Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 106774 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 534(@200wpm)___ 427(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106774 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 534(@200wpm)___ 427(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
Flashes of our interaction in the locker room come rolling back. The words I chose. The way I chose to deliver them. The impact they might’ve had …
“But you won’t take Astrid down, too.”
Those thoughts are followed by the memory of her standing in my living room, holding that fucking picture, and the fury and embarrassment I felt—and that I let get to me. That I let spill over to Astrid.
Sure, she’s a savage who has poked me as many times as I’ve needled her. But she’s really an innocent bystander in all of this, and she doesn’t deserve my bullshit. That look in her eyes? It was pain.
I’m no better than Breaker.
Fuck.
I sit up, fortified by the clarity in the truth, and clear my throat. “I said a few things more … harshly than Astrid deserved, and I can man up to that.”
Renn nods.
“Is there any chance she’ll work with me again?”
“There’s zero chance I’m asking her to do that.”
Fair. “What if I talk to her?” That feels a lot like walking into a lion’s den right about now, but there’s no alternative. And I probably have it coming.
His lips twist as he thinks. Finally, he shrugs. “You have until midnight. I can reinstate the bonus before the end of the day. Otherwise, it’s over.”
“Okay.”
“But if you do get her to agree to this, and you ever push her to this point again …” His look is cold. Lethal. “Don’t do it. Let’s leave it at that.”
“Understood.”
“Now get out of here,” he says, shooing me toward the door. “You’ve wasted enough of my day.”
I get up, grab my bag, and rush to the door. Before I open it, though, I turn to him. “Renn?”
He looks up from his computer.
“Thanks,” I say, swallowing hard. “For all that.”
“Pay me back by bringing a title to Nashville. Now go.”
“Yes, sir.”
I step into the hallway, yanking my phone out of my pocket before Renn’s door is even closed. Astrid’s name is in my recent text log, and I click on it.
Me: Can we talk?
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
Astrid
“I think you need a hobby,” Audrey says, poking at her salmon with a fork. “You need something to think about besides work.”
“Unless we’re going back to berry picking and cave dwelling, I have to think about work,” I say. “That’s what happens when no one teaches you financial responsibility, and you’re up to your eyeballs in debt by the time you’re a full adult.”
Audrey rests her fork on the edge of her plate and looks at me with the sweetest blue eyes. “In your defense, you were surviving. And you were just a baby. Let’s give little Astrid some grace.”
“I’d rather we had given little Astrid a personal economics class,” I mutter.
Stupey’s is packed for a Wednesday night. We waited thirty minutes for a table, which has never happened on a weeknight. Kim saw us waiting and snuck us two sangrias and an Arnold Palmer. Apparently, a food vlogger gave them a glowing review on Sunday, and they’ve been smashed ever since.
Social media ruins everything—almost as quickly as men.
“You don’t need a hobby, Astrid,” Gianna says, lifting her lipstick-stained glass. “You just need to get fucked.”
“There are children around,” Audrey whispers with cheeks to match her cardigan.
I take my third glass of sangria and sit back, considering Gianna’s advice for once. I usually assume she’s saying things for shock value—and that might be true. But I can’t deny that I need to work some of this tension out of my body, and what better way to do that than to have it screwed out of me?
It’s better than the fucking I’m taking from everyone else in my life. Hell, I’m still getting reamed by a man who cheated on me, kicked me out of his house, and made me get a round of antibiotics as a party favor. It never ends. Between my bills, legal threats, and losing my extra pay over Gray’s bullshit, I’m bent over a barrel, and there’s nothing I can do about it … and I hate it.
Might as well be bent over something else and get something out of it.
I yawn, the sangria giving me the first taste of relaxation I’ve felt since I got that damn letter. Stress management is typically one of my strengths—mostly because I keep everything in my life in tidy little clusters. But I’m one wrong word from crashing all the way out.
“Do you know what, Gianna?” I say. “You might be right.”
Audrey shakes her head. “No. Don’t take Gianna’s advice.”
“And why not?” Gianna asks, feigning offense.
“Well, for one, your answer is always sex. Sex doesn’t cure everything.”
Gianna gasps. “I beg your finest pardon? Don’t go spreading misinformation like that. Isn’t that against your doctor’s creed or something?”
“I believe you mean the Hippocratic oath, and no, philosophy PhDs don’t take an oath. We’re not dealing with life-and-death situations.”