“Here’s what you’re going to do. First day on the job in New Orleans, you’re going to march right up to him and apologize.”
“What? No! I’m not apologizing to that asshole. If you hadn’t been so busy primping, we would have been able to fly up here earlier with Quincy. I would have had more time to stabilize the bitchiness.”
“Don’t you dare blame this on me and my spa day!” she snaps. “This is on you, and you only have one option.”
I raise a skeptical brow and grimace. She doesn’t even bother to soften the blow.
“Take your pride and shame and stubbornness and eat it, Greer,” she instructs. “Pretend they’re all fried and pickled if you have to. For God’s sake, don’t you remember what you have riding on this?”
Everything, my mind remarks. Literally everything.
“Fine,” I huff, shoving her hand out of the way and grabbing her meat defiantly. “When we get to New Orleans, I’ll apologize. And then I’ll be on my best behavior. But I’m not going to like him. No buddy-buddy exchanges and shit. This is business. Period.”
Emory nods.
“And for the love of God, he better be open to suggestions. I refuse to stamp my name on the puke-worthy design they have going on in the Vanderturn Manhattan. I’d rather starve to death in my newly renovated cardboard home on the streets than do that.”
“Of course,” she says with a hum, and I decide to ignore the fact that she’s humoring me.
“I would,” I retort. “If I’m going to do a good job, he’s going to have to trust me to make decisions. I can’t work creatively when everything I come up with is being turned down.”
She rolls her eyes. “You’re assuming a lot here. You haven’t worked with him. He might be a great team player. Just because the two of you bumped heads in the hotel fucking gym, doesn’t mean he’s not open to suggestions.”
“It might. Trust me. You didn’t see him when his father introduced him to the rest of the team today. He was so cocky. So removed. So…managerial. Plus, no one should be that obsessed with the cleanliness of workout equipment.”
“Workout equipment?” she questions. “What in the hell are you talking about?”
“At the gym,” I respond.
“For the love of God, Greer, forget about the encounter at the gym.” She shakes her head as if she’s literally shaking away my words. “And I’ll bet during the meeting, he was confident not managerial. Your first encounter is probably coloring your opinion of him.”
“I guess.” I frown and breathe a deep, heavy sigh. “I just need this to go smoothly, and a better start would have really helped things along.”
“You’re used to rough starts,” Emory reasons kindly. “Look at the way your life started, Greer. Most people would have let it sour them. Not you. You fight harder than anyone I’ve ever met,” she says with a little, knowing smirk. “Sometimes when you don’t need to.”
I roll my eyes.
“Just try to put away the boxing gloves,” she pleads. “Only for a little while. You might be surprised what it gets you.”
“But I’m pretty good at boxing…”
Emory snorts. “Greer, just try to approach this with a less cynical mind-set. And definitely leave the sass and sarcasm at the door.”
“All right,” I agree. “I’ll try.” Skepticism and sarcasm come naturally; niceties and kind exchanges do not. The effort to change will likely be Herculean, but for Emory’s sake—and mine—I’ve got to try.
“Good.” She takes a sip of her water and switches conversational gears. “Now, tell me something good. I barely saw you at the party the other night and since you refused to come to Marquee with me yesterday, I haven’t heard anything about how your New Year’s Eve actually went. Please tell me you didn’t bail and go to bed early.”
I roll my eyes at her insinuation that I was actually invited to Marquee with her and Quince—as in, in some other way than I’m just being polite, but if you come, there’s a chance you’ll see us tongue-fucking each other—and think about the New Year’s Eve party instead.
I think about Walt. I think about that incredible kiss.
Hell, I can still practically feel his lips on mine.
And those delicious, teasing words of his have been popping into my brain for the past thirty-six hours.
If we were anywhere else in the fucking world but here, my next kiss would be between your legs.
I blush unexpectedly as the delicious memory wakes up my underused loins, and she notices. “Oh my God. What happened?”
I shake my head. My vagina wants to sing about unexpected “feelings” and “a new lease on life,” but winter in New York means I’ve covered her big fat mouth in several layers of clothing.
The rest of me is far less chatty.
Emory slams her hands down on the table and leans toward me. “Greer Hudson, you tell me right now!”
Avoidance is usually the easiest way out of things I don’t want to be a part of, but with Emory, I have to sink to new levels of low. Specifically, a transfer of blame. It’s an old trick I’ve used one too many times, but she’s left me with no other options. “If you weren’t so drunk on Quince, you might already know.”
She smacks me. “Stop trying to make this about me.”
Goddammit, she knows me too well.
“Well…”
She smiles and leans forward in her seat, perched on the edge almost comically. When it takes me more than a beat and a half to answer, she yells. “Well, what?”
A few patrons in the diner look in our direction, and I sigh.
“Fine.”
I guess the most concise, base-level details won’t hurt.
“I kissed someone,” I say, my voice a whisper compared to hers. “At midnight. It was good.”
“Oh my God! And you’re just now telling me this? What the hell!”
If I’m being honest, it was more than good. It was, like, masturbation-worthy good.
But no way does Emory need to know those dirty details. Her overzealous reaction makes it obvious she wouldn’t shut up about it if she did, and I don’t have time to put out some kind of New York search party for a guy I kissed…once.
A guy whose face was hidden behind a rubber Walt mask.
A guy whose name I don’t even know.
“It was nothing,” I say, my voice easy breezy. “I mean, we only interacted for about ten minutes beforehand and none after. It was…weird. He said ‘Happy New Year,’ and then he left.” I shrug. “I don’t know.”
He also insinuated he wanted to eat my pussy, but that’s a minor detail, right?
“What don’t you know? I mean, come on, Greer. You’re not exactly prospecting to be on The Bachelorette. You haven’t even thought about a man in the last five years that I know of. Now, you’re kissing strangers at midnight, and it’s just no big deal? I’m sure he had a reason for walking away.”
I shrug again, and it only amps her up more.
“Greer!” she shouts, and when I don’t respond right away, she reaches across the table and smacks my arm.