Heart Shaped Spotlight

As we walked to the pub, I breathed a sigh of relief. "Emily has changed that entire office. People are more relaxed. She actually works, and helps everyone. She was astounded that I was the one who ordered office supplies, and Tina was the one who did the coffee order, and has taken that on herself. Plus, she switched to a smaller supplier, and the coffee is better."

Carrie glanced at me. "Plus, Kim is hopefully rotting in hell somewhere."

"I don't even want to think about that," I said.

"Well, there's one little piece of information you should be aware of. Her site is gone."

"What do you mean gone? Gary was going to ask her to pull the stuff about me."

"Oh no, it's totally gone."

As soon as we were in our booth at Duncan’s, Carrie ordered wine and I tried to call up Kim's gossip site. The URL said, "The site you are looking for appears to be missing," on a bland gray background.

"Holy shit," I whispered. I simply stared at my phone until Carrie pulled it out of my hands and replaced it with a wine glass. "Thanks."

Carrie’s fingers tapped on the table for a moment. "I don't think she'd delete the entire site because of her uncle. I wonder if she got into trouble someho

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"Some of the other articles on that site looked like they were complete lies. Kim was so lazy, maybe she just made things up and someone called her on it?" I asked.

"Or she pissed off somebody whose brother was a lawyer. With a tiny two-bit operation like that, one cease and desist letter with the proper threatening tone can really scare an idiot who has no idea what they're doing," Carrie laughed.

"Lawyers," I said thoughtfully. "Nate said that his manager Dave was always going over his contracts with a lawyer."

Carrie’s eyes flew wide open. "Damn. It would've been so easy for him to ask his lawyer to send a very official letter. Kim was so flighty that scaring the pants off of her would be a breeze."

"Would he have bothered?" I asked.

Her hand smacked my arm as if she was swatting a fly. "Are you mental? That boy would do anything for you. From everything I saw on the show, and everything you've told me since, he wants to protect you from the big bad world."

"Sometimes it comes across like he wants to control me. Like he wants to keep me in the little box labeled, ‘the girl I used to know’."

"You are aware that men can be trained, right?" Carrie asked quite seriously. “If you need him to change something, you probably only have to ask. He would much rather make a few adjustments then lose you entirely. Plus, he probably wants to be your dream guy."

"I don't even know if there is such a thing," I said softly.

"When you close your eyes at night and imagine a man crawling into bed with you, who is it?" Carrie giggled. "I already know your answer from the way you’re blushing."

"Shut up." I tried to sound serious, but I was smiling too hard. "I want him. I do. It's just…"

"Really fucking hard?" suggested Carrie. "Yes. It will be. Relationships are wonderful and horrible and messy and embarrassing and demented."

"Gee, that sounds like a blast. Sign me up." I rolled my eyes.

"Remember when we cleaned my closet? We had to pull out everything and make a horrific mess, but several hours later when we were done, everything was brilliant and perfect. That's a relationship. It takes a while for things to get straightened out, and you have to dig around to find things that match, things that need fixing, and things that have to be let go."

I stared at her, my mouth falling open. "Oh my God. You should write a book about this stuff."

She waved her wine glass at me. "Nobody wants relationship advice from a single twenty-six-year-old who's only had two serious relationships. When I am married with a couple of kids and a second cat, maybe I can start calling myself an expert then."

"On a much more important note," I said, "What did you name the new kitten?"

"Empress Von Floofington the Mighty, of the United Force of Kitty Cats, Head of the Apartment, Defender of the Cute.”

I shot her a flat, blank stare before bursting out laughing.

“But I just call her Floof."