“Truman.” Jenna scolds him, finally wrestling her animal off me.
“The thing smells like Fritos.” I lean back. “Sarge, the office. Ignore her,” I say, ordering the driver when Jenna starts to protest.
The PR Princess is starting to panic as we head uptown.
“Bethany’s going to want me to give her an update tonight. I can’t just show her one photo of you sneering and holding a box of cookies.” Her voice has this screechy tone. “That’s not going to cut it.”
“Your eye is twitching. It’s really unattractive.”
She claps a hand to her face.
“You know,” I say, chucking Truman under his furry chin, “you really should just go find a new job now, because I would bet money that Prism is going to fire you by the end of the week. Or…” I lean over the dog. “There is still my offer.”
“I’m not sleeping with you,” Jenna hisses, holding up her notebook to block us from Sarge.
“Revolting. As if. I’d never consider it. Unlike some people in this car, I don’t have low self-esteem.”
“I don’t either!”
“You let me do what I want, I tell your boss what a fantastic job you did, you get a bonus, I get you out of my life.”
“That’s cheating.”
“It’s business.”
“Sarge, the flower shop, please,” she says.
Sarge meets my eye in the mirror.
I give him a silent headshake.
His eyes narrow. “But your brother…”
“Yes,your brother,” Jenna says.
“I have no problem planning my own funeral. My brother isn’t going to fire me.”
Jenna’s spiraling. If I wasn’t stuck in the car with her, with my brother’s anger radiating from the Rainier Investment tower darkening the Seattle skyline, I’d relax and enjoy it.
“Sarge, I bought you a whole box of corgi-themed macarons. Please, please, pretty please take us to the flower shop?” Her hair is snarled in her face. She runs her fingers through it as we get farther away from whatever flower shop she wants.
Finally, she says, “I’m calling your brother.”
“He already thinks you can’t handle this job, or me. You want him to call up the Prism CEO and complain about your obvious incompetence?”
She fumes as I mock her.
“Guess it’s a good thing you’re about to get married to a man who clearly only tolerates you and is going to cheat on you the second you give him a baby. Because you’re not cut out for the corporate world. I hate to say it, but the truth hurts sometimes.”
“Pull over.”
The car keeps rolling.
“Pull over,” Jenna snarls.
“Don’t.” My voice carries a warning, but Sarge is already parking the car.
“I have five sisters,” he says matter-of-factly. “They use that tone? Shit’s about to go down, and I ain’t gonna be around to see it.”
