ONE
Frankie
“Fired? Fired! Can you believe it?”I knocked back one of the tequila shots the bartender had set in front of us. The burning sensation coated my throat and I welcomed the sting. The shot glass hit the table with a loud clank before I brought the lime wedge to my lips and sucked.
“I mean, it was a shock at first, but considering this is the fiftieth time you’ve brought it up, I’m starting to believe it,” my older sister Mattie muttered from the barstool next to mine. “And technically you got laid off, not fired.”
“What’s the difference?” I demanded, snatching her shot and knocking it back too. “It’s all just an excuse to get rid of me.Me!I’ve done everything for that company. I’ve been there for years. And to just lay me off on a random Thursday without even giving me a chance to say goodbye?” Tears pricked at my eyes, but I had already sobbed over this enough in the past twenty-four hours. I refused to be reduced to a shriveling mess of a human.
Mattie lightly placed her hand on my shoulder. “Frankie, it’s going to be alright. You’re the most qualified, drivenperson I know. You’ll find another job. This is a slight detour in the grand scheme of things.”
Her words danced around in my brain. Maybe it was the buzz, but they didn’t quite hit their intended target. The din in the bar faded to background noise as I tried to focus on the conversation at hand.
I was fully prepared to spend a few more days wallowing before I accepted this turn my life had unexpectedly taken. And what better place to wallow than in the company of my only sister? As soon as I’d stepped out of my former office in downtown Atlanta, clutching a box of my belongings and still feeling shell-shocked, I had stumbled over to a bench across the street and looked up flights on my phone. I had to get away. Spending some time with my sister in the small town she’d moved to a few years ago had sounded like the exact getaway I needed.
Key Ridge, Colorado had one main street, a handful of hotels, a ski resort, and a population of just over one thousand people. But when I got off the plane a few hours ago and Mattie picked me up, I was surprised to find the streets practically bustling. We’d even had to wait to get a seat at the bar we’d been holed up in for the past two hours.
“Spring break,” she’d explained, like that was supposed to mean something to me. We’d both grown up in Florida before I’d moved to Atlanta after college. Spring break to me meant lazy days on a beach and sun-kissed skin. But apparently in Colorado, spring break was prime time for skiing and snowboarding. Which explained the feet of white fluff piled up alongside the sidewalks.
When I’d decided to fly here on a whim, I hadn’t exactly pictured this much snow in mid-March. But Mattie had informed me there was at least a month left before the ski season officially ended, and Mother Nature had blessed themwith way more snow this year than the past few. Funny—I didn’t realize more snow was a blessing, but you’d have thought it was a miracle with how excited my sister was describing it.
“Twenty-eight and unemployed,” I groaned, resting my forehead in my hands. “I never thought it’d come to this.”
“You’re being dramatic,” Mattie unhelpfully pointed out.
“I can be dramatic if I want to be. It’s my life.”
“It’s a job, not your life.” Mattie waved the bartender over to order another drink, purposefully ignoring the scowl that had creeped onto my face.
My careerwasmy life. Or at least it had been up until yesterday. I’d been scaling the corporate ladder of that company ever since I graduated from college. It defined me, and I was more than okay with that. It thrilled me when people asked me what I did for a living and I could tell them I was the Director of Marketing at a thriving real estate company.
Now I was nothing.
“Did you tell Mom and Dad yet?” Mattie asked.
I scoffed. “When would I have had time to tell them? When I was sobbing on my drive home after my boss broke the news to me? When I was packing to come visit you? Or did you want me to call them from the plane? Where I was such a whimpering mess that the gentleman sitting next to me asked if he could switch seats.”
“He did not,” Mattie said.
“He did too. He picked a seat next to a crying baby—a baby, Mattie. He thought that would be a more peaceful flight than being in my vicinity.”
Mattie completely ignored my hysterics. “They’re about to leave for that month-long cruise in Australia. You should really call them while they still have service.”
“I’ll call them when I have a new job,” I said.
“Who knows how long that will take?” Mattie argued. “You’re just going to lie to them?”
“I thought you said I’d find a new one in no time.” I narrowed my eyes at her, throwing her words back in her face.
An elbow bumped my back and I turned around to glare at the culprit.
“Excuse you,” I said to the older woman getting settled onto the barstool next to mine.
“Sorry.” She looked at me with apologetic eyes.
“You’re fine.” Mattie leaned forward and offered the woman a smile. “My sister is having an off day.” With that, she tugged at my arm and glared at me. “Can you not be so on edge right now? You almost ripped that poor lady’s head off.”
“She bumped me,” I grumbled.
