Page 104 of Pierced

Hands slip around my waist as lips press up against my neck. “Great party,” Pierce coos. “This is perfect.”

I take a deep, deep breath, remove his hands from my waist, then turn to face him. “This,” I say, looking around. “This was not my vision.”

“No?” Pierce says, taking a step back as he looks around the party. “Well, I love it. And the photographs,” he says, shaking his head. “Wow. I mean, this is gonna be some spread. No one will ever accuse Le Man of being boring, that’s for sure.”

“They thought—” But I don’t want to say it out loud. I don’t want to admit it, especially to Pierce.

“They thought what?”

“They think this is me, Pierce. That this is the kind of party I’d throw.”

He looks around again, then shrugs. “So? I mean, it kinda is.” He laughs, then abruptly stops when he sees I’m not. Laughing, that is. “Come on. It’s just fun. And you actually have a bona fide dungeon in your basement, right? Not to mention you dress like—”

“Hey, Myrtle!” Josh calls out.

“I dress like what?” I ask Pierce, ignoring Josh.

Josh comes towards us, two-fisting cups of blood-red punch. “Sorry I gave you such a hard time about the advertising at first. I just knew the magazine wasn’t in trouble, that’s all. And you were getting a little carried away, which is my cue to just go with it, right, Pierce?” Josh elbows Pierce in the ribs, spilling punch on the floor.

“What?” I ask, confused. But when I turn to Pierce, he’s making one of those slashing motions across his throat. Telling Josh to shut up. “What’s he talking about? What’s he mean he knew we weren’t in trouble?”

“Oops,” Josh says, elbowing Pierce again, spilling more punch on the floor. “My bad, man. I thought you told her.”

“Told me what?” I growl.

“Thanks,” Pierce says, taking Josh by the arm and turning him around. “See you later, Washington. Enjoy the party.”

“What is going on?” I ask.

Pierce rubs a hand across his jaw, then sighs. “I might’ve… misrepresented the financial situation of the magazine.”

I clench my jaw and say, “Explain.”

“You felt… adrift to me, Myrtle. And I was afraid that one day I’d come into work and you wouldn’t be there. I mean, you were refusing to forgive me, OK? I had to do something to make you… stay, I guess. Be the woman to me you always were.”

“And you thought lying to me and giving me a fake job to do was the answer you were looking for? So this whole party…” I stop. Look around at the joke I’ve been turned into. “Was for nothing? We don’t even need—”

“We’re doing the spread, Myrtle. That part’s not fake.”

I laugh. And he laughs with me. But then he stops, because he can see that this is not a real laugh. “OK. So it’s just everything else that’s fake?”

“Myrtle, you’re overreacting. Just listen—”

“Do we need advertisers, Pierce?”

“We always need advertisers, so yeah, of course.”

“You weren’t going to lay anyone off in the new year, were you?”

“Myrtle, listen—”

“Answer me.”

“No.” He sighs. “No. The magazine is fine.”

I take another deep, deep breath. “So this is… just a joke to you.”

“What? No! Of course not!”