she’s got incredibly terrible boundary issues.” I held up a finger in the air like she could see me. “But firing her would mean having to do a hell of a lot of work I can’t take on, when I’m trying to A, run this program with minimal drama, and B, not rock the boat or bring attention to issues with staff while this IPO shit is going on.” I sighed again, feeling exhausted.
“I get it. But, damn, it blows me away the way people act sometimes.”
We both knew exactly why Vicki did the shit she did, but I was way too tired to get into a conversation about privilege when I didn’t even have a glass of wine in hand. Still I had to laugh because Alba’s saltiness was evergreen. If there was some bullshit happening, my best friend was not one to go down quietly.
I debated whether to tell her the other thing that had been keeping me up lately.
“So you know how the consultant invited us to the game.”
“You mean Rocco Fucking Quinn, who you’ve refused to give me any information on. Yes, I know about him.”
“There’s not much to say.”
LIE.
“He’s nice and all, but I’m determined to keep my focus on my job.”
MORE LIES.
“Riiiiight. I’m gonna let you continue to spew lie after lie, because I want to hear the rest of this mess with Vicki, then we’ll get back to Rocco with the good back piece.”
I snorted at that. “You think you’re hilarious.”
“You’re laughing.”
“Anywaaaaay, when we were at the game and the twins, like the two that own all of Sturm’s, showed up and were fawning all over him, he was sort of a jerk to me, like totally iced me out there in the suite.” I was not going to go into details about what we’d been doing right before the chill effect. “Then one of them told me she was glad we were ‘hitting it off’ in a way that made me very jumpy. I don’t know if she said something to him too and that’s why he got all weird.” I let out a long breath, closing my eyes. “Fuck, this is too much drama. If I had two ounces of sense, I’d keep my distance.”
“Hold up. Did she ask you to get with him?”
“Girl, I’m not even sure, but after almost getting caught kissing him not ten minutes earlier, the comment hit me mad wrong.”
Alba’s screech in my ear made me jump up like a foot in the air. “First, I knew you liked him! And getting a little skanky at the baseball game.” This was said accompanied with snapping fingers. “Legend.” I had to smother a cackle. Encouraging Alba was never a good idea. “Second, although it’s always good to keep an eye out for your employer possibly pimping you out, uh, that’s a reach. They may just be happy he’s getting along with the people from the store. And maybe he got nervous. I mean he is the consultant. It makes sense for him to not want to appear like he’s trying to get with you.”
It was true that they hadn’t said anything nefarious and it wasn’t like they’d talked to me about it before or after.
“I was such a jerk to him after, I got all paranoid... I wanted to kiss him real bad too, Albita.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere. I’m switching to Hangouts cuz I want to look you in the eye when you tell me what happened.”
“No.”
“Switch to your iPad, Julia del Mar!”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, fine!” Even though she was a pain in my ass all the time, seeing my best friend’s face did something to calm all the fretting I’d been doing. This thing with Rocco and the mess at my job were getting to me.
Her smiling face and those piercing brown eyes stared at me from behind stylish rose-gold glasses. Her eyes were a little smudged with eyeliner and she had her thick long mane in a bun on top of her head.
“You kissed Rocco Fucking Quinn?”
I once again thanked the gods for my non-blushing brown skin. “I said ‘almost.’ The word ‘almost’ was used. And that’s it. Nothing else happened.”
I squirmed on my couch as she gave me the look that said “you can’t fool me” and I really could not.
“Fine, so he ended up picking me up, since José ‘couldn’t.’” I made air quotes with one hand, I was still salty at José for that. “We were the first ones to get