Page 52 of Trust Fund Baby

Delivery to the following recipient failed. The email account that you tried to reach does not exist.

What? No. I read it again, trying to make sense of what I was reading.

How could it not exist when I’d been emailing her on this account for half of my life?

But I didn’t need to think about it for too long before I reached the answer.

It wasn’t inactive.

It was blocked. She’d blocked me. My breath hitched as I slumped back, my gaze darting around the room, trying to make sense of the notification.

What the fuck did you do, Seb? Screw it up already? Of course you did. You don’t deserve her.

I stared at my inbox for another minute, like willing it to change would make it real again. As if hitting the refresh button would make the message go through and this would all be a misunderstanding. But the bounce notification glared at me, unwavering.

She didn’t want me to contact her.

She didn’t want me to apologize. She didn’t want my clever comeback, or to undo the part where I left her without a word.

I leaned my elbows on the desk and let my forehead drop to the cool surface. I stayed there for a beat. Maybe two. Long enough for the guilt to settle in my chest.

But I’d made a mistake. Surely she would understand that if I could just reach her. I’d forgotten to tell her I needed to head out. This could all be fixed with a simple explanation. Right?

And then, without letting myself think too hard, I reached for my phone.

I needed her number, and I needed it now.

I called James. He might be able to get Roxie’s number off Hallie. But it went straight to voicemail after one ring.

Another rejection. I fired off a message, asking him to call me ASAP.

But I didn’t have time to wait for his response, and there was only one other person who might know how to reach her besides Hallie and James. It crossed my mind that they might have even taken Roxie’s side, if she’d told them what had happened between us, and how I’d disappeared. I knew how bad it looked. And I couldn’t really blame them if they thought I was an idiot, too. But thankfully there was someone else who could get me through to Roxie, and was also very unlikely to have a heads up about what’d happened in the last twenty-four hours.

Michelle Granger.

She was the wife of Elliot, mine and James’s college roommate while we were at Princeton. The four of us were best friends, nearly inseparable—late nights studying, bad decisions, and too many beers over poker games where Michelle would wipe the table with us.

Elliot was finalizing a FinTech app that was to land him in the billionaire boys’ club at twenty-seven. Michelle had always been his ace though. She was charming, sharp, and ten times savvier than she ever let on. When Elliot dragged her to alumni events, she always cornered the most interesting people in the room. I’d once seen her talk down a Princeton hedge fund guy with nothing more than a smile and a glass of champagne.

She also was a loyal client of the same gallery Roxie worked at.

I opened my contacts and tapped her name.

She answered on the third ring. “Well, well. If it isn’t the ghost of Princeton past. I thought you were outgrowing us. Elliot’s at his wit’s end with you. Told me not to invite you to the next dinner party.”

I tried to smile, but it came out more like a grimace. I was a terrible friend, among other things, and I was well aware. “Hey, Michelle. Sorry to call out of the blue.”

“What do you need, Seb?” she asked, pinning me down before I’d barely opened my mouth. I shouldn’t be surprised. That was her gift after all.

I hesitated, dragging a hand over my jaw. “A favor.”

18

Roxie

I had no time for nerves. Not with a mascara wand poking dangerously close to my retina.

“Why does it always feel like I could be walking to a firing squad and not a show?” I muttered, blotting my lipstick and giving my reflection a tight-lipped smile.