Griffin (Ruthless MC 3)

I can be cocky, but I’m not exaggerating. I’m honestly kind of wishing I’d never let Kyra Fairgood convince me to voice a growly wolf and put out a track for the animated film she and Roxxy Roxx decided to music supervise for that arthouse animation studio Yinz Entertainment.

Yeah, sure, attending the premiere party with the producer, Victor Zhang, I met Phantom, who let me know his brother was a huge fan. But these days, I can’t walk down the street anymore without kids shout-singing some off-key version of the song at me.

“Yes, yes, I know. It’s so hard having to put up with adoring fans who don’t have D-cups,” Jenni answers, dismissing my grouchy tone with a wave. “But the assistant told me this kid is truly talented. She even does the rap! According to him, it’s the most impressive, adorable thing you will ever see. And this little girl’s, like, your biggest fan.”

“Pass,” I answer without even a second of consideration.

“Please,” Jenni begs. “I mean, the daycare’s right here, and I told them you’d be stopping by.”

I’m already shaking my head. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“It’s just a few minutes,” Jenni answers with a pleading look. “And it’s guaranteed to raise your family consumer street cred, which your dad will really like.”

I fold my arms, faltering a little bit. I want to just say “pass” again, but Jenni has a point. Geoff’s mom, Whitney, told me flat out the other day that my dad wouldn’t even be considering me to head up AudioNation if that movie hadn’t done what she called, “a perhaps unintentional but much-needed reputation patch-up job.”

Jenni pounces on my hesitation. “All I need you to do is visit this daycare for five minutes and watch this girl sing. Five minutes. That’s all. Between that and the concert, I can probably stretch it into a couple of weeks of big social media posts.”

I expel an annoyed huff of air. But, in the end, I answer, “Fine.”

Jenni jumps up and down. And I have to wonder if she has a point about that Succession TV series.

When did I go from being an outlaw musician to a character in a show about the scions of a billionaire willing to do whatever it takes to win?

CHAPTER 23

BERNICE

When did I become a side character in a nighttime soap about rich-people drama? I’m not sure. But that hot summer evening, instead of dancing with the rest of the guests at the reception I party planned from top to bottom, I go out to the front steps of Glendaver Castle to play my part.

That’s why I’m sitting on the steps, reading my Auntie Clara’s latest sci-fi novel on my Apple Books app, when Allie arrives to pick her son up from the castle daycare. Olivia’s former nanny, my Auntie Minerva, started this daycare for Olivia and all the other parents working at the Kentucky location of her Women with Disabilities Clinic.

“Let me guess,” Allie says, stopping in front of me. “You’re trying to finally get a quiet moment by yourself for the first time since the pandemic started.”

“No,” I answer, lowering my phone. But I have to laugh at her guess.

Allie understands the struggle more than most as a single mother herself. And now she has a near similar story to my own. Olivia hired Allie for her already too-popular clinic in Louisville, despite her being visibly pregnant, just because someone she trusted—me—recommended her. The only difference was, she was hired on as a general practitioner doctor instead of a nurse/receptionist.

Throughout the pandemic, we’d become even closer—to the point where O2 insisted on calling Allie’s toddler son “Little Brother,” no matter how many times we explained they weren’t related by blood.

And even though she’s the doctor with the least experience at the clinic, she’s the best and funniest, according to our online reviews. Olivia adores her and even trusted her enough to be the doctor in charge while she and I were at her former work husband’s wedding to her real husband’s brother—yeah, I hear it too. I honestly think the East Coast Zhangs might be giving the Southern Fairgoods a run for their dramarama money.

Anyway, Dr. Allison Snow’s employment has more than worked out, which makes me feel a little better about the lie of omission I made to get her the job. I told Olivia that Dr. Allison Snow was simply a medical work colleague from my pre-New York days, without mentioning our completely off-the-books jobs at that anonymous roadhouse.

But Allie and I never talked about that under-the-table job anyway, or the fathers of our children.

Hopes and dreams, all day—I could tell you Allie’s five-year plan, line by line. But our pasts, well, let’s just say that the reason we’re such good friends is that we understand what’s thoroughly off-limits.

As far as we’re concerned, we’re exactly what we say we are. A boring office nurse/receptionist and an ultra-capable doctor. The girls we were when we worked at that roadhouse, we’ve left them far behind.