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“You are my office princess, and I refuse to have it any other way.”
“There’s almost never anything to do here,” she insisted, waving around the empty space.
I had an official office space.
I had a registered business name.
Black Cat Consulting.
Named, of course, after my love of all things Halloweeny. Including my three black dumpster cats. One of whom was our office mascot since he hated his siblings back at home. Josie took Binx home with her most nights, but he was just as happy to stay in the office, and would sometimes scratch the shit out of her when she tried to grab him and put him in the crate to leave.
The office itself was on a strip that featured several other small businesses. A dentist, an eye doctor, a shoe store, and a nail salon.
It wasn’t a huge space, but it was more than big enough to feature a desk for Josie, a couple of seats on the other side of it, a couch near the back for me since I wasn’t a desk sort of chick, and a bathroom to the right, and a tiny kitchenette/break room to the left.
More than enough for our needs.
Since, like Josie said, we weren’t exactly a busy office.
But we had to keep up appearances.
Taxes and all that crap.
The picture window had mirrored film on it, so we could see out, but no one could see in. But it also allowed in a teensy bit of light without letting the place bake when the sun was beating on the strip.
I didn’t want anyone knowing our business. And I also didn’t like anyone being able to notice that Josie was alone in the office most of the time. It was also why I insisted she keep a taser in her desk, just in case.
I’d decorated the inside of the office to suit my personal tastes. To hell with the clients.
The walls were a slate gray, save for the one brick wall across from Josie’s desk. Her desk itself was intricately carved and antique. The chair I was perched in—and the one beside it—was a royal high-back velvet chair in a deep, blood-red shade.
In the back, the couch was a black tufted thing with antique end tables. One had a golden human skeleton lamp; the other was a big raven lamp.
Every one of Josie’s desk supplies were in bright colors, putting a bit of herself in the office that in no way suited her tastes. Neon pink sticky notes. A baby blue pen holder. A canary yellow notebook. Even her coffee cup was a floral print in shades of purple, pink, and blue.
Hell, even Josie herself stood out in the goth-chic look of the office. From her nearly one-hundred-percent Irish heritage, she was almost ghostly pale with some charming freckles. Today, she had another of her sundresses on, which she practically lived in, because she claimed ‘They’re effortless, but make it look like you are all done up.’This one was a light blue with white flowers which only made her deep blue eyes pop.
She was so freaking pretty.
I’d put good money on her being able to find that happily-ever-after of hers if she would just… leave the house once in a while.
“Tell me again how pretty he was,” she implored, giving me a girlish smile.
I was pretty sure that neither of us had ever had close girlfriends before. Me, because, well, my whole all-halloween-all-the-time and rough-around-the-edges personality just didn’t fit in with the cliques in my schools. Josie, because she apparently went through an extremely painfully awkward stage. Head-gear and all. That, paired with her innate shyness, and it seemed like she was just as on her own as I’d been growing up.
So after we’d gotten over the initial awkward phase, she and I had started to cling to each other the way teen girls do. Like a lifeline. Sharing all the details about our lives.
She knew how my cherry got popped on the hood of my ex-boyfriend’s brother’s car in an act of revenge for being cheated on.
I knew that she’d held onto her v-card until the morning before her twenty-second birthday, and that she’d done it out of desperation with her neighbor across the hall who was a world-renowned manwhore who she knew would fuck her in a heartbeat.My words, not hers.
Unfortunately for her, the dude got all weird afterward when he realized she was a virgin, and did everything in his power to avoid her in the halls and parking lot since.
That had been going on for a year.
Which probably gave the poor girl a complex about it.
Honestly, I didn’t think she’d been with anyone since, but I didn’t press about it. I could see that being a sore spot after such an awkward first encounter.
