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CHAPTER 1
MILLIE
My pulse is pounding in my head. My body is flushed, and I can feel my cheeks heating up.
“If you stir your coffee any harder, you’ll create a hurricane.” Danielle grabs my hand to stop me from stirring.
She slowly takes away her hands, looking at me like I’m a grenade about to go off.
“I just… UGH!”
My blood boils. I always try to see the good in people, but my boss is vile. He’s degrading and rude and he makes me want to scream.
“Breathe, babe.” Danielle sips her coffee, gesturing for me to do the same. “What is it?”
I take a deep breath. “Matheson.”
I can picture his red face, his fists balled up, his angry sneer. Everything about the man repulses me. Each day I wonder if I should quit. Each day I wonder why I stick it out. I know it’s agood company, and that with the right connections I could get to where I want to be, but right now I’m questioning if it’s worth it.
Danielle groans. “He can’t possibly have topped making you fly from Seattle to New York just to get some paperwork. That’s not even your job!”
I mentally blocked that out. It was insanity. He acted like I was going down the street for coffee. He was still annoyed at me. Apparently I took too long. As if I can control how long a flight is or the traffic in New York.
I was so sleep-deprived by the time I got back, and then he yelled at me for not getting my work done — work that can only be done in person, in the office. Unless he cloned me, it would be literally impossible.
“Technically itismy job, but it was ridiculous. He keeps blaming me for everything the guys on his team are doing wrong. I can’t stand the male species right now.”
“Are you even part of the team yet? Wasn’t Matheson supposed to promote you?”
I shake my head. “I’m still officially the assistant, but somehow that also makes me the person responsible for everyone’s mistakes, even though I’m not involved in it whatsoever. You know all of this. I’ve told you a million times.”
I shake my shoulders, trying to get rid of the icky feeling I have. I need a new job, or a change. I feel stuck. I need more money. I need career progression. I needsomething.
“You can vent to me about the same thing as many times as you want,” Danielle assures me. “You’ve heard about Chris the casestealer about fifty times so we’re even.” She winks and takes a bite of her croissant.
“It seems like all the men in the office have the same irritating ego-maniac gene.” I grip my coffee cup, using every bit of self-control not to hurl it onto the footpath.
“Well…” Danielle scrolls on her phone, “maybe we can find a guy that won’t annoy you.”
I frown at her. I could meet my dream guy right now and would still run in the other direction.
Danielle is always trying to set me up with her coworkers at the law firm, but they’re all about themselves and their own ego, not my type.
In all honesty, I don’t even know what my dream guy would be. The bar is underneath the floor at this point given my track record with men.
My exes were all the same — selfish. I would always end up coddling them or they treated me like I was their mother. Some of them cheated, some of them just gave up on treating me like a human being. It’s too hard. It shouldn’t be this hard.
Even casual dating is draining. Getting to know someone and putting in time and effort only for them to ghost you. Romance has been replaced with two-word booty calls. Not that I’m a fan of overly romantic gestures — they make me cringe — but there’s got to be something in between.
Danielle, meanwhile, only has to bat her eyelashes and she has her pick of the hottest people. She never tolerates being treated like anything less than royalty, but she’s also perpetually allergic to commitment.
In my case, I’ve concluded that I’m the problem and I’m probably better off alone with twenty cats.
“Dating is the last thing on my mind right now,” I say. “I mean, if a guy wants to buy me a coffee or dinner, I’ll take it, but only because I’ve been saving my butt off so that maybe one day, probably in a thousand years, I can finally go to college.”
Danielle reaches over the table and squeezes my hand. She knows all of this. She’s been there eating ramen noodles and having nights in instead of girl’s nights out in solidarity with me.
She could be out on the town, living the high life with the money she makes, but she chooses to stay in with me. I feel guilty sometimes, like I’m holding her back.
