Page 4 of Rich Girl
She picks up her bag and digs the phone out, then proceeds to type away on it.
“He’s controlling,” Janine looks at me pointedly, referring to Adeline’s fiancé. “Don’t get a man like that. He can live without knowing what she’s doing every second of the day.”
“He loves her,” I whisper back. “I think it’s sweet.”
“Yeah, sweet until she can’t go to the bathroom without asking for permission,” Janine deadpans. “We are gone for the weekend. Not for the month.”
“Hayden,” Adelie cuts us off. “Chase is bringing a date to the wedding,” she says without warning.
I was expecting to hear that at some point. And I expected it to upset me. But the reality hits me a little harder yet.
“Why is he even coming?” Emma butts in. “Shouldn’t he get uninvited or something?”
“His father is best friends with Derek’s,” Adeline reminds us. “Their families are close, and…”
“It’s fine,” I wave it off. “No big deal at all.”
Adeline watches me with pity for a few long seconds. And then she drops a little bomb on me.
“He’s bringing Rebecca Howell.”
I turn my head, refusing to allow my friends to see how upset this is making me. I understand that he is the slime of the earth despite how rich his family is. And he cheated on me, with no shame, during our entire relationship. But, on a basic level, it is a stab to the heart to hear that he plans on flaunting Rebecca Howell in front of me. He knows how much I dislike her.
I grab my phone and open the app store, ready to type.
“What’s the name of that app?”
“The dating one?” Janine verifies, and I nod in confirmation. “It is theHolidatessapp.”
The name amuses me for some reason. It may or may not change the course of my summer. I’m okay with it though.
Time for a change.
TWO
The instantmy alarm goes off, I sit up in bed. My head is pounding, and the sudden move causes me to feel nauseous. I throw the sheet off my naked body and blindly try to get out of bed, the urge to pee just too much.
As soon as my feet hit the ground, I rush to the bathroom. The lid on the toilet is already raised, so all I got to do is stand in front of the bowl and let go.
“Fuck, that feels so good,” I sigh when I feel my bladder emptying with a strong and steady stream.
Finally done, I shake, then move to the sink to wash my hands. The cold water feels refreshing when it touches my skin, so I bend over and stick my entire face underneath the faucet.
“Why does my head hurt this bad?” I mumble to myself when I finish and dry my face with the towel that was sitting on the counter.
When I get back to the bedroom, I realize that it is still dark out. It is the time I normally get up, so nothing new there. But something feels off. Maybe it is too quiet, I’m not sure.
I pull on a pair of pajama pants before heading to the kitchen to get some coffee going. At the last minute, I remember to grab my phone off the nightstand.
A look at the screen confirms it is early Sunday morning. The shop is closed today, but I never sleep in because there’s always a weekend emergency. Since I don’t want to overwork my guys, I don’t ask them to work the weekends unless they are looking to make some extra cash on overtime.
Owning and operating a towing business is a lot more demanding than people realize. The hours we put in seem endless at times, but they all make a good living and have great benefits.
This is not what I thought I’d do with my life at all. Not like I had a very specific plan in mind, but I loved coding and was techy. Doing a more physical job never crossed my mind.
I was very close to my grandfather, who encouraged me to be whoever I wanted to be. He paid for most of my college since my father didn’t care one way or another what would come of me. My mother ended up very sick when I was in middle school, throwing him into a deep depression. That’s how my grandfather took over my wellbeing.
When he passed, I was devastated. And when my father decided that he wanted nothing to do with the business his father had built from nothing and used to support all of us for years, I had to step in. It wasn’t just me at that point. There were employees whose lives would’ve changed drastically had we sold the business. I decided that I wanted to take over.
