“Okay. Time to get fired by the hottest man I currently know.”
Emma snorts. “First, he is not that hot. Second, you’ve got this. Confidence of a mediocre white man, Lou!”
Arden and Jena are sitting at the lunch table when I walk in to deposit my drink in the fridge. I do my best to smile at them with both my mouth and my eyes. Emma said I’m getting better. I do not believe her, though I appreciate the support.
“Hey!” Arden says. Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes either, but her teeth are so white it’s easy not to notice. She’s only ever at the office one or two days a week. Both commission and working from home are privileges of seniority. And it only took fifteen years of being the biggest suck-up known to humankind.
“Come sit with us. We can chitchat.”
“Oh, thank you, but I have a meeting with Ellis.”
She pauses. Her smile takes on the quality of a no-loitering sign—all confidence and no reason. That’s not very charitable, I know. In my defense, the last time I triedto be charitable they conned me into a weekend MLM seminar that cost almost an entire paycheck.
The two main tenets of Ascent—the personal-development and self-help multi-level marketing scheme both Arden and Jena are constantly hustling—are that (1) only you can control your own life, and (2) only through a mindset shift toward abundance will you be able to save yourself and in turn save the world.
The secret third tenet is that, of course, Ascent alone can teach you to unlock that super-duper special mindset that’ll propel you to success and happiness.
I didn’t know this before I registered for the Ascent Discovery Weekend. Arden and Jena pitched it as taking control, making a difference, being the master of your universe, cracking that defensive outer shell to reveal the authentic you inside, etc.
Arden herself was one of the opening speeches on the first day. She has seniority there too, apparently.
“Victimhood is your shelter,” she’d said, a giant live projection of her face on the screen behind her. “It’s a second skin formed to protect against being accountable for your life. Shedding that skin will open you up to abundance. It’s only through this abundance that we’ll be able to change ourselves and through that, change the world.”
I did not feel empowered after. All it did was make me feel poor.
“That’s okay,” Arden says. “How about after? Frank talk: You never hang with us anymore. You can talk about your dog. We love your Riley stories.”
“Ripley,” I correct her. They don’t. To them, the only dog worth having is a goldendoodle with a two thousand dollar price tag. Definitely not a pit bull from a county shelter like Ripley.
The words “no thank you” are again on the tip of my tongue when I remember Emma’s advice. “Be nice. Socialize. Make sure they see you being a team player. Bosses love that shit.”
“Sure. If you’re still here when we’re done, I’ll join.”
“No backsies,” Jena says.
She’s the Theater Star Beta to Arden’s Girlboss Alpha and consequently gets a side glare from Arden for her sheer audacity to… speak? Exist? I flee the break room before I can witness whatever passive-aggressive dressing down Arden’s about to unleash.
I’m looking at my phone and not watching where I’m going when I run smack into a broad, immovable object. Large hands cup my elbows. For a brief, ecstatic moment I’m flush against a chest that smells like pine and campfire smoke.
“Whoa there.”
The immovable object is a man—Ellis Katsaros. Partner at the Katsaros and Curie Company.
Need an abandoned mall appraised for an impending demolishment or a tract of land in the middle of absolute nowhere assessed for auction? Want a real estate agent for your multi-multi-million-dollar mansion? Katsaros and Curie have got you covered.
His smile is sly. There are crinkles around his eyes. Hishair and beard are black, with faint impressions of silver. His skin is olive-dark. A nose that could have been chiseled from a Greek bust sits in the middle of his face.
I step back. His hands slip from my elbows and immediately I want him to put them back. Even better around my wrists, or if I’m lucky my throat. I’m so distracted by my face flushing hot with blood and poorly timed lust that I completely miss the words he’s just spoken to me.
His eyebrows quirk. He’s amused. He thinksI’mamusing. Not sure if that’s a good thing or not.
He repeats himself. “Are you okay? Didn’t jostle you too bad?”
“Oh. No, I’m fine. Sorry. I wasn’t paying attention.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Why don’t you pop into my office. I’ll be right there.”
With that, he’s striding away like his hands cupping my elbows didn’t just make me shiver from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.
