Page 3 of Break You

I turned my attention to the room as I walked through the door, only to be dragged sideways as soon as I entered. The action jerked my neck, and loosened my lips.

“Ouch! What the f—”

“Shhh… do you want us both to get fired?” The words were coming from Prinnie, my partner in crime at these events. We’d been working together for a couple of years, and had gotten friendly as a result. Now we tried to synchronize our schedules so that we worked as many of the same shifts as possible.

I lowered my voice.

“What’s going on?” I slapped on a fake smile to match hers, speaking from the corner of my mouth.

“What do you mean, what’s going on? I should be asking you that question. Where the fuck have you been?” Fake smiles or not, there was no missing the irritation in her voice as she hissed at me.

“I went to the bathroom.”

“To do what, give birth to your fucking colon?”

Jeez, she was frosty as hell, but still funny. I bit the inside of my lip to keep from laughing—she seemed way too pissed off to see the funny side of the situation.

“I had to pee, if you must know, but thanks for poop shaming me. What if I’d been back there shitting my brains out with explosive diarrhea?”

“I’d say for you to get the fuck away from me, because there’s no way I can afford to catch whatever plague you have.”

“Aww, that’s what I love about you, Prin. Always so caring and empathetic.”

“Shut up. I know there’s nothing wrong with your ass, but Jenna was on the warpath, and I had to tell her something, so I said that you had issues with Auntie Flo.”

“Who the fuck is Auntie Fl—oh wait. So, now she’ll probably be watching me like a hawk looking for signs of PMS.”

It was true. Jenna was our supervisor, and to say that she wasn’t a people person was an understatement. She was about as warm as a polar ice cap.

“Oh shit! Speaking of Jenna, bogies at twelve o’clock.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Jenna’s looking this way. Here, take this before she comes over.” She shoved her tray, then tried to look busy refilling another for herself.

“Well, why the hell didn’t you say something? What was all the booger business?” I hissed.

“Bogie. Not booger. It’s a military thing.” She looked at me like I was sub moronic.

“Yeah, well I’m not in the military, and neither are you.”

“I know, but I play a lot of Call of Duty, so…”

“So, you’re a card-carrying geeky weirdo disguised as a super-hot hottie.”

“Well, there’s that. But you’re deflecting. Which means you’re hiding something. What exactly were you doing all that time?” Hot and smart. A lethal combination.

“It’s a long story. One I don’t have time to tell you before Cruella de Vil over there...” I motioned subtly in Jenna’s general direction “...starts killing puppies and docking pay.”

Prinnie stifled her laughter, and we headed off in different directions with our trays.

I’d barely made it back into the crowd when I tripped, sending myself and the canapés I’d been carrying hurtling into the air.

Xavier

As Angry Girl landed right at my feet, wearing most of her platter of finger-food, I had to take a step or two backward to avoid treading either on her, or all the shit she’d dropped. I’d have said karma was a bitch were it not for the fact that I was pretty sure Cherie was the bitch in question on this occasion.

She spoke seconds later, voice laced with the kind of sarcasm that came from being one of a long line of over-privileged, underwhelmed women.

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