Catastrophe Queen

Not yet. I mean, the job was still new and the night was still young. Who knew what stupid thing I’d do next?

Mom sighed and shook her head, picking up the glass of wine Jade had poured. “Not yet. That doesn’t mean you won’t. Working with someone you want to sleep with isn’t a good idea.”

“Speak for yourself,” Aunt Grace said in a husky voice, shuffling into the kitchen. “I once worked with a hot as hell contortionist, and let me tell you, that was a damn good idea. The positions that man could get his body into would have made the person behind the Kama Sutra blush.”

Jade hid a smile behind her glass.

“I don’t think there was a single person behind the Karma Sutra,” Mom said.

“You’d know, hussy,” Aunt Grace shot back. “Have you been smoking again?”

“So, tell me about the job.” Jade quickly steered the conversation back to me. “The job, not the boss you’d like to climb like a tree.”

I glared at her. “It’s good. He was out for most of the day today so it was quiet. He seems to deal with the richer clients, judging by the properties I was pulling today.”

Sensing that their argument was no longer of interest to us, both Mom and Aunt Grace disappeared into the living room.

“What kind of rich are we talking?” Jade leaned forward when they’d gone. “Pretty rich, or richy rich rich?”

“Bit of everything,” I said slowly. “Why? Are you looking for your third boyfriend of the year?”

She stuck her middle finger up at me. “Mark was never my boyfriend, and Adrian was a jerk. I just didn’t know it until he told me it was time to dye my hair.”

Yep. That was how my best friend rolled. The only person who was allowed to tell her to do something was, well, me. Even then, it was debatable if she’d listen.

“But, seriously. Does he need another assistant? I’m a little worn out at my job,” she said, referring to her job as a hair stylist at the only salon in town. Well, the only one I could afford, anyway. “People are tiring.”

“You’d be worn out at the grocery store,” I pointed out. She was a lot like me in the idea that she was still figuring out what to do with her life.

We were twenty-five. We probably should have figured it out by now, but nobody was perfect.

“Yeah, whatever.” She waved her hand. “So, what are you going to do now that Mr. Dreamboat is your boss?”

“Uh, work?” I raised an eyebrow. “That weird thing I’m paid to do? I know that’s a hard concept for you to grasp every time Mrs. Tolstoy comes into the salon with the latest gossip she overheard at the bar, but some of us do still do it.”

“Oh, pish.” She snorted and tilted her glass in my direction, eyebrows raised. “I work. One day you’ve got Mrs. Tolstoy coming in for her new color with who said what at the latest coffee morning at the church, and the next you’ve got old Alberta Hennington for a perm and all she wants to talk about is her newest bunion. I take my kicks where I can get them.”

“Like imagining me fantasizing about my hot new boss?” My eyebrow stayed in its raised position.

“Exactly like that.”

“Well, let me tell you,” I said slowly, looking her dead in the eye. “That isn’t going to happen.”

Jade leaned back, smiling behind her glass. “Famous last words, Mallory. Famous. Last. Words.”

CHAPTER SIX – MALLORY

Jade and her ‘famous last words’ could bite me. And when she was done biting me, she could kiss my ass.

Twice.

My morning had started precisely how I’d thought it would. Apparently, when I’d set my new alarm, I’d forgotten to set it for every day.

That was right. I was so bad at adulting I couldn’t even set the alarm correctly.

Anyway. I’d woken up forty minutes late, meaning my hair that needed a wash was now pulled back into a sleek ponytail, and I’d dry shampooed the shit out of the pony in the hopes nobody would notice it was just this side of leaving a grease stain on my shirt.

All right, so it wasn’t that dirty, but it probably wasn’t that far off, either.

If it couldn’t get any worse, there was no coffee thanks to my mom’s horrific hangover, and on the way to work, I’d stopped off at my usual coffee shop.

Completely forgetting that Cameron Reid had asked me to grab his breakfast on my way in. Of course, that was something I’d forgotten until I was already in the office and behind my desk, so I’d had to run back out.

He was, just now, walking in the door, and I’d been back all of five minutes.

At least I’d been able to grab another coffee when I’d picked up his food.