Not even if they made him moan when they slid their tongue into his mouth, their hands gripping his ass like I wanted to meld into him, like I couldn’t even wait to have him inside me—
God-motherfucking-dammit, I was doing it again!
Focus, Katie! This isn’t about your libido and your loneliness for once, this is about your life! Your dream!
Somehow the phone was already in my hand, the contacts scrolled down to Asher’s number. I stopped my thumb before I could hit his name, and scrolled down further. Lacey. Lacey would know what to do.
I hoped to God she did, or this apartment was going to be so clean that I was going to asphyxiate on Lysol fumes.
#
“…and now I just have no idea where to go from here.”
Lacey’s assistant handed us a couple of coffees as I finished spilling the tale of my disastrous business meeting with Asher and the following half-naked make-out that was currently competing for the number one slot in both my list of hottest experiences and worst ever life choices.
“Damn, girl,” Lacey said with a look that somehow managed to be both horrified, sympathetic, and impressed. “You do not do anything by halves, do you? Do you even know what halves are? Do you remember the concept of fractions? I remember that we were in seventh grade math together, but I also remember that your answers on all your worksheets tended to be the words ‘Aaron Davidson’ with a bunch of hearts doodled around them.”
“What can I say?” I said, draining my mocha latte with an appreciative sigh. Ah, sweet caffeine. Almost as good as alcohol for making the world look like a surmountable challenge. “That boy was a thirteen-year-old Casanova, and I had this amazing friend who was always willing to help me—”
“Let you copy my answers,” Lacey correct firmly.
“Help me,” I agreed. I shot a pleading look at Lacey’s assistant, and she mercifully handed me another cup of java before leaving to attend to her duties at her desk just outside of Lacey’s palatial new office. “Seriously, though, thanks for listening to me rant about all this. Also, give your assistant a raise. She deserves it.”
I drew in another deep gulp of hot strong chocolatey brew, letting my eyelids drift shut in satisfaction. Lacey’s assistant had discovered a little hole-in-the-wall coffee shop run by two Ethiopian immigrants who had made coffee their life study, and Lacey now bought from there exclusively and in bulk. The people who came to her office for meetings were starting to follow her lead too, and it was easy to taste why: not only was the flavor smooth and subtle, but their coffee had the highest amount of caffeine you were legally allowed to sell in the United States.
Or, as I liked to call it, the perfect amount.
Unfortunately, even the most delicious coffee couldn’t solve everything, or even put off the problems forever until they solved themselves. I groaned, knuckling my forehead. “I think I invested way too much emotional energy into this thing with Asher working out. I told myself it was my one shot, but I just meant that to motivate me to do good on my presentation. And now I’m halfway convinced it really was my one shot, and I fucked it up harder than a fucked up thing from Planet Complete Fucking Disaster.”
“You know that’s not true,” Lacey said gently but firmly. “First of all, this fuck-up was on both of you—maybe you got unprofessional, but he started it by not listening to you. And you know that this wasn’t your one shot. Even if you keep insisting on not taking money from me and Grant—which, for the record, I think is prideful and unnecessary and shooting yourself in the foot—the world is full of people who would like to invest in your ideas.”
“But where the hell am I going to find them?” I asked, slumping down in my seat like a sack of particularly depressed potatoes. “I’m banging my head against a brick wall here—ugh, a brick wall would probably be softer than this, this is some bullshit kind of futuristic carbon fiber wall. What am I going to do next?”
“I can always have another word with HR about that wrongful firing…”
I sighed. “Lacey, I appreciate it, but I already told you—”
“Or a loan, investing!” Lacey added brightly, speeding right past her torpedoed first suggestion. “A loan wouldn’t really be taking money from us, since you’d be giving it back eventually!” She aimed her puppy dog eyes at me, pleading. “Seriously, there are only so many dresses I can buy, and it’s not like I want to crack open caviar for every lunch. Let me put my tacky new money towards an actually worthwhile cause. Please, Katie. Assuage my newly rich guilt by taking this cash off my hands. You’ll be doing me a favor!”
“Lacey, girl,” I said, taking her hand, “you are sweeter than all the combined contents of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, but I can’t. You are my best friend, and I wouldn’t risk that friendship for a million dollars, a massage from Jude Law, and a box set of books signed by Arthur Conan Doyle. I’ve seen too many good friendships ruined by money.”
“That wouldn’t happen with us—” Lacey started to protest.
“And even if that doesn’t happen,” I overrode her, putting my foot down so hard I was surprised the floor didn’t crack, “I would be stressed about it happening all the time, and I would be miserable. It’s off the table. It’s not even on the floor next to the table. It’s in another room, on a different floor, in a separate building, in a country halfway around the world where they don’t even use tables, that is how far off the table it is.”
Lacey pouted, but she nodded in reluctant agreement. “Fine. Well, all right. But I’m still going to think of something to help you. Best friends!”
“Best friends!” I agreed, and we clinked our paper coffee cups together.