Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 108636 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 543(@200wpm)___ 435(@250wpm)___ 362(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108636 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 543(@200wpm)___ 435(@250wpm)___ 362(@300wpm)
I do everything I can to see it with fresh eyes, but as the author, I have no idea if I pass.
White lace panties.
Who’s the tease now?
-M.W.
“It’s pathetic, right?” Avery questions, finally putting me out of my misery and removing the note from my hand with a yank.
“So pathetic,” I respond, feeling exactly that.
From Avery’s perspective, it looks like some slutty chick in this office is trying to seduce her brother, which is pretty pitiful. But when you consider that the slutty chick is me, it gets even sadder.
“Damn, these hoes are desperate out in these streets,” she says, looking down at the note again before looking back at me. “Good grief, he’s like a modern-day Lothario, pulling thirsty chicks from every direction. It’s so tiring. At least I never have to worry about you pulling this kind of shit with him.” She laughs. “Like, could you imagine?” She laughs harder. “Maybe I could take up employment as his pimp?”
My smile is brittle, and the laugh I have to force from my lungs is the very definition of miserable.
“Who do you think M.W. is?” Avery questions, her thinking cap making her Botox-filled forehead try to move. “Because I am not above going through HR files to figure it out. It has to be initials, right?”
The very last thing I need right now is Avery going through files. Like, sure, there’s no way to track me to M.W., but with hundreds of employees, at least ten innocent women are bound to get involved.
“I bet it’s some inside joke or something,” I try to excuse, hoping she’ll take the bait.
“Oh, you’re probably right!” she quietly exclaims, pointing a finger toward me. “Plus, it’s not like I have time to go looking through HR files. Like, I’ve got enough work to do, you know?” She rolls her eyes. “My brother can deal with the floozies himself.”
I don’t even tease her about the work comment, I’m so relieved.
“Anyway,” Avery singsongs and crumples up the Post-it note in her hands before dropping it into the trash can next to Beau’s desk. “Let’s go to lunch.”
Shit. That was a close call.
Frankly, it was so close that my whole body feels seconds away from imminent detonation.
If Avery would’ve stepped into Beau’s office just a minute earlier, she would’ve seen me putting that on his laptop, and everything I’ve been hiding would be out in the open with a certifiable belly flop into the raging waters of my sins.
Avery rambles about the lunch place she’s decided she wants to eat at, and even though I’m doing my best at making small talk, on the inside, I’m falling apart.
These anonymous chats with Beau are getting dangerous. Playing with fire, to be exact.
And today made something I’ve been ignoring painfully clear in a way I can’t just shake off—I’m not the only one at risk of getting burned.
By the time I get home from work, I feel like a robot.
Lunch with Avery felt next to impossible. Between pretending to be engaged in whatever she was talking about and trying not to internally drown in the guilt, I was a walking live wire of nerves when I made it back to the office. Avery peaced-out for the rest of the day in the name of getting a Brazilian.
And what I came back to at the Banks & McKenzie Marketing building wasn’t much better.
It’s a wonder we didn’t have to call the fire department or an ambulance with the way people were running around with their heads cut off, putting out fires. One campaign had issues with legal. Another campaign had last-minute edits on a commercial that is supposed to air during a celebrity awards show this weekend. And two other campaigns had other issues that I can’t even remember at this point.
Simply put, it was a shitshow. A perfect match to how I’m feeling on the inside.
I never messaged Beau back, pussy picture or otherwise, and now that I’ve had time to come down from the high, I’m not sure I should.
It’s one thing to be engaging in a harmless, flirty, anonymous conversation with a random man, but it’s a whole other thing when that random man is your best friend’s brother and no one but you knows what you’re doing.
Not only have I consciously withheld the truth from Beau, knowingly letting him wander down this wild path of innocent messages turning into something that’s laced with hot sexual tension and deep, meaningful conversations, but I’ve also lied to my best friend. Actively and repeatedly.
Keeping my crush to myself was fine, but now that I’m vigorously pursuing it? That’s a whole other level of deceit.
Nothing good can come of this, I’m sure of it, and I’ve got the gut-wrenching intuition that if I don’t end this now, I’ll regret it.
I promised myself I’d only lie to Avery one more time so that I could tell her I have a migraine, and she’d go out to Echo without me. All in the name of getting on Midnight and telling ThunderStruck goodbye for good.