Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 66330 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 332(@200wpm)___ 265(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66330 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 332(@200wpm)___ 265(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
“Did you get a sunburn?” she asked as I sank numbly into my uncomfortable chair. I’d noticed earlier that everyone else had a fancy ergonomic chair. Now I could barely feel the hard, uncushioned seat or the strange curve of the back that seemed designed to puncture the spine.
“What?” I asked, trying to rest my arms on the armrests before I remembered it didn’t have any. I crossed my arms over my chest instead. I could still feel my arms reaching out for Con, extending away from my body as if of their own volition.
He’d thought I was reaching out to hug him. That was humiliating, but not as humiliating as the truth. The truth was that I didn’t know exactly why I’d reached for him. Maybe it was only to hug him goodbye—a reflex that had become ingrained in me after four years in the sorority. But God, I wasn’t sure. It hadn’t been a conscious action so much as an uncontrollable impulse to touch him. If he hadn’t stopped me, who knows what I would have done next.
Likely, I’d have humiliated myself far worse.
“A sunburn. I think you got one. Your face is bright red,” Victoria observed, pointing the tines of her fork at me and waggling them. “You need to start wearing sunscreen unless you want to look like a leather handbag by the time you’re thirty.”
Lily, this isn’t a sorority. In the real world, you shake hands with someone to say goodbye instead of rubbing up against them.
Con thought I was a moronic, juvenile, child. That stung. But not as badly as him thinking that I was trying to rub up against him. Mostly because I was afraid that I was.
“It’s not a sunburn,” I finally managed to answer her. I wanted to put the backs of my hands to my cheeks to cool them, but Victoria was watching me too closely. I wished she’d go back to ignoring me the way she had all morning.
“Then what is it?” she asked bluntly, popping a bite of salad in her mouth and chewing intently, her dark gaze never wavering from my face.
I desperately wanted to confide in someone, but Victoria was the last person I’d trust with my secrets. I barely knew her, but I knew her type too well. She was interested in me right now because she sensed there was something of interest going on beneath this supposed sunburn. If I gave her an opening, she’d root around until she found something of value to bring back to the other women in the office. Then she’d try to trade my secrets for a lunch invitation, like they were social currency.
I said the first thing that came to mind. “Rosacea.”
Her nose wrinkled. She pushed back her chair slightly, as if it was contagious. “Ew. Isn’t there a cream for that?”
“Yes, but it’s not working right now.” I gave into the impulse to put the cool backs of my hands to my cheeks and smiled at her between them. It was my turn to root around. “Why didn’t you go to lunch with the others?”
I knew why. It was because they hadn’t asked her. Other than me, she was the newest to the office. This was clearly a hierarchical environment that factored in time served. It gave me a bad taste in my mouth, like I was going backward. I hadn’t dealt with a clique like this since high school. Despite what people thought about sororities being exclusionary, ours really had been inclusive. I’d been cocooned by friendship since I was nineteen. I never thought I’d feel the overlording presence of a queen bee again at twenty-three.
Victoria’s avid gaze flickered away as she chewed, swallowed, and speared another bite. “Someone has to stay here to watch the phones,” she said unconvincingly. I felt a stab of pity at the pinched, unhappy expression on her face. At least I was only here for two months before I rotated to a new division. This was where Victoria was trying to make her career, and she didn’t look much older than me.
“I’ll stay next time,” I said.
“I mean, yeah. That would be fair.” She crunched down on her salad.
I rolled my eyes and shifted in my chair, trying to find a comfortable position. That would teach me to be nice.
Nice. That was all I was being earlier with Con. Friendly. It wasn’t what he made it sound like. I felt my cheeks heat again, but luckily Victoria was too engrossed in her phone to notice. I heard his low, tense voice in my ear again, but along with the embarrassment, a thrill of excitement went through me at the idea. A small, distant voice reminded me that this was Halley’s dad I was thinking about “rubbing up against,” but that wasn’t how I thought about him anymore.