The Boyfriend (The Boss 7)

“Finding a job.” She sighed heavily. “I don’t know if Mitchell is sleeping at his desk every day or what, but I haven’t been able to book anything.”

“You haven’t been able to book anything in New York,” Deja clarified. “L.A. might be a different story if you’d consider it.”

Holli shook her head. “Nope. No way. I’m not going to be gone for weeks at a time. I’m not going to be that parent.”

That made me feel a little bit guilty. Neil and I weren’t Olivia’s parents, but we were her parental stand-ins, and we’d just left her for ‘weeks at a time.’”

“Fine,” Deja said with the resigned tone of a wife who’d already been over the subject numerous times. “Just remember, you know someone who can find you modeling work. Or, say, a feature.”

“I’m not feature material,” Holli argued.

I swallowed a sip of my drink. “What are you talking about? You were just in a show on Broadway last year.”

“Yeah, a show that got panned.” She rubbed her temple with the tips of her fingers. “Remind me never to sign up for ghost story nonsense again.”

“That could be a feature,” I suggested, taking another drink. It was a good thing I didn’t drive in Manhattan, because I planned to slam at least two more of them. “What if you did an interview about bouncing back from a career disappointment? It would work in the wellness section.”

“It might work,” Deja agreed. “Why don’t you still work for me?”

“Because you can’t afford to support her lifestyle,” Holli reminded her. “She’s a woman of leisure, now.”

“That’s true.” And weird. I’d never planned to retire when I’d started my career. I’d thought I would move naturally from assistant to editorial assistant to someday running an entire magazine. Porteras, specifically, the internationally famous publication that now belonged to Valerie. I’d thought I would die at my desk. Now, I hadn’t worked for over a year. “I don’t know. Maybe someday I’ll find a job I can stick with.”

“You could always write another book.” Holli shrugged. “People seem to like those.”

“They’re memoirs, though. And I’ve kind of used up all the life I’ve lived so far, in terms of writing about it.” Plus, writing about my own life had been extremely weird. I’d written both of my books to work through some really tough times. I’m Just The Girlfriend and Does She Have To Call Me Grandma? had both been my way of coping with tragedy. I’d needed a support system outside of my immediate circle of friends, and I’d found it bizarrely easier to open up and share things with a faceless public than I did with my own loved ones. Since I wasn’t going through any of that horrible stuff now—thank god—I didn’t feel a need to write about anything at all. It was why I was uncomfortable any time anyone called me a writer or an author; I’d corrected everyone so much, they didn’t bother describing me that way anymore. I liked that just fine. I wasn’t a writer. I was Sophie, unemployed mess of a thirty-year-old who still had no idea what to do with her life, and who just happened to have written bestselling memoirs.

“And they wouldn’t have been popular if my husband wasn’t already somewhat famous,” I added.

“That’s called having a hook, Sophie. It brings people in.” Deja’s facial expression jolted into an anatomical equivalent of a light bulb going off over someone’s head. “You went through a pretty major life change last year. You found out you had a secret family. That’s definitely something write about.”

“Out of the question.” I wouldn’t open the Tangens up to that kind of scrutiny for my own benefit. “I don’t want people to know all their business. And we’re not close. I can’t just call them up and go, ‘hey, I’m going to write about how much your dad screwed me up, and I’m going to tell all of your business to everyone. Are you cool with that?’”

“So? Fictionalize it,” Holli said, as though writing a loosely autobiographical novel would be super easy.

Of course, maybe it would. I could kind of see it; a Cinderella story, but Cinderella finds out that her mean stepmother isn’t really mean, and the horrible stepsisters are just ordinary people. I didn’t even have to set it in contemporary times. Everything could be disguised in a historical setting if I wanted it to be. And if I learned about history. Like, anything about history at all. And Molly didn’t have to have a kidney transplant. I could just give her some old-timey disease.

“Sophie dot e-x-e has stopped working,” Holli said, breaking me out of my thoughts. “The program is not responding. Rainbow wheel.”

I shook myself out of my daydream. “Sorry, my mind just kind of wandered off with that idea. I mean, it couldn’t hurt to try my hand at a novel, right? If it sucks, nobody has to see it.”