Of course that asshat talks shit about my mom’s painting.
That painting was my ride or die. When my stepfather had unceremoniously kicked me out, I hadn’t had much with me. In order to survive until I could start college, I had sold or pawned everything I had owned, including the kindergarten graduation necklace my late grandfather had given me. The only thing I hadn’t sold was that painting.
It was also all I had left of my mom. She had loved the painting. She had found it at a thrift store and had impulse bought it because she said it made her feel like she was living an exciting life in New York. It held a place of honor in my various tiny dorm rooms and apartments over the years.
While I had achieved my mom’s dream of living in the city, my life wasn’t quite as glamorous as what the painting portrayed. But I was working on it! Or trying to anyways. I would get a lot further if Beck wouldn’t make snide remarks about the painting or generally make my life miserable.
Just keep it together. You can use his credit card to buy a crapton of baking supplies, maybe import that fancy Belgian baking chocolate and use it to make Milky Way cake! I haven’t made Milky Way cake in a while.
As much as it goaded me, I wasn’t going to stoop to his level. Why had I even thought he would be hookup material? He was clearly an alpha-hole billionaire just like I had originally assumed when I had first met him.
I focused on the food. There was a basket of brown crackers speckled with pepper flakes and a number of different bowls with dips.
The plates were super tiny. After building a tower out of several mini crab cakes, I chose a cracker and put a generous helping of the creamy New England lobster dip on it. The crab cake was amazing, and the flavors helped drown the douchery that was wafting off Beck as he discussed art with Ethel.
I really wanted some of that lobster salad. Picking it up, I took a huge bite of the cracker. It was a little tough, but now that I had put it in my mouth, I didn’t want to spit it out and spray food everywhere. Then Ethel would be like, “OMG, your girlfriend is so low class! I’ll never let you see your sisters again, Beck!”
I forced my jaw closed and, after a moment, was able to tear off a piece of the cracker.
It was chewy—super chewy. The lobster dip was amazing, though.
“Yes, I simply adore the artist Fang Fei,” Ethel was saying as I kept chewing and chewing, breathing through my nose as I worked my jaw.
“You know she’s branched out into home goods,” Ethel continued.
“I had no idea,” Beck said with polite interest.
“Yes. A friend of mine gifted me a set of scotch glasses and those coasters,” Ethel said, pointing to the basket of crackers.
Oh shit.
“They’re handmade,” Ethel told Beck, “and made out of a special type of cork only found on a particular island off the coast of Peru.”
Shit, shit, shit.
Did they know? Had Ethel counted the coasters and seen one was missing? Also, who the fuck leaves a basket of coasters next to the food? I mean, they looked like bread; they weren’t even evenly cut.
I looked down at the cracker, i.e., the coaster, that was on my plate and covered with lobster dip. I had finally chewed the coaster enough to swallow it, and I gulped my drink to make it go down easier.
Fuck my life.
What was I going to do? I couldn’t leave it on the plate. Whoever cleaned up was for sure going to notice a half-eaten coaster.
I picked it up.
Could I eat off all the lobster dip then toss the coaster somewhere?
“Another drink, miss?” the butler asked.
Not knowing what else to do, I nodded then took another bite of the coaster like it was the most normal thing in the world.
Beck looked over at me then to the basket then back at me, horror dawning on his face.
My boss bent down and hissed, “Are you eating a coaster?”
“No,” I whispered back.
“Yes, you are! Stop eating that. Spit it out!”
