The text swims in front of my eyes. “No.” The papers drop out of my hand onto the bedspread. Jaxon wants me to turn over Pepper to him, or he’s going to involve animal control.
“This isn’t happening.”
I had thought… Well, I had thought that if I just ignored the problem, it would go away. My stalker is trying to take my dog away. Pepper can’t survive in doggy prison. She is the poster child of spoiled pampered pooch.
It’s not fair. She was just trying to defend me. The panic grips my chest, and the room spins.
“You have this under control. We’re hiring a lawyer, see?” I pep talk myself as I type my PIN into my laptop. “We’re sending an email right now to the lawyer.”
The lawyer I found had a website with a smiling photo of a man in a suit. Sure he’s a little ick from the photos, but don’t you want a lawyer who is a little sleazy? Jaxon probably has a whole expensive law firm on retainer to come after me and Pepper.
Lauren walks out of the bathroom right as I hit Send.
“You know, you really screwed me over last night,” I tell her in my best big-sister voice as Lauren wraps my comforter around herself.
“You wanted me to study. It was like I had to take an exam. I shouldn’t have to study—I’m pretty! And you said I couldn’t even sleep with him. Besides, I had a magical evening. It was so worth it. I’ll meet your hot boss another time.” She yawns, her eyes drifting shut. “It’s better to make a man wait. They like to feel like they’ve won something when they finally get to sleep with you.”
“Meet him another time?” I drag the comforter off her. “No. No, no, no. This was your one shot, and you blew it. You almost cost me my job. He was so…”—forceful, possessive, freaking hot in that tux—“angry.”
My sister makes a pouty face.
“Honestly, Lauren, you refuse to go to college, you refuse to get a job. Your only plan is a man, and you can’t even show up for a date with a rich guy.”
“He can’t just be rich,” my sister argues, sitting up. “He needs to have low self-esteem. If he’s mad at you because I didn’t show up, it sounds like a lost cause. I need one of those freshly divorced older men in their fifties who want a trophy wife and will let me max out their credit cards.”
“Wow, you really don’t care at all that you put me in a bad spot.”
“Did you lose your job?” Lauren argues.
“No,” I hiss through clenched teeth, “but I could have, and I cannot afford to get fired.”
My sister flops over on her stomach. “Stop being such a nag. I’m going to get enough of that from Mom. I’m going to have to hear her say ‘I told you so’ today.”
“We all told you so. Now, get up and get dressed. You can’t go to sleep—we’re going to Mom and Dad’s house for dinner.”
“What do you mean, we have to go to Mom and Dad’s for dinner?” Her voice is muffled in the pillows. “You can’t call it dinner if it’s served at two in the afternoon.”
My younger sisteris dozing in the passenger seat of my rickety 1997 Camry. The front right headlight is held on with duct tape, you have to crawl in through the backseat because the passenger-side door doesn’t open from the outside, and the whole car is infested with ants.
Still, Salinger doesn’t pay me enough to buy a new car, especially if the only time I drive it is to go the couple of miles to work and to my parent’s house every Saturday.
I roll down the windows. The fresh ocean breeze from the bay is slightly tingly on my face. It’s a real struggle, but I’m doing my best to try and dissociate from the night before. Had I really worn that dress? With no undergarments? And had Salinger’s hands really been on my waist? And had he actually been staring at my cleavage?
It was probably because my boobs had been about to fall out of the dress the entire evening. He was probably just waiting for a chance to scream at me.
I know Salinger. I have worked with him for a while. I am not his type. There is no way he finds me attractive at all. I saw my reflection. “Stuffed-sausage casing” was an accurate description.
Though to be fair, because I’m trying not to be so negative about my body, my tits really did look hot in that dress.
We stayed ’til the bitter end of the party after the auction closed. Even though I’d drunk probably a bottle’s worth of champagne by that point to dull the anxiety, I wasn’t sleepy during the silent car ride back to Salinger’s penthouse, the oversized corgi painting wedged in between us.
The concierge of the building was waiting with a garbage bag holding my clothes. I accepted the bag while Salinger ignored me and answered a phone call from the Frankfurt office.
He didn’t offer to have his car take me back home, and I didn’t ask.
As I slowly drive up the winding residential road to my parents’ house, I fiddle with the radio then tap on the steering wheel and hum along.
“Gawd, stop singing. You can’t sing,” my sister complains as I pull up in front of the modernist brick house.
