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And then he goes off with them, the three of them with armfuls of rebar.
“Oh, how far we’ve come from the dog throne,” Latrisha says to me, watching them disappear.
“What?”
“You’ve done a one-eighty. From wanting to mess with him to quite the opposite.”
I can’t keep the smile off my face.
“What happened to the asshole?”
“His company is his family and, yeah, he’s a complete asshole to anyone who threatens it. Which he saw as me, I suppose—”
“If he really knew you, he would know you’re the most trustworthy person on the planet.”
I smile without meeting her eyes. Latrisha doesn’t know I’m Vonda O’Neil, either. I’m lying about my entire identity. But that’s not what she’d hate me for. She’s my age, around twenty-four. She would remember Vonda’s supposedly destructive lies. She could’ve forwarded the news stories and liked the Facebook memes.
Somebody made a video of strung-together clips of me on the Deerville courthouse steps that made it look like I was dancing up and down the courthouse steps. They spliced in a lot of imagery of pigs rolling in mud and set it to music with violent, misogynist lyrics.
It got millions of likes. Latrisha could have been one of them. I could still go type Vonda pigs in the Facebook search bar and find the seven-year-old video online, and I could search the likes for her name.
I’ve done it before with people, like teachers of Carly’s, but I had to make myself stop that.
Would Latrisha be in there if I hovered over those likes? Would Henry? God, he’d hate me. They both would.
“We’ve come to a good place. It’s complicated.”
“Record scratch!” she says. “Did you sleep with him?”
“Weeeeeell…”
“Oh-em-eff-gee,” she says.
“No, we didn’t do it…” I pause, awash in memory of us on the rooftop. And the way his lips felt against my skin, his hands.
“But you’ve been doing each other.”
“We have.” I toss a bottle cap into the trash. “And it’s amazing. He’s amazing.”
“I thought he didn’t trust you. Like you’re this weasely scammer who stole his company,” she says. “What happened to that?”
“We’ve gotten to know each other—deep down, beneath all the bullshit of this situation. We click. It’s amazing. And I’m giving the company back.”
“Hold on—what?!”
“Don’t tell him. I didn’t actually tell him, but I implied it. Carly and I have that twenty-one-day waiting period thing and promising is the same…”
“Bernadette gave it to Smuckers and you because you two were her only friends in the universe. She wanted you to have it. That is your security. You and Carly. You would give that up?”
“It doesn’t feel right to keep it.”
“What part of going from scrabbling along to super wealthy doesn’t feel right to you?”
“All of it. Carly and I were getting on fine. We have a great life just how it is. And the company was never ours.”
“So, let me get this timeline straight.” She sets a hand on my shoulder and her eyes bore into mine. “He’s an asshole to you. He plays dirty tricks. It doesn’t work. Then he decides to be charming. And we know the tales of him in the sack. I’m sorry. I know he’s hot. He’s smart and fun. But he’s not one of us. He just wants that company.”
I’m shaking my head.
