Hot Boss - Anne Marsh Page 0,4

hand over her mouth. “Cease. Desist.”

Hazel’s response is to lick my palm.

I retract my hand because...gross. “Are you five?”

“Too much?” Hazel rolls her eyes. “You’re such a baby.”

“I feel the need to point out that my way’s more fun, especially when it comes to babies.”

“You need to plan less,” she counters.

The only thing better than planning is winning, both of which I do very, very well.

“Do you have plans?”

“Big, celebratory, getting-naked plans?” Apparently, clarification is needed in the Hazel-verse, because she waits for my affirmatory grunt before shaking her head. “Don’t tell my mom. She wants grandbabies and she wants them the ‘natural’ way.”

“No turkey baster?”

Hazel shakes her head dramatically. “It’s penis in the vagina or nada as far as she’s concerned.”

We both watch my phone. Is that weird? But Hazel’s like an extension of me. Molly’s read my text, and typing bubbles dance across the screen.

E.

Hazel frowns as she reads Molly’s answer. “That wasn’t one of the choices.”

Hazel is often overly literal, but she’s right. It wasn’t. I text back: A mystery option? Awesome. I’ll be home in an hour. You can pitch me then.

I can’t help but notice that Molly’s next text comes much faster. Much, much faster.

I won’t be here.

Hazel groans. “So much for celebration sex.”

Sometimes, it’s as if Hazel can read my mind. I’m excellent with schedules, but... I look at Hazel. “What’s the over-under on me having forgotten Molly has a work trip?”

I’m texting before Hazel can respond. What’s up?

Molly’s response is a picture. It might be a moving van. It’s like one of those impossible-to-make-sense-of security pictures where Yahoo invites you to pick out all the streetlights and you get the easy ones, but then you’re squinting trying to figure out if poles count or wires or WTF because all you want to do is send an email, not play Pictionary.

“Words,” Hazel mutters beside me. “Words are better.”

Now there’s a pounding in the office.

Stupid jackhammer construction. Who scheduled that for today? I should tell them to knock it off, to—

The pounding’s almost drowned out by this strange whistling roar in my ears. Okay. That’s my body making those sounds. Maybe I’m having a heart attack?

At thirty-two.

Sitting on my ass.

Hazel’s right, although I’d never admit it to her. I work too much. I should have had more fun.

Hazel starts rubbing circles on my back. Oh, no. She’s doing the sympathy gesture.

I’m moving out, Molly texts. I want a divorce.

Hazel’s hand freezes. “Shit-fuck-damn.”

Yes, all of those describe my situation quite nicely.

“I need to go home,” I say. Or maybe I don’t say anything and Hazel reads my mind, but somehow she gets me past the crowd of partying teammates and down the stairs to the parking lot. She bypasses my BMW and pops open the door to her Volvo. I bought Molly a Volvo. They have excellent safety features.

Normally, I avoid riding shotgun with Hazel because she’s an interesting driver, but there’s nothing normal about today. There’s nothing normal about earning millions of dollars in one afternoon. Or arriving home to find your house meticulously half-empty. Or meeting the very nice process server in your driveway who hands over the stack of papers that signals the end.

Molly and I got married straight out of college. Graduation one week, big church date the next. We have a good marriage. We love each other, we have amazing sex on a regular basis, we laugh plenty and we routinely talk about both our future and our days. Sure, we also have rough patches and bad days and the odd fight, but those are balanced out by the memories, makeup sex and inside jokes. I know Molly. Her guilty pleasures are house-hunter shows, red dahlias and kitten memes. She’s cried in my arms about shit that’s gone wrong and we’ve killed more than one bottle of tequila celebrating her happy endings. We’ve been sick together, and lonely together, and I’ve shared the best and worst of me with her.

Except maybe I don’t know her.

Maybe she’s been pretending.

Or faking it.

Or—

“Jack?” That’s Hazel’s voice coming from far, far away. I always have a plan, but I seem to be running on empty.

She pushes me back into her car, gets in on the other side and drives. She may talk. I don’t know. I don’t care. I just sit there and stare out the window at nothing. The sun’s going down when we start the long, steep climb to her house. My place is on the beach, but as Hazel can’t swim and