It's A Wonderful Midlife Crisis (Good To The Last Death #1) - Robyn Peterman Page 0,28

very pretty in a brittle way. However, her personality destroyed her beauty. “How have you been doing?”

“Are you serious?” I asked, squinting at her.

“Yes,” she snapped and then reined it in. “I just thought since we’ll be working together, we should be… a little… you know, friendlier.”

I was having a complete déjà poo. I’d heard the same crap not even an hour ago. Had everyone lost their marbles?

“Clarissa, we’ve worked together for eight years,” I said, holding back an eye roll with extreme effort. “I don’t see any reason to be friends now.”

“You don’t have to be rude,” she insisted, picking up a picture of Gram, my mom and me from when I was a child.

She stared at it for a bit and then put it back down. Her eyes narrowed, and I could swear she wanted to say something shitty. I was ready. I was used to it. However, if she so much as said one vicious thing about my mother or Gram, I would use my Y skills on her. Sooner or later I was going to get some use out of those self-defense classes. If today was the day, so be it. It would feel amazing to head-butt Clarissa.

“If you’re going to be his friend then you have to be mine as well,” she explained, examining her manicure. “Otherwise it’s not fair and I’ll be pissed. No one likes it when I’m pissed, Daisy.”

I amended my earlier thought. Clarissa was mean and crazy. Maybe there was something in the water.

“Who are you talking about?” I asked with an eye roll that felt so good I laughed.

“You know who I’m talking about,” she said, glaring at me. “Rules are rules.”

“Okay,” I said, realizing she could possibly screw my day up completely. She might be nuts, but I was off my rocker. If she wanted to play games, I was in. Off your rocker could kick nuts’ ass any day of the week. Unfortunately, my balls were getting bigger with each conversation I was forced to have today. “Fine. We can be friends with a few conditions.”

“Really?” she asked, perking up.

“Really,” I said, standing. “We can be friends if you leave right now. We can only be friends in public and never at my house. In fact, you can’t come here anymore—that is, if you want to be friends. We have literally nothing in common and if we do, I don’t want to know about it.”

“I can work with that,” she said, nodding seriously.

I almost laughed.

“I’m not done,” I told her.

“There’s more?”

“There’s always more. You will be nice to the paralegals at work. You do anything out of line and you lose friend points. I’ll determine what ‘out of line’ means on a case-by-case basis. If you lose ten friend points, we’re no longer friends. We will not be close friends. Ever. I won’t tell you my secrets and I never ever want to know yours. You feel me?” I wondered how far I could go… This was fun in a warped and unhealthy kind of way. I’d never had the upper hand with Clarissa in the entire time I’d known her. I wasn’t sure why I had it now, but I did. I refused to waste it.

I was nuts, but I wasn’t stupid.

“Will you tell him your secrets? I mean, he’s so old he wouldn’t even understand them. He’s older than dirt, just in case you weren’t aware of that,” she hissed, looking like she was going to throw a fit.

Who was she talking about? Her father? Another lawyer? Gideon? It couldn’t be Gideon. He wasn’t a day over forty-five. Most of the other lawyers in the firm were in their sixties and seventies. It had to be one of them.

Honestly, it didn’t matter who she was talking about. I simply wanted her gone.

“I would never tell him my secrets,” I promised, having no clue who I was referring to. “He’s old… and umm… gross, and I really don’t like him much.”

Clarissa clapped her hands and squealed with joy. It was alarming. However, since she’d jumped to her feet, I had a chance to push her out the front door.

“He’s really awful,” she admitted. “I nailed him a while back and then he pretended he didn’t know my name. Can you believe that?”

“That falls under the heading of secrets,” I said, trying not to gag. “You’re forbidden to tell me those. Remember?”

Picturing Clarissa with one of the geriatric lawyers was too much. I was happy my stomach was