Page 23 of P.S. I Dare You

I rest my chin on the top of my hand. “I tried.”

“What do you mean, you tried?”

Dragging in a gravelly breath, I shake my head. “There’s a clause in my contract. It’s this whole thing. Anyway, I guess I’m stuck here another four weeks. So … yay?”

She laughs through her nose. “It can’t be that bad, right? I mean, at least he’s something to look at.”

“Yeah. Totally makes up for everything.”

Lillie rolls her eyes. “I’m just trying to get you to look at the bright side. Literally.”

“Appreciate it.”

She taps the screen on her white watch before blowing a breath through the side of her mouth. “Ugh. Conference call with London in five minutes. Drinks tonight? I feel like there’s more to this than you’re letting on. Like you hated this guy and now you’re sitting there like it’s no big deal that they won’t let you quit.”

“It is no big deal.” Or at least it’s not as big of a deal as I thought it would be. That’s the thing about emotions—when they’re running high, they distort everything in their path. Now that I’ve had a chance to chill out a little and now that Calder’s shown he’s capable of doing something thoughtful for another human being, I have hope.

“Still … drinks anyway?” she asks. “Happy Hour at The Lowery?”

I nod, and the instant Lillie leaves, an email pings my inbox. And another and another. I double click on the first attachment. Upon first glance, the thing reads like stereo instructions—not that I’ve ever read actual stereo instructions. I just remember my dad always using that comparison back in the day when something confused him. Though looking back, everything confused him all of the time, and likely because he was half-baked the majority of his waking hours.

I scroll through the first report. All twenty-seven pages. And then I grab a notebook and pen from my desk drawer and get to work, mentally starting my countdown to Happy Hour.

LEAVING MY FATHER’S BUILDING just past six o’clock tonight is akin to walking out of the fiery gates of hell. The concrete jungle has never felt so refreshing, the foul sewer air so invigorating.

Meetings. Policies. Introductions. Quarterly agendas. I don’t understand who in their right mind would enjoy this sort of thing enough to do it day in and day out.

My morning kicked off with an unscheduled meeting with my new assistant and proceeded with my father dragging me around from office to office, introducing me to various department heads, all of them old white men with expensive suits, thinning heads of hair, and drop-dead gorgeous assistants—proof that my father is stuck in the kind of fictional Mad Men world that would put Don Draper’s life to shame.

But that’s neither here nor there because I’m two seconds from ducking into The Lowery for a double whisky before I head home.

I have to say, I finally get the whole happy hour thing. Not that I didn’t understand it before, I just didn’t need, want, or choose to understand it. But now these assholes in suits have my full sympathies.

The Gods of Good Fortune smile down upon me when I spot my favorite seat at the end of the bar the second I step inside. Shrugging out of my jacket and slinging it over my arm, I make my way through the half-drunk crowd. I don’t recognize tonight’s bartender—she must be new—but it isn’t hard to mess up two fingers of Macallan.

“Hi there, handsome.” She greets me immediately, her shoulders slightly hunched and the soft tops of her breasts squeezing out of her scoop-neck top like goose down pillows. Her eyes are circled in way too fucking much makeup and her hair is piled into some kind of frizzy rat’s nest bun on top of her hair, but I’m not here to judge.

“Double Macallan. Thanks.” I glance away, scanning my surroundings for a familiar face. Ever since this place was featured on some mind-numbing reality show earlier this year, the crowd hasn’t been the same. It’s mostly tourists these days. The locals have moved on, though I’m still trying to determine to where. Just last month, the owner told me he wished he never would’ve signed that release and allowed them to film here. The bar’s been in his family since the 1930s, and he sold his soul to the devil for a hot minute of free publicity.

We all make mistakes.

The bartender returns with a drink that looks closer to three fingers than two, and I slide her a twenty. No point in opening a tab. I won’t be here long.

Lifting the drink and taking a sip, I peruse my surroundings one more time.

“No fucking way.” I mutter, my mouth against the crystal tumbler. I take a generous mouthful of the burning amber liquid, my vision squaring up with the pretty little number in the booth in the corner.

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