Page 28 of Joey

“Are you sure?” Wald asks me. “This situation is not as straightforward as it appears.”

“I get it,” I say. “You have a child? And this child has been kept from you?”

“Yes,” Joey admits.

“And you want her back.”

“Yes.”

“And you need to”—I take a not-so-wild stab in the dark—“appear stable and normal.”

“Yes.”

“OK,” I say, taking a seat in the chair. I really don’t care if I wrinkle my clothes anymore. Because I’m the last woman standing and this job’s in the bag.

Not that I came here for this job, but hell, this door is so much wider than the one I was aiming for.

“I don’t know,” Wald says, picking up my résumé off Joey’s desk. “What is this?” He waves the piece of paper at me.

“My résumé, of course.”

“It doesn’t say anything. It’s all a bunch of bullshit. Who are you?”

“And how did you get here?” Huck adds.

Damn. I thought Huck was on my side.

But there’s no reason to lie about how I stumbled through their door. They’re liars too. So I tell the truth. “I came here to apply for a Bright Berry Beach Cosmetics position and got misdirected to this office by Elaina out there.”

“Oh, fuck,” Wald says.

But Joey is quiet. And he’s the one who counts. So I say, “If you need someone to help you pull off a scam, then I’m your girl.”

“Yeah?” Joey says. “How do you figure?”

I take a deep breath, then nod my head to Wald. “What does it say I am on that résumé, Wald?”

He scans it for a moment, then says, “An influencer. Whatever that means.”

“That means,” I say, looking Joey in the eyes, “I’m a professional liar. I could win an Olympic gold medal in lying.”

“Hmm,” Huck says.

“Look,” I say. “I could tell you all about my life. But it’s all so absurd, you wouldn’t believe me. So let’s just assume I’m the best at my job and hold off on judgment until I fuck up. Which will not happen. I promise you. If you’re trying to fool someone into thinking you’re the picture-perfect father, I will make that happen.”

“How?” Wald says.

“How?” I scoff. “I will do what it takes.”

“No limits?” Huck asks.

“I mean… I’m not gonna kill anyone for you. Unless it comes with a big bonus.” Then I wink and laugh, like that was a joke. “But I’ll give it my all.”

“Who are you?” Joey asks.

“Cross my heart,” I say, crossing my heart. “I am Brooke Alder. I am a girl who needs a door. And you three have one. A nice, wide, tall, double fucking door that I can walk right through and see what’s on the other side.”

“We don’t like poetic explanations,” Wald says.