“What?” Clearly, being nice was not part of the equation for her.
“C’mon. Be a nice girl.”
She rolled her eyes and swiped her phone open.
“Hello?” she said, walking a few steps away from me.
I started walking the dogs to keep them moving when I froze.
It was Lance. Fucking Lance.
With his whore.
I started in the other direction so I wouldn’t have to contend with them, when I stopped. What was I running away from?
I tightened my hand on the dog leashes and walked toward the two of them.
“Hey!” I yelled.
They turned around to see who was calling them. Problem was, a lot of other people turned around, too.
Fuck it. I was pissed.
“Hey asshole! Yeah, you, Lance!”
His face was deathly white when he realized I was the one calling him. He looked around, most likely for a place to hide.
“Thanks to you,” I said, pointing in his face, “and your whore here, my house is being foreclosed on, my credit is going to be shit, and I will have no place to live.”
The whore screwed up her face like she wanted to take me out. If only she’d lay a hand on me. It would be the perfect excused to slap her Botoxed mug.
Lance held up his hands like he could diffuse the situation. But I kept going.
“I hope you’re proud of yourself, fucking me over like you did!” I screamed.
He looked at his whore, grabbed her hand, and starting hustling away.
While I’d been scolding him, the dogs had gathered around my feet protectively. The problem was that when I took a step toward chasing after Lance, my feet were tangled in the leashes. After teetering back and forth trying to catch my balance, I fell on my ass with a thump.
Shelle came running up to me and pulled me back to standing.
But she wasn’t going to drop things.
“Yeah, run away, you fucker!” she screamed after them. “Chicken shit!”
She was a true friend.
“Are you okay? Sorry about the dogs. Sometimes they do that.” She looked down at them, wagging her finger. They just stared back.
“Okay. Let’s keep moving,” she said. “I gotta get these guys some exercise so when they go home, they’re good and tired.”
It was funny, but ever since Tanner had straightened out Bob the accountant, my life at the agency had gotten better. Bob was off my back, and Tanner was making sure to tell me about his accounts when he had the time, so I could really learn more about the business.
“So, how’s your day going?” he asked, having stopped by my desk. He was wearing a really hip suit with skinny legs and his shirt was open at the neck. I loved guys in suits with no ties. It made them look like they were doing the walk of shame. Like they’d had a big night partying and had lost their tie somewhere along the way.
“Good. Good. Yours?” I asked in return.
He nodded slowly. “Eh. I’m about to go into another one of those tampon meetings. Last one I was in, I thought I was going to throw up. You wouldn’t believe the personal shit the women were discussing. I’ll never look at any of them the same way again.”