Page 216 of Manhattan Bossholes

“But…he could use someone to give the place a little magic—to make a list of signature cocktails and the like that could really put the bar on the map and make it stand out.” Maggie tilted her glass in my direction. “Sounds right up your alley.”

Hmm, I thought. There’s an idea…

AIDEN

It was a struggle to keep from pacing as I waited for Maggie to come back. Finally, she strode through the bar’s front door, a grumpy look on her face.

That was no help. She always had a grumpy look on her face. How was I supposed to know if that meant she had good news or not?

“Well?” I finally said, when I couldn’t contain myself any longer.

“Well, what?” she asked, taking a seat at the bar. Dad popped the cap off a beer and slid it down the counter to her.

“Well, did she open the package? What did she say?” I asked, barely managing to keep from snapping at her when she paused to take a long gulp from the bottle before answering.

“She opened it, all right,” Maggie stated. “And she said she thought it was a weird thing for a guy to do after he dumped her.”

I winced.

“And also that if you wanted to apologize, you probably should have started with ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘I was wrong’ or ‘I was a complete dumbass.’ Personally,” she added, “my vote’s for the last one.”

“Mags…” Dad said from behind the bar, his voice softly scolding.

“What?” she shot back, unapologetic. “He was a dumbass. A moronic, boneheaded, chickenshit, fatheaded, ja⁠—”

“Okay, enough,” I cut in. “I get the idea.”

“You sure? ’Cause my brother got me a word-of-the-day calendar of insults for Christmas last year, and I’ve got plenty more I can pull from, if you haven’t gotten the message yet.”

“Trust me,” I gritted out. “I’ve gotten it loud and clear.”

“Well, just in case you need it broken down in smaller words…” she said, getting up from the barstool and coming over to stand in front of me, meeting me eye to eye. Well, eye to sternum—I was a lot taller than her. But that didn’t stop me from feeling small when she stared me down.

“You fucked up,” she said bluntly. “And you really hurt her. After what you did, it’s going to take more than swapping around a label to get her to forgive you.”

I let out a heavy sigh. “I just wanted to show her how much she means to me.”

At that, Maggie finally softened a little. “Look, I’m not saying it was a bad move,” she conceded. “But it wasn’t enough. Cora said it herself—if you want her back, what needs to change isn’t the bottle. It’s you.”

“I’m trying,” I said.

“Yeah, I know,” she replied. “Keep trying. Try harder.”

31

CORA

“Ironwood just commented on your latest video,” Jennifer said from her end of the couch.

I looked up from my phone. “Huh?”

“They want you real bad.” Jennifer crawled over to me, showing me the comment section on my latest Masked Mixer video. “‘Looks fire! We can’t wait to try it out.’ They’re really sucking up.”

I smirked. “Well, my answer is still no.”

“Are you sure? You’re a hot commodity right now. They’d probably offer you double what was in your original contract. Look at all these other brands dropping fire emojis under their comment. They want you, Cora,” Jennifer said, pitching her voice dramatically. “They need you.”

I covered my face with my hands, laughing as she carried on. Now that it was clear that the Masked Mixer had parted ways with Elixir, more and more brands were sliding into my DMs with partnership offers, brand deals, and even a few gig invites around the city. It was everything I had hoped to get as a result of my Elixir partnership, and it was probably time to start taking some of them seriously—at least the gigs.