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But only for Stiletto purposes. Definitely.
“Why is there a bag of Skittles in my drawer?” Grace asked, staring down at the bright red bag of candy that she’d definitely never seen before.
Riley scooped the rest of her yogurt out of its carton before shooting the empty container across the room and missing the garbage can like she always did. Julie picked it up and placed it in the garbage can just like she always did.
Neither answered her question.
“Hello?”
“Must be Emma’s,” Julie said, pretending fascination with the wristband of her watch.
“Emma Sinclair?”
Riley shook her head. “No, not the Emma that works here. Some other random Emma must have wandered in off the street and left this bag here.”
Grace waited patiently for Julie to stop hiding behind fake ignorance and for Riley to stop covering with lame sarcasm.
Julie caved first. “Emma um … kind of used your desk while you were out. Camille thought it would be easier for her to ramp on the vibe of our section if she hung out with Riley and me.”
“Oh, cool!”
Grace hated that she was jealous. For God’s sake, it wasn’t like it had been personal. It was a rational decision. But the thought of the never-ruffled Emma laughing and joking with her best friends while Grace had been in Florida licking her wounds and eating hot fudge straight from the jar … eeesh.
“When did she move out?” Grace asked.
“Cleaned out the day before you returned,” Riley said, turning back to her computer. “She must have forgotten the Skittles. They were sort of her comfort food. She ate them by the handful when she was editing.”
“Cool! That’s awesome.” Whoops. She’d used cool twice in under thirty seconds. Which, since this wasn’t 1995, meant that she was definitely not cool.
“Grace …,” Julie said slowly. “Do you not like Emma?”
Yup. They were on to her, all right.
“She seems nice,” she replied. “She’s just sort of a constant reminder that I completely fell apart because of a boy. It’s so … high school.”
Riley helped herself to the bag of Skittles in Grace’s hand. “True. My senior year, I ended up with a C in trig because I was too busy mooning after Sam Compton.”
“Okay, two things,” Julie said. “First, you’re terrible at math, so you would have gotten that C anyway. And second, you’re always mooning after Sam Compton.”
Riley threw a yellow candy at Julie. “I’ll grant you the first one; I hate numbers. But I am not mooning after Sam. Right, Grace?”
Grace fiddled with her earring. “Um …”
The truth was, nobody ever knew what was going on with Riley and Sam. The official version was that he was her older brother’s best friend.
The unofficial version read more like the dictionary definition of “unfulfilled sexual tension.”
“Can we bring this back to me?” Grace asked, hoping to dodge a Riley tantrum. “Do you guys think I’m being unreasonable? About Emma, I mean?”
“Yes,” Julie said. “But I get it. None of us likes the thought of being usurped at Stiletto. I mean, let’s not forget me and Kelli Kearns.”
Well. That put things in perspective. Kelli Kearns was a former intern who’d rather famously stolen Julie’s story idea, slept with her boyfriend, and tried to ruin things with her and Mitchell.
She made Emma look like a saint.
“Good riddance to that one,” Riley muttered. “But Julie’s right. Your wounds are just a little fresh. Emma knows it’s not personal.”
“I don’t dislike her,” Grace grumbled. “She’s just so … perfect.”
