Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 77018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
The bottom line was talent and success didn’t care whether a person was a horrible, self-indulged, insulting asshole.
After Amanda had finished singing Vance’s accolades, the meeting wrapped up.
People groaned as they shoved up from the table. A few offered Vance a congratulatory handshake. Several offered me a consolation pat on the shoulder as they passed behind my chair, which only made me feel worse.
I got out of my seat and headed back to the cubicles with Margot.
“Let’s go to Mr. Chang’s Buffett,” she said, snatching her purse from her desk. “My treat.”
Mr. Chang’s was where we always went when we needed a pick-me-up, and while I wasn’t sure even greasy stir fry could lift my spirits, it was worth a try.
I gathered my belongings and followed Margot to wait on the elevator. Just as the doors opened, Vance passed by.
Margot jutted her chin toward his retreating back. “I think we should slip a load of liquid laxatives in his afternoon coffee on Friday so he’ll have the shits on the plane that night.”
Brutal? Possibly, but let’s be honest, liquid laxatives were the least that crusher of travel dreams deserved. “Should we go buy them before or after we go to Mr. Changs?”
“After. I can’t imagine a better way to spend lunch than a little vengeance with a side of lo mein.”
I pressed the ground floor button, imagining the distress that would paint itself over Vance’s face when the first gurgled stomach cramp hit him at thirty-five thousand feet in the air.
Margot leaned against the wall of the elevator, tapping over her phone. “That guy has an amazing dick…”
“Tell me you are not watching porn in the elevator?”
“It’s not porn. It’s Lonely Fans.”
The elevator doors had barely closed before they popped right back open.
Lo and behold, who stood on the other side in all his shouldn’t-look-so-doable asshole glory, repeatedly pressing what had to be the down button on the panel?
Vance’s gaze pinged between Margot and me. For the briefest moment, I’d thought maybe he wouldn’t board. After all, what kind of thieving dickhead would put himself in a confined space with the person he’d just outright stolen from? Evidently, one just like him because he stepped right in, then pressed the already lit-up button for the ground floor. If that wasn’t an obvious trait of an obnoxious individual... It was like he didn’t trust the person who had previously pressed the button had done it to his level of satisfaction. Because who could do something to his level of satisfaction?
“It was already pressed…” I huffed, crossing my arms over my chest as the motor whirred to life.
“Okay.”
“And it was lit up.”
“I saw,” he said.
Margot mumbled, “Holy shit,” under her breath, staring at her phone.
The spicy scent of cardamon and leather and something distinctly masculine filled the small space as we descended the thirty-seven floors in silence. Silence until I felt him glance at me.
I turned, tilting my head to glare right back up at his giant self.
“I really hope you enjoy your trip to the lunchbox museum, Blake.”
Oh, he did not just try to sound genuine!
Margot must have felt the spark of anger that shot through me like a constipated glob of lava escaping Mount Etna right before it blew. Why else would she have grabbed my arm? “Murder is bad,” she whispered just as the elevator came to a stop.
“Yeah?” I stared at him while I attempted to shake free of Margot’s hold. “Well, I hope you burn your tongue on a wiener schnitzel, Vance.”
Then he smiled, which I was pretty sure was more condescending than his stupid smirk. “Austria’s not on the agenda.”
“Choke on a baguette, then,” I said.
The doors slid open, and I pulled away from Margot’s hold, storming out of the elevator. Austria’s not on the agenda. Was he serious? I shoved through the revolving doors and into the stench of exhaust and greasy street food.
Margot stumbled out after me, phone in her face. “No fucking way…”
“Right?” I turned around, watching Vance walk off in the opposite direction. “He’s inconceivable.”
Margot patted my arm. “At least you could use one of your fun words.”
“I take it back. He’s more cantankerous. No—” I snapped my fingers as we headed down the sidewalk, shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the Manhattan lunch crowd—“He’s churlish.”
“I love you, Blake, but you’re weird as hell sometimes.”
“We’re journalists, Margot. We’re supposed to enjoy words.”
“You went into journalism because you like to write. I went into it because I watched Almost Famous when I was high off my ass, went online, and changed my major from theatre to writing hell.” Still staring at her phone, she sidestepped a billow of sauerkraut-infused steam rolling from a hot dog cart. “Plus, I always thought I’d end up at Rolling Stone interviewing rock stars who I’d seduced after we went off the record.” She rounded the street corner with a disheartened sigh. “Goodbye, dreams. Goodbye, rock stars with pierced cocks. Hello, trips to Mackinac Island, Little Big Horn, and men who wear fanny packs because they’re ‘useful.’”