“You are.”
My brows furrowed. “I am what?”
“My man.”
Damn straight I was.
Chapter Nine
December 21st
Nellie
I’d spent the summer before college in Australia, learning to surf on Bondi Beach. The following winter, I’d taken a stab at ice climbing during an internship in Calgary . . . and promptly discovered that I wasnota fan of ice anything. I had visited nineteen nations, eaten international cuisine from around the globe, and even ridden a camel or two, all before I’d turned twenty-six.
I thought I had seen it all.
That was, until I saw my boss beating the crap out of a Fisher-Price dollhouse with a baseball bat.
“Take that, Debra,” Tabitha cried, bringing the bat down once more. “My.”Thwack.“Stuffing.”Thwack.“Isn’t.”Thwack.“Dry.”Thwack.
The dollhouse splintered in half, sending plastic toy furniture shooting off in every direction. I could practically hear the collective gasps of millennial girls everywhere.
“Now I understand the jumpsuits and goggles,” Holly, the office manager, mumbled. I had never seen Holly outside the confines of her desk, let alone dressed in a candy-cane-striped jumpsuit, wielding an ax. “Thank you for this, Janelle.”
“My pleasure.”
Shattering that plate at Austin’s place the other day had been the best thing that could have possibly happened to me. Strike that. Getting railed by Austin the night prior had been, followed shortly by a clean bill of health at the doctor’s office yesterday, which meant no more walking boot for me. But that broken plate had been a close third.
For weeks, I had been racking my brain to come up with an idea for the holiday hoopla, something elegant and luxurious, perfect, even. Something that I thought would match the partners’ lifestyles.
And then, it’d hit me. Maybe their lives weren’t perfect, after all.
Maybe, like the rest of us, they also had student debt to worry about and families that drove them up the wall. Maybe for them, the holidays weren’t so much a time to reflect on what had already happened as they were a reminder of things yet to come—deadlines, contracts, tax season.
Maybe they were frustrated—with their partners, their siblings, themselves. It was only natural. Those feelings didn’tjust disappear when you turned forty or found “the one” or got the promotion you desperately wanted.
It was a bitter pill to swallow, but thankfully, it went down well with a sledgehammer. Because nothing said Christmas quite like a roomful of lawyers going apeshit on the ghosts of appliances past.
Whoever had come up with the concept of a rage room deserved the Bennett Studios account more than I did.Rudolph’s Rage Roomwas something extra special. In addition to the typical office furniture, outdated appliances, and dishware, Rudolph’s also offered a holiday-specific room featuring Christmas trees, wrapped presents, and plastic reindeer, all of which were fair game for destruction.
Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker.
Just ten minutes ago, the entire staff had watched in equal parts awe and horror as Mr. Faison had smashed a landline phone to smithereens using nothing but an oversized lollipop.
Talk about a beautiful mess.
“It seems like everybody is having a good time.”
Holly smiled. “Are you kidding? I’m coming back next week with my friend, Jill. She just caught her husband slipping his package underneath her sister’s tree.”
I wonder what kind of juicy gossip Holly has on the rest of us.
“Janelle.”
My spine straightened at the sound of Tabitha’s voice. She had traded in her weapon and goggles for a bottle of water. Her normally well-coiffed bob was slightly askew. It was refreshing to see her like this, to know that she wasn’t the emotionless machine she often portrayed herself to be.
“I have to say, I was surprised when you came up with the idea of a rage room.”
