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"Is the delivery going to go smoothly this time?" I demand.
"It should," she replies, looking away. She doesn’t look at me as she adds, "We’ve had an issue with the ship."
"Can’t be helped, the dad’s still pissed."
"I’ve pulled some strings, the best surgeon in North America. Rumor has it he’s worked on half the royal family in?—"
I raise my eyebrow at her.
"Well, he’s done his best, the very best, but when you work with a flawed canvas." The corner of her lips turn up in a smirk.
"Fine, fine, just do what you need to do." I wave her away with a sigh and she studies me, her expression shifting from smug to hold a tinge of concern.
"You should take a little time off," her voice softens, and she walks around my desk to wrap her arms around me from behind, letting her head rest on my shoulder. I sigh, trying not to stiffen up at the contact.
"You smell like garlic," I say, trying to break the moment. She doesn’t, she’s too fastidious for that.
"And you smell like shitty cologne. But we put up with each other." She squeezes me, and I cover her hand with mine.
"I love you, and I miss the old you," she says quietly. Her eyes, like liquid gold, are sad. She’s talking about when we were kids. But she remembers a different version of me, one that I pretended at. I was never a child, able to play at games. "You should rest, I mean it. No good in running yourself into the ground. You don’t even have an heir to the throne."
"Gio," I say instantly, naming my brother, the second eldest. He’s got an even steadier temper than I do.
"Mmm, yeah, but he’s not you," she points out, but then smiles. "Seriously. Take a night off. Not at Capo’s. I think Ricky might ban you from coming in just to be a brat about it."
I snort.
"That’s not the worst idea."
"Just... don’t go to the usual haunts. I don’t trust that the new guys have learned enough yet." She pats my arm and leaves the room. "And call my mother. It was her birthday last week, and you forgot," she calls over her shoulders, and I curse under my breath.
Good thing Pearl is more patient than any of my other aunties. I chalk it up to her not being Italian.
But yeah, I should blow off some steam... maybe tonight, with my closest friends, or maybe even on my own. I reach for my phone to call Heather and let her know I’ll be down to visit. It’s not a half bad idea. What’s the fucking worst that could happen?
CHAPTER 2
ash
"I don’t like any of this." Samantha’s face is scrunched up like she just ate a bag of sour gummy worms marinated in lemon juice. She’s sitting on the couch in our small living room, and she pulls her knees to her chest as I work on packing my bag for the night. I don’t answer her. I have to focus. Laptop. Cables. Extra cables in case the first cables break. Tablet as a back-up. Heels, lashes, extra stockings?—
"You’re getting glitter everywhere," she grumbles, putting her chin on her knees as she watches me.
"Sorry," I finally answer her, reaching for where the glittery bra in question is shedding its craft herpes across our coffee table and onto the scuffed, old carpet below. I wrap it up in tissue paper, and tuck it carefully into the front of my bag, looking for the matching thong.
"Next to Herbie," she says, and I glance at her cat, Herbert Sherman the Third (there was no first or second, but Sam has a love-affair with naming conventions of the generationally wealthy) is sleeping soundly, with my thong wrapped around one of his paws. He’s going to be glitter-claws tonight, and I move toward him, to unwind it, but he clenches his little paw down like a fist of doom.
"Herbie," I try to coax him, but he ignores me.
"Ashley, seriously, I’m worried. These guys are going to take one look at you and decide to eat you up and spit you out," she says, and I look at her, giving her a grim smile.
"That’s fine. If that happens, whatever, I’m there to do a job. The dancing is just the cover."
She groans and falls back against the cushions, and Herbie finally relents when I offer him a scritch under his chin. He releases my thong, and it joins my bra. Mrs. Patti would be horrified to know I was putting my twelve years of dance lessons to use by shakin’ it at a notorious local strip club, but it’s for a good cause.
"I can sell plasma," Sam says, her hands over her face and muffling her voice. "That’ll get us?—"
"Like $700 over the next month?" I ask her. We need more than that. It’s why I took the job. Because I’m good at what I do, but with my little teensy tiny criminal record, I’m not good enough to get a job with a 401k and a pension plan. That means I use my degree in computer science (with a focus on data security systems) when I can, where I can, and the people who usually hire me don’t bother doing background checks.
