He frowned down at his stomach. “Too true.”
“Stop.” I slapped his hand where it rested on his knee. “Look, you might never get back into the shape you were in before the chemotherapy and the transplant. And that’s fine. I would much rather have a living, slightly doughy Neil with erectile dysfunction than a dead Neil I can remember as having a tight tummy. It’s all a matter of perspective.”
“I should have been recording this conversation, for the next time you gain three pounds,” he said with a smirk.
I got up, shaking my head at him.
“Where are you going?” he called after me.
I turned and put my hands on my hips, physically exaggerating my outrage so he would know I was joking. “After that remark, I am not remotely interested in your penis. Good night, sir.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Wow,” Holli said, flicking a few more buttons on the remote. “There really is a lot of porn on here.”
“Told ya,” I squeaked out around a lungful of smoke. I choked and coughed and passed the joint to Holli. “Holy shit, this stuff is…”
“Yeah, I got that.” Her eyes were already red. “You should always be engaged to a rich dude.”
We lounged in the media room, a home theatre set-up of the kind I’d fantasized about as a child. Crushed burgundy velour seats, like out of a grand old movie house, surrounded a big bed with a matching duvet. I’d thought it was pretty cool when I’d first seen it, but since moving back to New York, I realized I couldn’t get through an entire movie in the room without falling asleep on the comfy bed. The thing the theatre was really good for was fooling around while watching dirty movies.
And BFF sleepovers, of course.
“I still don’t get it,” Holli said with a shake of her head. “You’re cute. That one nail thing you did went viral, it had like six million hits the other day… Are you just not good enough for the lofty standards of Wake Up! America? I swear the hosts of their fourth hour are drunk as hell every morning.”
I shrugged. Somehow, talking about it so many times today had worn out some of the sad, or just plain wore me out. It was hard to feel rejected anymore. I just felt tired. “India thinks this is a blessing in disguise. Without this job, I’ll be free to stop doing the beauty tips stuff and just write.”
“But you love the beauty tip stuff,” Holli whined, her mouth dropping open in shock.
“I do. And I would definitely miss it. But I like writing, too.” At least I hoped I would. The first book had been more like a form of therapy than a career prospect. But I’d be able to write something less challenging the second time. “India wants me to write about what it was like working for Gabriella at Porteras.”
Holli made a face. “I think there’s already a book like that.”
We fell silent a moment.
Holli was right. Someone had already written a book about Gabriella Winters. It was apparently the fate of any member of the wealthy New York media elite to have a tell-all written about them. When I’d been working on my own book, Neil had told me there were no less than three unauthorized biographies about him, which seemed excessive for a man whose idea of a hobby was doing more work.
So, what could I write about? My life hadn’t gotten interesting until I’d graduated college. And the only thing people would want to hear about in my Gabriella story would be the part where she’d been ousted. Since I’d stayed at Porteras, all the juicy details were restricted by a company standard non-disclosure agreement, not to mention my fiancé’s ire.
“So,” Holli said after my thoughtful pause. “Porn?”
We found a cheesy French one filmed as a medieval epic, and we were having a lot of fun supplying our own lines for the evil wizard and fair maiden on screen when Holli said, “I know what you should write about.”
“Bangdalf’s withered staff?” I snickered.
“No, seriously, I have an idea.” She frowned in concentration. “How many women end up getting married at the same time as their best friend and their stepdaughter-to-be?”
“You think I should write about the wedding?” I thought about it for two seconds, then dismissed it out of hand. “My first book was about cancer. I don’t think a frantic couple of years of wedding preparations are quite up to that level.”
“Who says your second book has to be a downer?” Holli reached for the rolling tray—a silver platter thing from Tiffany’s that neither Neil nor Elizabeth had wanted custody of after the divorce—and scooped up the roach clip.
She had a point. Who did say I had to be as serious as cancer all the time? “I could compare my experience marrying someone my mother doesn’t like with Emma’s experience marrying someone her father doesn’t like.”
“People are going to ask questions about ‘how does this all work’ for ages. They’re gonna make the same old jokes and you’re gonna be expected to laugh at them. Why not make some money off that?”
“Hey, yeah…”
“Not that you need the money,” she added.