Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 95609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 478(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 319(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 478(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 319(@300wpm)
Chapter Two
“So you start Monday?” Ivy looks at me across the table, a glass of Pinot Noir in her hands. Ivy Jensen is one of my two best friends. She works in the tech sector and is in the middle of a huge comeback project with her boyfriend, Heath. He’s the coder, though she’s damn good at it, too. Ivy is also excellent at running a business and raising funds.
We’re sitting in a bar in an upscale hotel in the middle of the Upper East Side. Not my usual neighborhood, but we attended a party thrown by Ivy’s mentor earlier this evening, the fabulous CeCe Foust, and a debrief had been required. Hence this swanky bar and overpriced drinks.
I live in what passes for an “apartment” in Greenwich Village. It’s more of a room with an even tinier room attached, so they can say there’s a full bathroom. I wouldn’t use the word full in association with my place, but it’s home and I mostly work.
“Yes, she starts the mystery job on Monday.” Harper Ross is my other bestie. We’ve known each other since first grade when we both attended PS 111 and were placed in Miss Nixon’s class. She was a newbie, and to say chaos ruled would understate the situation. Harper had taken my hand that first day on the playground, and we had Hunger Gamesed our way to the end of the school year and have been together ever since. We’ve gone through my parents’ divorce, her dad’s death, countless boyfriends, and career setbacks together.
So there’s a reason she’s upset I won’t tell her why I’m suddenly back in the reality dating trenches. She’s protective. Harper is that friend who steps in front of you when danger feels close. She’s also a control freak. I think they go hand in hand.
“You know why,” Ivy says, her eyes widening like they’ve been over this a couple hundred times. And they probably have.
I’ve read that it takes a person about eight times to grasp a new concept. When that concept is releasing control over things that could happen to people Harper loves, the number goes up significantly.
“Is this about that NDA?” Ivy’s boyfriend Heath is with us, though he’d offered to stay home and play video games with his best friend so we could have a girls night.
Mostly because CeCe scares him and calls him “Ivy’s Side Piece,” even though they’re living together and firmly committed and stuff. CeCe’s not great with names, and she doesn’t always understand slang. Like in any way. But she does love to use it. She calls me “Tiny Blonde One.” Harper is “Ivy’s Friend Who Could Use Some Blush,” so I think Heath got off easy.
“I thought we all agreed we weren’t giving Ani a hard time.” The reason why Heath had no easy way out of the fancy party we’d all gone to sat beside him. Darnell Green rounds out our group. He’s a coder by day and speculative fiction writer by all the times he’s not coding or making sarcastic remarks. He’s excellent at those.
He also loves a good train wreck, and he’d shoved his best friend right under a bus when Ivy offered to let him come if he could get Heath to go.
And what a beautiful train wreck it had been. We’d had some delicious food and expensive booze as we’d watched a couple of Broadway stars figure out they were both screwing the same director. CeCe had announced she wouldn’t be backing a local politician because he was an ass. He was in the room when she said it over the loudspeaker she was experimenting with. He had not been happy, and that was when the man CeCe calls Lawyer had been introduced.
All in all, it was a chef’s kiss of an evening.
And all I can think about is the fact that I have to deal with thirteen overly dramatic wannabe reality TV stars come Monday morning. I’m coming in at such a low level that I don’t even have to be on set until filming starts. It’s embarrassing, and I have to tell myself that I’m sacrificing for the sisterhood. It’s worth it if I can save someone from a sexual predator.
Hmm. If I were CeCe Foust, I would call Joseph Helms Sexual Predator and nothing else.
Which wouldn’t be fair because he could be innocent.
Maybe.
“We’ve lost her,” Ivy says with a sigh. “Probably because the last thing she needs is another lecture from Harper on how she shouldn’t sacrifice her career for whoever Harper’s decided is the villain of the piece this time.”
“I know who the villain is,” Harper declares, pointing to Ivy over her Hendrick’s martini up with a twist. “Jessica Wallace.”
I roll my eyes. “She’s not a freaking villain. Why is my mentor a villain but CeCe is okay?”