Page 95 of Push & Pull
“You in an office. I can hardly believe it.”
“The ice-cold Ms. Zelenko has assured me I’ll only spend a couple of days a week in the office. After I’m done reporting to the man who reports to her, I’m off to schmooze porn stars and the directors we want to make more… you know. Because I’m a people person.”
“You mean you’re good with assholes who don’t know their left boob from their right.”
“Are you talking about the directors? I get the feeling you are.” Petra didn’t mind. She knew what she was getting herself into after accepting a job at Electric Star Entertainment, one of America’s premier, premium adult film studios. Her official title was “Talent Liaison,” a role that she was born to perform.Dealing with haughty adult film actors and the directors who think they’re better than them is perfect for a go-getting grifter.Except Petra had to stop thinking of her life like that. Whatever talents she had cultivated over the years were now put toward honest work, even if porn was involved. Yet that was what working for Elena Zelenko, one of Simone’s closest friends, offered when Petra entered her office two weeks ago on the hunt for proper employment. Simone was the one who networked the two together, but she couldn’t help Petra get the open position that came with full benefits and a generous, negotiated wage that would afford a one-bedroom apartment in the city. And some savings! For the first damn time in Petra’s life, she had a proper savings account. Under her legal name!
But she had gotten the job. She had negotiated for more money. Life was damn good.
“I’m happy for you,” Simone said. “Really.”
“I can feel your excitement oozing off you.”
Simone leaned across the table, her hand searching for Petra’s. To that day, it brought a shyness to Petra’s soul to express such intimacy in public.Let alone something as pleasant as holding my girlfriend’s hand. Jesus. What a shift in my life.Until Simone became a fixture in Petra’s everyday existence, she had always thought about how nice it would be to leave a life of crime and be with someone who cared about her. Yet it happened so fast. From Hailey’s party, to a week in that Volvo…
That reminded Petra of something.
“By the way, I’m using my first paycheck to buy a car.”
“I thought we were helping you look for your own apartment once you got a job.”
“I mean, that too, but I really want a car. I don’t think you understand how accustomed I’ve become to driving myself around this country whenever I need to. I’ll walk where I can, but sometimes I want to treat my girlfriend to candy at a rest stop.”
Simone blushed so hard that Petra had to refrain from cracking up. “You’re terrible sometimes.”
“Only sometimes?”
“You’re terribleallthe time.”
“That’s why you love me.” Petra braced her chin over her drink and batted her eyelashes until she couldn’t see a thing. “Don’t you? Come on. Say it. You loooove me.”
Simone pulled back into her seat, arm flinging over the iron barrier that separated her from a jasmine bush. “You don’t get my honey-sweet words if you’re going to act like that.”
“Uh-huh. That’s not what you’ll be saying later when you’rebegging me to talk dirty.”
Petra’s sandwich arrived in record time. She swore the waiter pulled it off so he could interrupt the flirting at the bush-ensconced table.
“By the way,” Simone said, changing the subject, “I talked to Hailey last night. I haven’t had the chance to tell you until now.”
A knot curled in Petra’s stomach before she took the first bite of her sandwich. “Was she calling you from prison or her condo in Miami?”
“From her family house in Chicago, actually. She’s been staying with her dad while they await whatever legal fate is about to befall them.”
“What did she say?”
“Oh, the usual. Begging my forgiveness. Tearfully claiming she had no idea what your father was going to do. Honestly, I have no idea if it was genuine or not. We’re not friends anymore. Even the Marseille sisters have cut her out, not that I’m talking to them, either.”
“Iheard the Swedish boyfriend dumped her, too. Didn’t want to get involved with that.”
“The world barely continues to spin on its axis every day, yet here we are, all involved with whatever bullshit it attempts to throw us into.”
That was Petra’s cue to take her girlfriend’s hand. Although Simone didn’t often let it show, the kidnapping had done a number on her mental health once again. As soon as the dust settled and Petra was no longer on the hook for more than her own foibles, the two of them escaped up to Maine for a week and cut themselves off from the world. Between finally having the candid conversations they owed one another, they solidified their desire for a relationship, as long as they took it slowly and rationally.I said that to make her happy, but God knows me by now. I like things hard, fast, and “why the fuck not?”Petra was willing to learn how to slow down, though. Having someone anchoring her to the present was a bonus.
Except Simone always teetered toward that precarious precipice. While Petra never saw any signs of drugs or other forms of self-harm, there were times when Simone told her girlfriend to get rid of all the alcohol in the condo and to confiscate the pot. Petra often joked about being Simone’s weed dealer when she’d come over and partake with her girlfriend for an evening, but it really wasn’t a laughing matter.She’s trying to hold it together before she spirals again.Petra wasn’t Simone’s keeper, but she loved her, and was willing to do what was necessary to keep Simone in the here and now.
Where she was safe. And loved.
That meant boundaries, though. While it wasn’t unusual for Petra to stay over at Simone’s for the night, they also spent many nights apart, content with texts good night and waking up to bedhead selfies captioned with,“This is gonna be the new look this season. Tell ur friends!!”Dinner with the in-laws meant mediating any simmering animosity between Simone and Astrid, a tenuous relationship Petra would never completely relate to. She liked both women, after all. She would always be on Simone’s side, supporting her in what was right for her own health, but Astrid wasn’t a bad person.Everyone does the best they can.Petra would always feel like she owed Astrid, anyway. Without her help, Petra might still be in a prison cell.
