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“Ignore it,” I tell her.
Her face is conflicted, but before I can make my case further she reaches for her clutch. I sigh and sit back on my heels, waiting for her to cancel the world’s most inappropriately-timed spam call.
Only it’s not a spam call. I wish it were a spam call. Or really anyone other than just about the last person I want to hear or think about in a time like this.
Liz looks up at me and says the most unsexy words ever to escape a person’s mouth: “It’s your mother.”
The beginning of my second wind softens instantly.
“Just ignore her,” I say. It’s half-hearted though. We both know the moment is ruined.
Still Liz waffles, her makeup smeared, torn between lust and duty. I shouldn’t be surprised when duty wins.
“I’m sorry,” she says, standing quickly and all but diving through the door back into the stairwell. Before it closes I hear her answer the call with a chipper, unassuming “hello”.
You’d never be able to tell that I’d had my fingers inside her thirty seconds ago.
“Fuck,” I mutter to myself. It’s probably too much to hope for that Liz would finish the call and come back out. I’m not sure I even want her too. Mother has sufficiently killed the mood.
The question is, will I be able to bring it back? Once the martinis and the disappointment of tonight wear off will Liz want more?
I know I do. There really isn’t a better way for me to celebrate the end of my life up until this point than spending it with this woman, this wild, proud, gorgeous woman who embodies everything I’ve loved and hated about my life up until this point. When we go our separate ways on Monday — her back to her stressful life in the fast lane, me to god knows where — I want to be able to say that I made the most of this time, this last little bit of the life that I’ve never loved but also have never known anything different from.
I lean back against the door and take in that stunning view. Whatever my life looks like a week from now, I can guarantee shining cityscapes won’t be a part of it.
And neither will Liz.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
LIZ
“Hello! Ms. Westing!” I say as the heavy service door closes behind me. “What can I do for you?”
“I suppose you can start by explaining why I just received an e-mail from Marie Alencar telling me to fuck off. In nicer words, of course.”
I cringe at her tone; Sloane sounds dangerously pleasant.
Typically I’d be able to come up with a quick response, soothing words that make everything sound like it was under control.
Like the consummate professional that I am.
Like I hadn’t lost the account in record time.
Like I wasn’t just blowing her son on a freezing rooftop.
“Uh,” I stammer. “It’s…”
Pull it together, Liz!
“It’s what, exactly?” Sloane barks, all phoniness dropped. “A disaster? A cluster fuck? You’ve barely been there a full day. How is this already falling apart like a goddamn chocolate mousse?”
A chocolate mousse? Hold on, does Sloane sound a bit tipsy?
I check the time. It’s close to midnight in New York.
I get a brief mental picture of her sitting behind that massive desk lit only by the light of her computer, sipping whiskey and plotting schemes.
“Paul Morgan is here,” I say. “He saw us in the lobby. Rhett and I think he told Marie everything before I even got the chance to speak to her.”
