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One
Sophie
The scent of fresh tortillas hits my nose the moment I follow my best friend through the door of our favorite downtown restaurant. “But what about Emma?”
“Sophie Alexander, it’s your thirty-fucking-fifth birthday. You got your divorce papers yesterday. We are going out to get plastered on lethal margaritas tonight to celebrate your freedom from Teeny Peeny and you reaching your sexual prime. I already texted Emma, she’s spending the night at Bella’s house.” She shakes her head at me before I can protest, her chin-length hair swinging. “And no, she didn’t want to come, I already asked. No normal fifteen-year-old wants to hang out with her mom on a Friday night.”
“Happy Birthday, Sophie!” A large table of women greets us as we make our way deeper into the restaurant from the bar. Jess raises her glass in a toast, her margarita already half drunk.
Lauren pushes me into the booth with Jess and a few other ladies from work. I don’t know most of them, but I smile anyway. Angela from Marketing slides a margarita to me with a birthday greeting. I take a sip that burns on the way down, as lethal as advertised.
I join in the meaningless chatter while I drink, letting the tequila warm me from the inside. One of the girls from accounting is in the middle of a story about her latest blind date when Jess squeaks, clutching at my arm.
“Oh. My. God.” Her nails dig painfully into my upper arm. “Is that Theodore-fuck-me-Sutton?”
“What?” I crane my neck to catch a glimpse. Shit. There he is. The quintessential grumpy boss we all work for is leaning on the bar, sipping from a glass of golden liquid. I’m pretty sure the whole table sighs out loud watching his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows.
Everyone in the office is terrified of him, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t the subject of more than one secret fantasy.
Like the novel I’ve been writing.
The one that features a hero with dark looks like his, and a gruff exterior.
“Soph!” Lauren snaps a finger in front of my face. “Time for presents!” She shoves a hot pink gift bag into my hands.
“Thanks, babe.” I move to tuck the bag under my chair, next to my purse, but Lauren grabs it.
“Nope, you have to open it now. I need to see your face!” She grins at me, the same grin that got us into trouble on more than one occasion in college.
“Lauren…” I give her a warning look before reaching in and pulling out a pink envelope. “Pink? Really?”
Lauren just laughs. “It’s a theme. Open it already!”
I take my time reading the card to annoy her, smiling at her use of the nicknames we gave each other back in college.
Bitch,
Have I told you lately how proud of you I am? You already know how I feel about Jake and his actions, but I am so excited to see you finally putting yourself first. Here’s a little something so you can keep pursuing the things that you love, and so you can take care of yourself. Love you!
- Slut
“Aww, thanks babe.” Laughing, I wipe my eyes before pulling the first tissue-wrapped shape out of the bag. “Hmm, this feels like a book. Always a good choice.” Ripping off the paper reveals a stack of three books—Lucy Score’s newest, a signed copy of one of Annette Marie’s Demonized books for my collection, and a craft book called Romancing the Beat.
“So you can finally finish that book instead of spending all your free time writing boring articles for me.” Lauren grins at me. “You know I’m dying to read more. You left me hanging at chapter six and I neeeeeeeed to know if they fuck.”
She’s not wrong. Answering the phones and directing traffic at Mailbox, Inc is just one of the jobs I do to pay the bills. What no one besides Lauren knows, is that I write articles for the company blog under a pen name for extra money.
When Mr. Sutton instructed Lauren to add a blog to Mailbox’s website, posting articles about business and technology in order to increase Mailbox’s visibility, she was able to hire “Elinor Price” without fuss. Lauren’s also the only person who knows that there’s a series of unfinished romance novels burning a hole in the hard drive of my laptop at home.
Jake, my ex-husband, hated my love of romances. It should have been a sign.
“These are amazing, thank you.” I give her a sideways hug.
“Oh, that’s just the start. That was your official birthday gift. Now you have to open your ‘Happy Divorce’ gift.”
“Is it decent for the public? Your face is twitching.”
Lauren laughs, taking another long sip of her margarita. “Probably not, but open it anyway. We never got to have a bachelorette party for you since you were already pregnant with Emma and your courthouse wedding didn’t let me celebrate my bestie the way she deserves.”
