“Hey, I low-key had a crush on Shrek, okay?”
“Who didn’t?” She laughed. “So, you overslept a showing. Not on the level of Don Mackey screwups, not even nearly. Was it bad? Yes. Career-ending? No.”
“Whatever happened to the assistant?” I asked.
Zoe shrugged. “I think she got out of real estate. Last I heard, she was a receptionist or something. And she was going by Jen instead of Jennifer.”
“Oof.” I slugged coffee.
“You never checked your phone to see if he called.” Zoe took it from me, typed in my passcode, and sighed. “Nope. Twenty-nine missed calls from me, the clients, and Lizzy, forty-seven texts from me and Lizzy, and six voicemails, again from me, Lizzy, and one from the clients. Nothing from Seven.”
“He’s gonna ghost me. I know it.”
She was reading my text thread with Seven. “What does he drive?”
“I think it was called a Venom?” I shrugged. “Hennessey Venom, that’s what it’s called. I’ve never seen one before, and holy Jesus, it’s the sexiest car I’ve ever seen, let alone been in. And he drove it like it was meant to be driven. I saw my life flash before my eyes at least twice.”
“Damn. Lucky bitch.”
I sighed yet again. “I blew it, Zoe.”
“You don’t know that. Maybe he’ll still call.”
“If I went out with a guy who got like I was, I’d ghost him. It’s immature and reckless. I mean, if you’re drinking together, that’s different. But he stopped way before me. Granted, he didn’t tell me he’d switched to water, but still. I know my limits and I should have been smarter than that.”
“So call him.”
“No!” I dropped my phone as if I’d accidentally dialed his number. “I’m mortified. I can’t ever show my face in public again.”
“Autumn, you’re overreacting just a tad. You weren’t, like, dancing naked on the bar or anything, right?”
“No. I didn’t feel that drunk at all until the elevator ride up here. It literally hit me all at once, like a Mack truck to the sobriety. I went from fine to seeing double with the spins literally within the space of like sixty seconds.”
“And that’s why Autumn doesn’t drink vodka. I’d have thought you’d remember that lesson from that party we went to at UC Berkeley our senior year.”
I rolled my eyes, shaking my head as I got up to pour myself more coffee. “That wasn’t the fault of vodka so much as the fact that I drank most of a fifth by myself.”
“Yeah, that’ll do it.” She snorted. “That was pretty damn funny, though.”
“For you, maybe. Fortunately for me, I blacked out halfway through the night and don’t remember doing most of it.”
“Do you at least remember taking your top off and doing a belly flop into the sorority house pool?”
“I do not,” I said primly. “Nor do I remember peeing in a closet, asking the arresting officer if he liked my boobies, or being handcuffed.”
“Lucky you, there was a break-in or something down the street, so he let had to let you go to answer that call.”
I sighed. “Can we not spend the rest of the morning recalling the bad old days?”
“Bad old days? I had a ball at that party.”
I spluttered. “Um yeah, because you spent most of it in a guest bedroom screwing Chad Matheson.”
Zoe shrugged, nodded, laughing. “True. God, he was hot. Dumber than moldy bread, but so hot. And he could do this thing where he—”
“I KNOW WHAT CHAD MATHISON COULD DO WITH HIS PENIS,” I cut in. “You’ve told me. Repeatedly.”
“Well I’m sorry. I’ve just never been able to replicate the orgasms he gave me that night.” She sighed. “If only he’d been able to talk and think at the same time, I might have been able to stand his presence while sober and in the light of day, in public. But alas, he was only given enough brain cells to operate his dick. And surf. Boy, could he surf.”
“Wasn’t he caught plagiarizing a Western Civ paper from his high school sophomore brother?”
“Yes, he was. He also tried to write the answers to a remedial algebra test on his forearm, only he wore a tank top, and it smudged.”
“I only judge him for not being able to cheat properly. Algebra will push anyone to cheat. It’s from Satan.”
“Hear hear.” Zoe glanced at her phone. “You need to shower and get dressed. Lizzy’s only going to be so understanding, and if we’re late to lunch, you’ll be doing office work for a month, and she’ll stick you with selling vacant strip mall slots in Reseda.”
“She’s going to chew me out.”
“Which you deserve.”
“Doesn’t mean I want to subject myself to it.”
“Woman up, Autumn.”
I huffed. “Fine.” I threw back my coffee, put the mug in the sink, and headed for the bathroom, stripping on the way. “Can you pick my outfit for me? I don’t have the brainpower to think about it yet.”
“Sure.”
I got the shower going, dragged a brush through my hair, used a makeup remover wipe on my face, and brushed my teeth. While I was in the shower, Zoe continued our conversation through the open bathroom door.
“Are you really not going to call Seven St. John?”
“He said he’d call me,” I answered. “If he wants to give me another shot, he’ll call.”
“Chicken.”
“It’s not being chicken,” I shot back. “I threw myself at him once already and was shot down—why would I do so again? I can take rejection just fine. It hurts, I’m embarrassed, but whatever. I’m a big girl, I’ll get over it. I’m just not going to subject myself to it voluntarily a second time.”
I was clean in record time, toweled off, wrapped it around myself and started drying and styling my hair.
“I guess I get that,” Zoe said. “But it wasn’t, like, actual real rejection. He didn’t say he didn’t want you. He just wanted to be sure you were sober enough to know what you were doing.”
There was more to it than that, but I didn’t know how to explain any of it out loud, even to my sister, the closest, dearest human being to me on the planet.
Leaning against the doorframe, arms akimbo, foot crossed over the ankle with the toe propped on the floor, Zoe regarded me with a serious, inquisitive expression. “Are you mad at me? About the ad.”
I sighed, keeping my gaze focused on the curling iron in my hands. “A little. The pregnancy thing with me is still a touchy subject and you know it. I don’t care how many years ago that was.”
“Autumn, I just…I hate seeing you stuck. You deserve to be happy. You’re a talented real estate agent. You’re beautiful, smart, funny, successful, athletic. You have everything going for you. And you’ve had some really great guys show you interest, real genuine romantic interest. But you won’t give them the time of day, all because of something that happened more than twenty years ago.”
“And so doing to me what we did to Lizzy is the most logical way to force me past my emotional baggage?”