“Any fun plans for the weekend?” Mr. Blaine said as we both walked toward the elevator. It was an innocuous question, but I could tell he was really interested.
“Oh, nothing earth-shattering.” Or panty-shattering. Or ripping.
“Hm.” The doors closed and the air suddenly got thin and hard to breathe, like we were on Everest or something.
Oxygen. I needed oxygen.
We didn’t face each other and instead I stared at the numbers as they got smaller and begged them to go faster, knowing that wasn’t going to happen.
“And you?”
“What?” He acted as if he’d forgotten I was there.
“Do you have any exciting plans this weekend?” I fiddled with my purse. It was always great having a purse that you could use to fool with when you didn’t want to look at someone.
“Not really. You, uh, heading to the bar?” Oh, crap.
“Um, we might. But probably not. Why, you headed for open mic night again?” I still didn’t look at him, but I saw him shrug out of the corner of my eye as the elevator door finally opened.
“Haven’t decided. Maybe. Maybe not.” He motioned for me to leave first, so I did.
“Well, have a good weekend, Mr. Blaine.” We faced each other in the lobby.
“You as well, Miss Clarke.” He almost looked sad as he turned and headed for the revolving door.
Boys. Are. Weird.
Sloane couldn’t be dissuaded from her plan to hook Marisol up with Fin, so on Saturday morning she dragged me to the salon to get our nails done, because apparently going to the bar now required us to have perfect hands and feet. Marisol met us there too and I almost felt bad for her in her cute obliviousness.
“I miss you guys. I feel like we haven’t hung out in forever, but I’ve been so busy.” Marisol was our only friend who was still in school and getting her PhD in Education. She already had two master’s degrees; one in Education and the other in Business. Yes, she was one of those people.
“I know,” I said as we sat in massage chairs and soaked our feet. “God, I needed this. You have no idea.”
“Oh, I think I have some idea,” Sloane said on my other side.
“No comments from the peanut gallery, please.”
“Wait, what did I miss?” I hadn’t wanted to share the rest of the story with Marisol, seeing as how she was swamped with all her work. It seemed almost crass to call her up and be like, Hey, what’s up? Well, I’m banging my assistant . . .
“Ugh, okay. I guess I’d better tell you before someone else takes it and embellishes it and makes it into more of a big deal than it is.”
Marisol put down her magazine and gave me her full attention. Lovely.
I started from The Morning After, because she didn’t know about that yet, and worked my way forward. Actually, it was weird that she hadn’t asked me about this before now. Her lack of shock was also starting to make me suspicious.
“And then I told him that we couldn’t do it anymore, which you already know,” I said. Marisol feigned shock. An actress she was not.
“What? No, this is the first time I’m hearing about this. Go on.” I turned and glared at Sloane.
“What? You never made me sign an NDA. That means everything is fair game. Besides, you would have told her eventually. I just told her sooner. And you know I’m better at telling stories anyway.” She was right on the last count, and I would have told Marisol. Ugh, I hated it when Sloane was right. She always gloated way too much.
“FINE.” My story time had been hijacked, so I just gave up and let Sloane tell the rest of the story.
Neither of us mentioned Fin, and I felt bad. We were totally ambushing her.
“So how’s Chlo?” Marisol and Chloe lived only a block apart and saw each other almost every day. She had to work this morning, which was why she hadn’t come with us.
“She’s still . . . not good. We need to find her a rebound. If she doesn’t get out of this funk soon, I swear I’m going to make out with her.” That made the women doing our nails give each other shocked faces and the three of us smothered our laughter.
“There is this girl in one of my classes that definitely stares at my boobs in a lusty way. You know how you can tell if a girl’s just jealous of your boobs, or if she wants to motorboat them.” I had to shove my fist in my mouth and I swear the woman working on my feet looked like she was going to have a heart attack.
“I’ll have to do some more covert ops to find out for sure, but she’s definitely Chlo’s type.”
“So what week have we decided on for our trip?” I said, trying to change the subject. As much fun as it was to watch the manicurists to squirm, I didn’t want them to charge us extra.
“Um, I can’t do the 24th to the 31st anymore,” Marisol said. “I’m sorry! I got roped into doing this charity thing.” Marisol was always getting herself into that stuff. She had a hard time saying no to anyone.
“No, that’s fine. We can reschedule,” Sloane said, looking at her phone. We’d already rescheduled four times. When you try to take a trip with four women who have high-pressure jobs or school, things get tricky. We’d been planning on going together to Jamaica for at least a year. The ultimate Girls' Week. But it was proving more difficult to plan than figuring out Donald Trump’s hair.
After our hands and feet were polished and pretty and the women in the shop breathed a sigh of relief, we went to lunch.
“So do you think he’ll be there again tonight?” Chloe said.
“Seriously? Are we back to that?” I thought we were done. I’d relaxed and was enjoying my Lucas Blaine-free time.
“Oh, he’ll be there,” Sloane said, bumping my knee with hers. “He wants you. Bad.”
Yeah, well, it was mutual.
“Are you blushing? Wow, do you really like this guy?” Chloe said, which made me blush even more.
“No, no. I mean, he’s fine to work with and he’s not bad in bed, but that’s it. He may be funny and able to sing and have fabulous hair and a chin dimple . . .” I trailed off.
“Fuck,” I said, before remembering that we were in a café and there were children around. “I like him.”
Sloane and Chloe gave each other the same face.
“I love how you’re the last to realize it,” Sloane said. “For someone who’s so smart, you can be pretty dense sometimes.”