The Boss (The Boss 1)

I stopped on the seventh floor, and I was unsurprised to find it entirely empty and dark. Which meant the shoot had been cancelled, and Holli had probably gone home. I got back in the elevator and headed down to the lobby.

I spotted Holli as soon as the doors opened. She’s not hard to spot. 5’10”, magnificently, naturally blonde, and wearing the most ratty, just-rolled-out-of-bed clothes that had ever graced the lobby of my esteemed workplace, she stood by the security desk, frowning down at the iPhone in her hand.

“Holli!” I ran at her, then remembered I was at work and slowed my steps. Gabriella might be out, but I was still her assistant, and I couldn’t be giving people the impression that it was time to panic.

Holli frowned. “You spilled something on yourself.” I brushed at the front of my jacket. “Way bigger problems. I really have to talk to you, like right now!” Holli followed me out of the building and onto the street.

We hurried down the block and into a small coffee shop most of the Porteras staff wouldn’t be caught dead in, because the drinks weren’t expensive enough. We slid into one of the high backed booths.

“What the hell is going on upstairs?” Holli half-whispered as she scanned the menu. “Yesterday it was all, ‘don’t be a minute late or you’ll be punished’ and then I get there today and it’s cancelled. No call to my agency or anything.”

“Gabriella is fired,” I whispered back. What had once seemed like the most important detail of the situation seemed insignificant in the face of my mortification. “Something... worse has happened.”

I took a deep breath, ready to spill all the sordid and very personal details to my best friend, but the waitress stepped up to take our order. I waited with barely disguised impatience as Holli ordered the lumberjack breakfast with a side of pancakes. All I could think of was the rapidly gelling salmon I’d left on Gabriella’s desk. I ordered a cup of coffee.

“Do you remember the guy I told you about, the one I met on my way to NYU?” I waited for the flicker of recognition to pass over Holli’s face. Her huge eyes opened even wider. Holli’s face is like, ninety-five percent eyeballs.

“You mean...” She held up her hands, roughly ten inches apart.

I nodded miserably. “Well, he’s Gabriella’s replacement. He’s Neil Elwood.”

“Neil Elwood, as in, Men’s Style Quarterly? As in, Who? Magazine? That Neil Elwood?” Holli’s voice rose as she listed off the Elwood & Stern publications. “Oh my god, Sophie? You slept with Neil Elwood?”

“I didn’t know he was Neil Elwood then!” I flapped my hands frantically to shush her. I didn’t even know Neil Elwood or his stupid company existed until I’d gotten serious about fashion journalism. And yeah, I guess the pictures I’d seen of him since then had reminded me a little of the guy I’d slept with six years ago, but somehow I’d convinced myself that they didn’t look that much alike. “Keep your voice down. That’s not the worst part, okay? The worst part is that he doesn’t remember me.”

The waitress returned with my coffee and Holli’s soda, and Holli toyed with her straw wrapper as she leaned forward. “How could he have forgotten? I thought it was like, the hottest night ever.”

“It was.” Wasn’t it? Six years later and I was still thinking about him while spending quality time with my vibrator. But I’d also learned the painful truth, in those intervening years; that two people could have sex together and have two completely different experiences.

“Well, I thought he sounded like kind of a dick.” Holli sipped her cola. “He stole your plane ticket, Sophie.”

That... was true. And I often overlooked that crucial point, not because hot sex excuses theft, but because it turned out to be the best thing to have ever happened to me. In a way, I felt like I should thank him. “If he hadn’t stolen my plane ticket, I wouldn’t have gone to NYU. I wouldn’t have met you. We wouldn’t be living this super fabulous life.”

“I wouldn’t be so quick with the ‘super fabulous life’ stuff, if my boss had just gotten fired,” Holli pointed out. “What are you going to do?”

That was the million dollar question, wasn’t it? I sipped my coffee— it had a greasy sheen on top— and grimaced. There wasn’t exactly an agony aunt column that could deal with this kind of shit.

I couldn’t drink the rest of the coffee. I couldn’t even sit still. “I have to bail, Holli. Are you going to be around tonight?”

She nodded as she swallowed. “Yeah, in all evening. Don’t stress out today, okay?”

I couldn’t agree to that, and Holli knew it. We said our goodbyes and I headed out onto the street. The sun was shining and the sky was blue. A beautiful October day in Manhattan. I hated when the weather refused to match my mood.