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“So, I need you to use your fingers and pull it out for me. Now.”
I might have to break my streak and murder you this year.
“That’s okay.” I pulled out my cell phone. “I think it’d be better if I called 9-1-1.”
“If you don’t do it, you’re fired, and I will never write a recommendation letter for anywhere else you want to go. I mean, I would never let you go anyway, but still…” She arched her back. “Get busy.”
I stared at her, silently weighing the pros and cons of helping her with this.
Pros? None. Cons? Potential homelessness, fingers that I’ll never look at the same way again.
“Chloe, it’s burning!”
I sighed and bent down, feeling every ounce of dignity leave my body. I picked up the hand mirror between her legs and spotted the rubber ring.
“It’s right here,” I said, grabbing her hand and maneuvering her pointer finger against the edge. “Push down on the band and pull it forward.”
To my surprise, she followed my command, and I forced bile down my throat at the view.
“Oh my god, great!” She flung it across the room and collapsed onto the floor. “I feel so much better now.”
“I feel worse.” I looked away from her. “I’m going back to celebrating my thirtieth birthday now.”
“Your birthday isn’t until tomorrow.”
“I’m starting the celebration a day early.”
“You can’t do that to me.” She sat up and grabbed a blanket, wrapping it around her body. “Who am I supposed to talk to about everything that’s happening at Rogue Publishing today?”
I didn’t answer.
I didn’t care.
As if she could read my mind, she narrowed her eyes.
“You do know that a secret buyer purchased this company months ago, right? Whoever it is, they’re insisting that they bring their own CEO. That means, I’ll have to share you since they want my top assistant during the transition.”
“I’ve done all the research you asked me to do on that and I haven’t found anything,” I said. “It’s probably some spoiled rich kid who wants a title and won’t do any real work.”
It took everything in me not to say, “Someone just like you.”
“Well, fine.” She pouted like a toddler. “At some point this week, can you finally buy me that Gucci bag I keep mentioning? I’ll pay you back once my dad turns on my credit cards.”
“I don’t have any extra money to spend at Gucci,” I said. “Unless you want a key chain.”
“Ugh. Stop being so cheap!” she said. “It’s only five-thousand dollars.”
“That’s more than what I make in a month.”
“What?” She blinked, looking at me in horror. “You’re … a poor person? All this time I’ve known you, you’ve been poor?”
Oh my god.
“What’s that like?” She looked dead-ass serious. “How do you survive on so little?”
“Cheap food and knockoffs, I guess,” I said. “I really have to go now. I have a scavenger hunt to start.”
“Wait.” She grabbed her purse and pulled out a handful of twenty-dollar bills. “Here … Is this enough to get you a cot in a homeless shelter tonight?”
