She cast her gaze to her drink. “Through work.”
“Work?” If interior designers looked like that, I obviously went into the wrong profession because, besides Brogan, everyone in the office had a severe case of pancake ass from sitting all day.
Her eyes glazed over, and I could tell she was off in her own head, probably thinking about Ryder. As it was, it took every bit of restraint to stay present in our girl’s night and not check my phone every two seconds. “He works for a firm I’m contracted with. I’m redesigning their offices,” she said.
“And I’m sure you were just doing a little bit of Feng Shui furniture rearrangement when he came over the other night?” I mused.
She plunged her straw into her drink, and the ice rattled against the glass. “I’d rather not talk about it. Unless you want to share about your love life.” She leveled me with a look that said I’d gone too far.
I swallowed hard and tried to catch her eye to say that I was sorry. “I’m good.”
On cue, my phone buzzed again. I discreetly checked it while Zoey and Zelda were arguing over the difference between male dancers and strippers.
Brogan: You drive a hard bargain. I could think of other things to give as payment.
Suddenly parched, I reached for my beer, guzzling it down.
Lainey: All I hear is your mouth running. Full of empty promises, Starr.
Brogan: I’m sure my mouth could be of use.
Um, yes, please and thank you.
Lainey: Consider the cookies a done deal.
Chapter Nineteen
Starr Media Handbook Rule #7
Change your password often to prevent security breaches.
The office was in complete mayhem when I arrived at seven the next morning. Or to put it better, Brogan was in a complete frenzy, with everyone around him trying to accommodate. Jackson glanced over his computer monitor and let out a low whistle.
“What?” I said, tossing my bag into the bottom drawer of my desk.
“I heard you’re in a lot of trouble.”
“Trouble?” My brows slid together. What the hell was he talking about? What could I have possibly done in the twelve hours I’d been away from work?
“Didn’t you see what Craig Willington messaged out this morning?” Someone really needed to wipe that smug smirk off his face.
Oh crap. My account? That just couldn’t be possible…could it? The hair rose on the back of my neck. “No.” I hadn’t even scheduled any posts. That was on my to-do list for this morning, in fact, because I hadn’t touched his account since Monday. I pulled up the social media site and clicked on Craig’s profile. My fingers froze on the mouse as I stared at his latest post.
Craig_Willington: Hey, Gordy, I hope your momma enjoyed being bent over last night. Tell her to give me a call if she wants to ride on my big blue combine with her hayfield again anytime soon.
A middle finger emoji concluded the spiteful message.
I froze, my mouse hovering over the post. Holy crap buckets. Did Craig just call out one of country music’s biggest stars? Craig didn’t even know how to work anything past the camera function on his smart phone. No way could he navigate social media and use an emoji—so what the hell was going on? I looked at the time stamp—fifteen minutes before I’d arrived.
Under his offensive message, where he actually tagged Gordy in the post (lord have mercy), hundreds of people commented things like:
Ohhhh do you need some ice for that burn?
LOLOLOLOL hella funny dude.
Fuck you, Craig! Leave Gordy’s mama alone.
U lost respect from me, buddy.
Topping it off was a comment from Gordy himself saying, “What the hell, man?”
To make it worse, a few celebrity gossip sites had made note of Craig’s dig at Gordy’s mother and speculated as to why. I quickly deleted the message, but the damage had already been done. The internet was forever, and even if Craig hadn’t written this, people would forever think he rammed his combine into Mama Gordy’s hayfield.
Before I could say anything more to Jackson, my intercom buzzed.
“In my office. Now.” Anger bubbled over Brogan’s voice, and my pulse hummed against my temples as I tried to collect myself and decide what I was going to tell him. I didn’t even know what to say, not when I’d just found out about a mistake I wasn’t sure I made until two seconds ago.
Something told me there would be no cookie making in the near future.
Jackson’s brows rose, and a wicked smile played at his lips as I strode toward Brogan’s office. “Oh, how the mighty have fallen.”
As I stood in front of the glass doors, I took a deep breath and steeled myself. How had I managed to mess up a post without even trying? Major damage control would be needed to fix this, starting with a few apology posts as soon as I left Brogan’s office.