AllFreeNovel
Share Us
1
Dear Diary,
It’s three weeks until Christmas. Am I being too greedy if I ask Santa for a hot man, a.k.a. Tom Brady, a billion dollars, and a new car? Also, if he magically makes thirty pounds disappear from my body, I won’t hate him.
If you hadn’t guessed it, life is not going as planned. I just lost my job, I have no boyfriend, no potential boyfriend, no Chanel handbag, no MFA applications completed, and none of my posts on Instagram for my artwork have gone viral.
I’m not going to say I’m a loser because I’m not…most of the time. I’m manifesting good things for the evening. I’m going to my brother’s work party with Isabel, and then we’re going to make the rounds of all the bars on the Lower East Side. Maybe I’ll meet a hot banker who wants to make me the new housewife of NYC. We’ll see.
Toodle-oo.
Ella
P.S. If my future hubby can be good in bed as well, I’d really appreciate it. I don’t want to have to explain to him that a quick rub is not all it takes. :P
There is a sense of excitement in the air as I look around the crowded room. I don’t know who anyone is other than Isabel, and I don’t really care. Tonight, I’m glad to be the sexy, anonymous, twenty-four-year-old butterfly as opposed to the slightly depressed, just-been-fired doormat that I’ve been the last week. However, I am not going to think about the drama of the previous days. Instead, I am going to focus on the promise of the night ahead.
“Don’t look now, but that guy with the gold mask is staring at you.” My best friend Isabel can’t contain the excitement in her voice. “He’s looking at you like he wants to eat you.” She raises her voice slightly so I can hear her over the Mariah Carey song that’s playing through the speakers in the large conference room.
“Who?” I look around unabashedly to see if he’s cute. Not that I’ll see his face, but at least I’ll be able to check out his body and see if he’s my type or not. I adjust the silver mask on my face so that the feathers aren’t completely covering my eyes.
The room is dark, with silver mirror balls on the ceiling and flashing strobe lights. We’re meant to feel like we’re in a trendy bar and not the law offices of Parker and Parker, Attorneys at Law. Whoever the party planner is has done a good job. Even if there are kitsch statues of reindeer and Santa Claus sprinkled around the room. It’s Christmas, so the cheap holiday decor is forgiven. Plus, I love Christmas decorations. It is my favorite time of year. And not even being fired can stop that feeling of festive joy running down my spine.
“I told you not to look, Ella.” Isabel shakes her head but grins widely. She knows me well enough to know that there is no way I’m not going to look after what she said.
Especially seeing as the unknown guy won’t even know I’m looking at him. If he does somehow realize I’m checking him out, he won’t know who I am. Just as I won’t know who he is.
Because one, this is my brother’s work party, and I barely know anyone here, and two, I am wearing a mask covering half of my face. As is everyone else at this shindig.
If I’m honest, I think it is weird for a law firm to have an office Christmas party that is reminiscent of a scene at a sex club, but it wasn’t like I made the decision to go with the dominatrix club theme.
I have no idea which member of the firm came up with the “Eyes Wide Shut” Christmas party theme, but I’m not hating it. It allows Isabel and me to dress super sexy without feeling like sluts. Not that we ever feel that way normally. However, when we leave the party later to go clubbing, we’ll have a reason for the masks on our faces.
Isabel and I are only here for the free booze and food and the opportunity to win some cool presents in the Secret Santa. Sure, we don’t actually work here and, as such, most probably shouldn’t enter the Secret Santa, but who’s to know besides HR? And they are too busy trying to make sure that none of the partners get busted for sexual harassment. You’d be amazed at how many upper-level executives use holiday parties to cop a feel of their secretaries.
My older brother, Sam, invited us as he knows that we both love a good party. And it isn’t like we’ve come empty-handed and expect to go home with something. We did bring presents for the exchange. We’d both gone to Dollar General and bought items we’d gift-wrapped to exchange.
Some may say it’s unfair to spend five dollars and walk away with a present worth up to five hundred dollars (thanks, rich law firm partners), but I just call it the balance and equalization of life.
I look around to see if anyone is gazing my way, and that’s when I see him. Tall, dark, and handsome. Granted, the light is low in the room, and I can’t see his face properly, but the suit this man is wearing clings to him like it doesn’t want to leave his muscular body. I wave my fingers at him with all the confidence of a woman who knows she looks hot at that moment, and he waves back before I turn back to Isabel.
“He looks hot.” I giggle, my face flushed. It’s been over a year since I’ve been on a date. And even longer since I’ve slept with anyone. Not that this is the event to pick up a guy to sleep with. My brother would kill me if I hooked up with someone from his firm. Especially one of the partners. Not that I know if Pin-Striped Suit is a partner or not. Not that I care, either.
It’s not like I came to the party with the intent to hook up with a hottie. I’m not normally even attracted to lawyers and suits. I’m much more into the tormented artist sort of guy. The ones that write you a poem and sing you a song on their guitar at midnight and tell you how misunderstood they are. And even then I don’t hook up right away.
I’m not that sort of girl.
“Let’s get this party started.” Isabel hands me a cup of something alcoholic, and I take it gratefully. I haven’t had a drink in weeks, and I’m in the mood to have some fun. This week hasn’t been great for me. I’d been fired from another admin job. This time, it really hadn’t been my fault. I’d questioned my boss when he’d asked me to submit a five-hundred-dollar hotel stay to his work expenses, and he’d felt like I’d been asking too many questions. How was I to know that he’d taken his mistress to the hotel and was suspicious that I was a plant working for his wife?
“This tastes good,” I say as I down the contents of the glass. “Eggnog?” I ask as I swing my hips to the beat of the music. Who doesn’t love Mariah at a Christmas party? I’m even starting to feel festive. The party organizer has gone all out with the decorations. There is tinsel and fake snow everywhere, even though Christmas is still three weeks away.
“Spiked eggnog.” Isabel pulls out a glass bottle of rum from her handbag. “I wanted to give it a little kick.”
“They have alcohol here, you know.” I giggle as she pours more of the brown liquid into my red cup.
“Not ten years old from Jamaica.” She swigs it from the bottle and puts it back into her handbag. “It’s been a long week for both of us. We need to have some fun.” Isabel loves everything about Jamaica. Even though you can’t tell it from looking at her, she’s an island girl. Her granddad grew up in Jamaica, and she spent every summer there from ages three to eighteen. You’d have thought she was related to Bob Marley himself, the way she went on about reggae music and being from the islands.
“Yes, we do.” I nod and grab her hand. “Let’s go dance on the dance floor.”
