Ugh. Hate this subject, too.
Miriam jerks a thumb at the fridge, where the save the date in question is hanging behind a Brooklyn Bridge magnet. “They addressed it to Casey and me together, like we’re an old married couple.”
“I sometimes wonder,” Sasha deadpans. “Weddings are expensive. So what if they didn’t want to waste an extra stamp?”
“Especially since Casey’s going to bail anyway,” Miriam intones.
I glare at her. She smirks back.
I hadn’t even … How on earth could she know that? Mir and I have been best friends since we were eleven, but sometimes I think she’s well and truly psychic. I was planning to bail on the wedding. I just haven’t come up with a creative excuse yet.
Sasha pins me with her mature, woman-about-town look. “Case, you have to go. I know it’s gonna be awkward seeing your ex as a groomsman and all—”
“Never said I wasn’t going.”
“But Jack and Jill were your friends, too.”
“Can we not? I’m begging.” I press my hands to my temples, feigning a headache. After the last couple of hours, thinking about the guy I broke up with on graduation day—and all the reasons why that choice was the right one—is simply too much to bear.
“Fine.” Sasha holds up her palms in submission. “Let’s talk about New Year’s Eve. Are we still planning to go to Nashville?”
Miriam arches her eyebrows, gestures between me and her. “Why are you asking us as if we had any part in that plan?”
“Come on, guys,” Sasha whines. “I want to go so bad, and I need you locals to show me how to ride the mechanical bulls on Broadway.”
“The key,” I say, propping my foot on the fourth chair, “is to flirt with the guy working the bull so he takes it easy on you for ten whole seconds.”
Miriam nods sagely. “Spilling your drink all over your legs a couple of minutes beforehand helps, too. It makes your thighs stick to the leather.”
Sasha blinks. “Neither of you have done it, have you.”
“Of course not.” Miriam sounds genuinely offended.
“Well then.” Sasha crosses her arms. “All three of us are riding the mechanical bull in December, and whoever falls off the fastest has to solo-perform ‘Rocky Top’ at a karaoke bar on wine night.”
I laugh deep in my chest. “Hand to God, Sasha, you have never met an experience you couldn’t turn into a challenge.”
“I probably get that from my dad,” she says.
Miriam launches into a retelling of her day at the hospital—“The cutest baby in the PICU, I almost triggered an Amber Alert”—and Sasha and I listen to her describe burping methods in excruciating detail as the city quiets down outside.
I can hear the drip of our leaky faucet, soft and repetitive, into our pint-size enamel kitchen sink, beside a stove that couldn’t cook a hard-boiled egg if it tried. This apartment is a disaster—too small, too messy, too run-down, and way, way too expensive for all its quirks—but it’s perfect to me. Because it represents everything I traded when Lance and I broke up, when Miriam and I decided to move to New York City together.
A life I knew like the back of my hand for a life I never could have predicted.
CHAPTER SIX
Alex Harrison: How much money is left in the budget for September?
Casey Maitland: None.
Alex Harrison: None?
Casey Maitland: You have already eaten into half of October’s budget.
Alex Harrison: Why can’t we just take the L and reset for Oct?
Casey Maitland: Please explain how you convinced your high school algebra teacher to let you pass.
* * *
We never talked about it.
Never sought each other out, never lingered after a meeting to clear the air. Alex’s singular focus isn’t on me anymore; he’s preoccupied with one thing only.
Well. Two things:
Getting the subsidiary primed to launch.
Cementing his status as Little Cooper’s most flagrant spender.
It’s kind of funny, if I stop to think about it. The way his goals are in exact opposition to mine. If I want a recommendation for the London office, I need to spend the next eight months doing my job exceptionally well. Doing my job well means controlling the finances. Problem is, Alex encourages every idea without bothering to consider the cost.
Podcast? Do it. Digital creator conference in LA? Put the airfare on the corporate card! A new Web designer? Hire him.
Whenever we’re in the same room, our disharmony comes off both of us in frustrated heat waves. Like right now, for example, as we argue our way through another weekly BTH meeting. It almost feels like the two of us are alone in this conference room. Which is why it startles me when Saanvi interrupts us to say, “You guys should appear together on our YouTube channel.”
Alex and I stop bickering long enough to look at Saanvi, one of Little Cooper’s on-staff video directors. Her arms are loosely crossed. She’s staring at us across the conference table, a flicker of amusement in her eyes.
I think Saanvi views everything in life through the lens of a camera. She’s one of those people that have found their capital-P Purpose. Before Saanvi came to Little Cooper, she worked for one of our competitors, where she made a huge name for herself directing all those videos of celebrities walking around their homes showing off the interior design or answering a bunch of rapid-fire questions we shouldn’t care about but do.
She has this policy—if you appear on the channel, you get paid. Brijesh explained it to me after the “Healthed-Up Hot Chicken” video, and then I saw it for myself on my next paycheck: there was a line item in the HR portal where they break down your earnings that said video appearance. The amount of money I’d earned was minuscule, but I appreciated it all the same.
In response to Saanvi’s suggestion, I dumbly mutter, “What?”
“No, seriously.” Her face is utterly calm. “I think you two would be great.”
Beside me (he always sits next to me, and I never understand why), Alex laughs. “How on earth did you get there from us debating the social media budget?”
“There’s no debate,” I half growl, growing heated again at what I was trying to explain moments ago. “Bite the Hand’s budget is too small to handle all these projects at the same time. You need to get your priorities in order.”
He leans back in his chair and taps a pen absentmindedly on his notepad. “We’ll get the budget expanded. I’m not worried about money right now.”
I shake my head, laughing humorlessly. “If I had a dime for every time that sentence has come out of your mouth, I wouldn’t be worried about money, either.”
“Oh my God, Saanvi,” says Amanda, the social media director. “You’re totally right. They’d be perfect for that work life segment.”
My mouth snaps closed.
Everyone in the room is looking at me and Alex like they just solved a puzzle.
“The Food Baby YouTube subscribers already love Casey,” Saanvi says, sitting up. “You’re relatable to them because your job is—”
“Boring?” I supply.