
“Then she and Cressida can fight over him.”
“What if they’re working together?”
Holly picked up the fork and stuffed another bite of pasta in my mouth. “Breathe,” she instructed. “It’s not like Beck is going to put together a harem. At a certain point, those two are going to turn on each other. It’s going to be King Kong versus Godzilla. The two apex bitches are going to tear each other to pieces.”
I took a deep breath. Holly handed me a blood-orange soda. Maeve fanned my face.
“We are calm. We are enlightened. We are loving our pasta.”
“For someone who got laid on Friday—” Holly began.
“And Saturday,” I said automatically.
“And Saturday, you sure are wound up!”
“What if he thinks he made a mistake?” I fretted. “What if, now that he’s slept with me, he feels how I feel after eating a whole bag of off-brand Cheetos? It seemed like a great idea at the time, but then later on, you’re like what was I thinking?”
“He’s probably thinking about how much he wants a repeat,” Maeve assured me.
“What if he’s thinking that now that he’s got it out of his system, he’s going to find a real wife?”
“I thought you weren’t dating him or falling in love. It was just a hookup.”
“Right,” I said, the cheese slowly lulling me into a warm, calm state. “Right. It is just a hookup. Beck is a boss with benefits. I don’t care what he thinks of me. I’m not marrying anyone. As if I want to be some spoiled billionaire’s wife. I’m purely in it for the sex. Otherwise, I can’t stand the guy.”
Right?Right?
