Page 61 of The Love Lie
Two longgggg weeks.
Two weeks in which the entire world has seemed out to get her.
Maybe it was too much time off. Too much time in the sun. Too much time with a certain cowboy whispering in her ear, telling her she doesn’t have to put up with this shit. She doesn’t know. All she knows is that the city has never felt so oppressive. The buildings have never felt so gray. The air has never felt so polluted. Her cubicle has never felt so small, herchair so uncomfortable, or her computer so bright in the dim, environmentally friendly lighting that gets switched on at 2 a.m. for all the lemmings stuck there after hours. She had to get out of there. She had to come back to this closet-sized apartment, and this love seat masquerading as a couch, and this pillow she got for ten dollars at HomeGoods because there was a sand dollar stitched to the front and it reminded her of home.
“Rough day at the office?”
“Fuck!” Sam jumps about ten feet in the air and flings the pillow across the room before the familiarity of the voice registers. Her roommate swats the projectile away with a yelp while her heart spasms uncontrollably in her chest. She presses a palm to the spot, trying to control her racing pulse. “Winnie! What the hell? Where did you come from?”
“Where didIcome from?” Winnie arches a perfectly plucked brow as she rests her drawing pad on her curled-up knees and turns toward Sam. Her black hair is tied up in a loose bun. Tortoiseshell glasses rest on the rim of her nose. An oversized purple NYU sweatshirt hangs lopsided off one shoulder, while the rest of her is hidden underneath a cozy sherpa blanket. She’s sitting in the corner of the room on that god-awful embroidered floral chair Sam begged her not to buy—as if Winnie would ever listen. The stubborn ass. Then again…
Pot, meet kettle.
“I’ve been sitting here for…” Winnie pauses to check her watch. “Shit. Three hours.”
“Working on a new project?” Sam asks. Her roommate usually only breaks out the pen and paper to brainstorm. Otherwise, she works digitally.
“I just got hired by a new client,” Winnie explains, an excited glow livening her features as she leans forward eagerly. “She’s a huge indie romance author. If I get this right, she could put my freelance career on the map. It’s a small-town, rivals-to-lovers,only-one-bed billionaire romance, but she wants two covers. One a bit smutty with people, and one object-only for a discreet special-edition option. I’m trying to figure out how to make sure they go together. And I’m close. But I wanted to sketch out a few more ideas before I polish up the ones to send her.”
“I got about half of that.”
Winnie rolls her eyes. “One of these days, Sam, you’re going to read the books I’ve not-so-subtly stacked up on your windowsill. Join me on the dark side. You know you want to. We have sexy men and orgasms. Lots and lots of orgasms.”
Sam snorts, then unzips her pencil skirt, releases her topknot, and lets her head fall back with a sigh.
“Rough day?” Winnie asks. “You look…”
“Like a shell of my former badass self?”
“I was going to saystressed, but we can go with that if you want.”
“It’s just—” Sam pushes the heels of her palms against her eyes and groans. “It’s everything. My bosses are relentless.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“The hours are insane.”
“Sure.”
“I’m so sleep deprived I need a caffeine drip.”
“Don’t we all.”
“And it’s boring. There. I said it. It’s nothing but grunt work. And I know I need to pay my dues. I know I need to make my way up the corporate ladder. I know it’s a good foundation for the future. But it also makes me want to gouge my own eyes out with the stupid company pens littered across every surface of the office.”
“Well, that’s graphic.”
“Especially when I’m doing actual interesting things for my sister with her company. Real business. Real plans. Real ideas. Stuff that stimulates my brain, you know?”
“Right,” Winnie agrees. “Plus, there’s the whole ‘accidentally fell for a cowboy who showed me I was completely wasting my life like my best friend and sister have been trying to tell me for years’ thing.”
“Yeah.” Sam snaps up. “I mean, no. What? Winnie!”
“Don’t you dare try to eliminate the Cooper of it all.”
“There is no Cooper of it all.”
“The Cooper of it allisthe all.”
