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I shrugged. “For the next few weeks, I guess. I don’t have a base. I take jobs and travel. During my time off, I visit places on my own dime.”
“You must have a mini hub,” Charlie insisted.
“Nope.”
“What about your family?” Charlie ordered us more beer and two cheeseburgers. If nothing else, this was a nice reprieve from Duffy’s fridge, which looked like a dispensary with all the greens.
“No family.” I sipped my beer. “Free as a bird.”
“Or lonely as a tooth in a crackhead’s smile.” He grinned big.
I barked out a laugh. “It’s all about your outlook, I guess.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve got more mileage than you, and let me tell you, family’s important.” He popped a french fry into his mouth. “So, Duffy. How’d you meet her?”
I contemplated how much to tell him, if anything. On one hand, the man was a complete stranger. On the other, I didn’t want to shit all over my plan with Poppins. We’d never smoothed out the kinks about our engagement story.
“It’s complicated,” I said finally.
“No, it’s not.” Charlie wiped ketchup from the corner of his mouth. “Duffy doesn’t do complicated. And anyway, it is a one-line question. Coffee shop. Club. Work. Tinder.”
“Yeah, definitely not Tinder.” I gave him a once-over. “You seem to know her well.”
He picked up his beer, then put it back down, as if it weighed a ton. “Well enough to know she’s better than that suit she’s parading around as her boyfriend. That guy is no good.” He made a face. “Where is that mouth breather, anyway? Did she really break up with him?”
“Nepal,” I answered, oddly interested to hear more tidbits about Cocksucker. So he wore a suit and came from money. That was predictable. But a mouth breather too? Duffy clearly had zero standards other than having a trust fund.
“Nepal, huh?” Charlie sat back and tossed the balled-up paper napkin onto the bar. “Probably volunteering somewhere, thinking he’s holier than thou.”
I smiled. The old man was growing on me like fungus. Despite my best efforts not to like him. “She seemed to have bought into that whole savior-and-saint act.”
“Duffy?” Charlie chuckled. “Nah. She just decided he’s going to be her ticket out of poverty. Can’t blame her, with her rough start. More power to her.”
Shaking my head, I drained the rest of my beer, not sure I agreed with him.
“Maybe we should do this more often.” Charlie glanced at me, smiling.
I tipped my bottle against his. “Maybe you’re right.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DUFFY
It was on my last day at WNT when I decided it would be a great time to have a full-fledged mental breakdown.
Mercury must’ve been in retrograde. Reversing at a trillion miles an hour, more like. Everything that could have gone wrong had done so. And everything that couldn’t—still did.
BJ didn’t call me from Kathmandu, even though he had promised to give me a sign of life when he landed. It had been three days since I’d dropped him off at the airport, which meant, according to our no-contact rule, the next time I’d hear from him would be when he came back home.
Mumdidcall, but I wished she hadn’t. She was panicked because Kieran (a.k.a. the Traitor Who Shall Not Inherit a Penny Should I Ever Become Rich) told her BJ left me, which wasn’t even (entirely) true.
Then there was work.
Everybody seemed to fuss over Gretchen like they were losing a limb, not a high-maintenance anchorwoman. No one paid attention to me, even though I was her highest-ranked assistant. I knew exactly why. I was the snotty, neurotic go-getter who frowned upon those who came to work to socialize and who skipped social functions in favor oftrying to impress BJ’s family. To be honest, I hadn’t thought I’d need to be there for much longer. Sure, I’d stay gainfully employed untilaftermy wedding to BJ, but as soon as I was pregnant with my first child, I’d quietly quit to raise the next generation of Abbotts.
Only now there was no BJ, no wedding, and definitely no babies.
Gone was the dream to take two years off to focus on building my family and soul-search what I wanted to do for a career.
