Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 91058 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91058 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
I think their argument is that we don’t spend enough time together in general. When I graduated from Columbia and moved back to Chicago, everyone expected me to move in with Jasper, but I was not interested in that at all. I made some excuse like, “Oh ha ha, not until there’s a ring!”
But in truth, I just…am in no rush to shack up with him. I like my mean cat and my girly scented candles and my all-white bedding. Why would I want to have to accommodate a stinky man?
Not that Jasper is stinky. Just…I don’t want to live with him yet.
Hudson suddenly comes to mind, completely unbidden. The thought of him here in my apartment. His scent masking my floral candle. His suit jacket slung over a dining room chair.
My tummy flips and I refocus my attention on excavating a morsel of fudge from the bottom of my ice cream pint like I’m a highly trained archaeologist. Once it’s melting on my tongue, I check my phone. I have 29 unread text messages. Most are from my group text with my law school friends, a group of four girls I lived with in the city last year. Since graduation, we’ve all moved on to our big girl jobs and big girl lives, though not everyone has started work yet. Big law firms have varying start dates through September and into October. Two of my friends don’t start in their positions for another two weeks, so they’re living it up in Mexico, happily spending their advances at an all-inclusive resort. They’ve sent photos of the beach and the sunset, and I don’t want to rain on their parade with details of my last two days, so I respond to their lives instead, asking about the resort and demanding a running tally of their poolside piña coladas.
Then I reluctantly open the texts from Jasper that I’ve been ignoring all day.
Jasper: Have things cooled off at all at the office? If not…talk to your dad. You shouldn’t have to work in a hostile environment.
* * *
Jasper: I just called Barrett to talk to him about it, but he didn’t answer.
Then, a few hours later:
Jasper: My parents want to have us over for dinner on Friday.
Oh great. The last thing I want to do after my first week of work is spend my Friday night with Jasper’s parents. Don’t get me wrong, the Beringers are nice, but they’re completely overbearing. Their house is extremely formal, and their idea of a casual dinner at home includes a hired chef and multiple uniformed staff. It’s all for show. They’re no more well off than my own family and yet you’d think they were British aristocracy or something with the way they flaunt their fancy lifestyle.
A casual dinner at my house consists of my mom making appetizers while my dad whips something up on the grill. He loves making steak or hamburgers, and sometimes he’ll grill salmon—my favorite. Barrett and Nyles usually volunteer for dessert duty, and when the weather’s nice, we eat outside on the back patio, barefoot and happy with a few uncorked bottles of wine.
I obviously can’t refuse Jasper, though. We don’t see his parents all that often, and I don’t want to make it difficult for him.
Scarlett: Friday sounds good.
Then I toss my phone aside and open my laptop. I check my email first to confirm if anything has come in from work since I left the office. There’s a new meeting request from Sophie that I add to my calendar, but otherwise, I’m still caught up with everything I wanted to complete today.
With nothing else to do and because I’ve been desperately wanting to do it since I left his office this afternoon, I spend the rest of my night educating myself on Hudson’s pharmaceutical merger. I happened to know the answers to his questions today, but if he invites me in on another phone call tomorrow, I want to be sure I know my stuff.
Chapter Eight
Scarlett
I think, though I can’t be certain, that Kendra has shifted my desk so it’s pressed farther into the corner of the office. I don’t remember hitting my head on this plant yesterday, but now every time I swivel in my chair, the fronds tickle my hair.
After an hour of dealing with it, I groan and shoot to my feet. My first attempt to move my desk is an utter failure. On the second try, I put some real muscle behind it and manage to shift it a few inches, creating a screech so loud every person across the city just winced and covered their ears.
“You mind?” Kendra snaps.
She has her headphones on while she works. She’s not on a call or anything though, so…I ignore her and push my desk another few inches. Better. I’ll no longer have to sit beneath a leafy canopy, at least.