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I stare at my roommates’ luggage—they’re bound for Kauai to celebrate their fifth anniversary. I can’t even imagine taking a trip to the Hawaiian Islands by myself, let alone with a significant other. It’s like I started walking down one road and a day became a week became a month became a year, and here I am, ten years later with no idea if this is the right road or what I’m supposed to do when I’m not walking down it.
Flopping onto the couch, I moan dramatically. “Have fun, but feel sorry for me occasionally.”
Annabeth comes and sits near my feet. Her auburn pixie cut perfectly frames her face, and I can already imagine how sun-kissed she’ll be when she returns. “We will raise a fruit-decorated drink in your honor.”
“Oh my God,” I lament, “I was going to lie on this couch for days and drink boxed wine and catch up on like seven hundred different shows.”
Peyton leans over the back and puts her hand on my shoulder. “I know I’ve said it before, but if you want a job with regular hours, I can always find a spot for you.”
Her offer is sweet, but the only thing that sounds worse to me than being Melissa Tripp’s assistant is being an assistant to an insurance claims adjustor.
“That’s so nice of you—” I begin, and Peyton cuts me off.
“But you want to keep your insurance,” she says.
I do. The medical benefits are amazing, and I’m not sure I’d be able to find that in a private plan that won’t bankrupt me.
“And even if that wasn’t the issue, you’d rather die first, I know,” she adds.
I laugh. “The idea of nine to five and three weeks of vacation a year sounds almost mythical, but—”
“But then you wouldn’t get to work with Melissa Tripp!”
I look over at Annabeth when she practically sings this, and grin. “Exactly.”
She’s not being sarcastic. Annabeth is such a sweet, innocent angel baby it would be a shame to burst her image of Melly, who, admittedly, used to be a dream boss. But fame—and then her clawing need to hold on to it—is slowly eroding anything gentle or lighthearted about her. I’d feel sorry for Rusty if he hadn’t eroded in opposite but equivalent ways.
Annabeth and Peyton are dressed and ready, which means that they’re about to leave to catch their flight, which means it’s nearly seven and I need to get a move on, too. I haul myself up from the couch, hug them in turn, and try not to look back at their bright, sunshiny dresses on my way out the door.
Granted, I was never an exceptional student—my crowning achievement in high school was a C in AP Lit and being voted secretary of our Future Farmers of America club—but the short walk from my car to the van has got to be some kind of metaphor for what a college education can do for a person. My shaggy old suitcase chugs along, veering off-path every time it hits a pebble. The fabric is worn out, the lock is broken, and the wheels are barely attached to the case. Up ahead, James McCann is shiny as a penny as he climbs out of his sleek BMW coupe and extracts his glossy aluminum luggage. He sets it down like it weighs nothing and, behind him, it glides across the parking lot like an obedient, high-end robot.
I want to throw something at him, preferably my shitty suitcase.
Plus, he’s wearing a neatly pressed navy suit like we’re going to another Netflix meeting instead of climbing into a cramped van for a fourteen-hour drive from Jackson to Los Angeles.
Irritation crawls up my spine.
“You’re wearing work clothes?” I have to yell to drown out the horrifying screech of my suitcase wheels struggling to stay connected to the bag.
He doesn’t turn around. “Are we not headed to work?”
“Not work work. We’re going to be sitting for a while.” Thanks to you, I think. “I assumed we should wear something at least fifty percent Lycra with no zipper.”
“I left my yoga pants at home.” He still doesn’t even look at me over his shoulder. “This is how I dress, Carey.”
“Even when relaxing?”
“We have an event tonight.”
“And we can change at the last stop,” I say. “Won’t you get wrinkled?”
This time, he looks back at me over the top of his glasses. “I don’t wrinkle.”
I glare because, as impossible as it seems, if anyone can figure out how to be both stain- and wrinkle-proof, it’s James. He keeps walking, and I riffle through my memory. In the couple of months that he’s been working for Rusty, I don’t think I’ve ever seen James in casual clothing, or looking anything less than recently pressed. No jeans, certainly no sweats. Now all I can imagine is James McCann washing his silver BMW in his driveway wearing tailored chinos and one of his many Easter egg–hued button-down shirts.
