last five minutes. The number she came up with wasn’t something she wanted to think about.
She lifted her head up and reached for her phone. I’ve got to get out of here, she typed, and sent the message to Shelby.
A reply popped up on her screen about a minute later. Meet me at the coffee shop by my office for my morning break in about half an hour?
Done. Emily sent the message and got up from her chair. After slipping her feet into the first pair of sandals she saw, she grabbed her purse and keys from the kitchen counter and left her apartment.
* * *
Emily’s breath was still shaky when she walked into the coffee shop. Shelby was already waiting for her inside, a vanilla latte for Emily already on the table.
She slid into the seat across from Shelby and slumped over the table, propping her head up with her hands.
“Is everything okay?” Shelby asked.
“If we’re having opposite day, sure,” Emily said.
“It’s not as bad as you think.”
Emily lifted her head from her hands. “You’re right. It’s worse. Page views for the column I write for Sweltry have fallen off a cliff, their big advertisers pitched a fit, and I’m no longer welcome to freelance for them. Don’t even ask me how I’ll make rent this month, between that and the issues with Zeeked. Apparently this can all be traced to my fabulously famous personal life. I think I need a break from dating, how about you?”
“That, or a really big margarita,” Shelby suggested.
“A really big margarita is what got me into this mess in the first place.”
If only I hadn’t given in and gone to Jesse’s show that night, she thought. If only I’d turned and ran when Cory told me he was a musician. I should have known better. Musicians and me are like oil and water.
Shelby calmly picked up her mug and studied Emily. “You’re going to look back on all of this and laugh one day, you know.”
“Today is not that day.”
Shelby took a sip of her coffee and set her mug back down on the table. “You’ll be fine. You’ve always been fine. You had readers before you started dating Cory, and I’m sure a good number of people in the world couldn’t care less about him, his band, or any celebrity. Those people will still come to your site, read it, and tell their friends.”
“Can they also become my advertisers and convince Sweltry I should still write for them?” Emily studied the foam on the top of her latte.
“Maybe you should look into finding other advertisers and other freelance work.”
“If I knew where to find either of those things, don’t you think I would have already?” Emily snapped, staring at Shelby. “If you haven’t been paying attention for the last year or two, it’s what I’ve been after for a while. I was keeping afloat and paying my bills, but it hasn’t been easy.”
She stopped, hearing the harshness in her voice. This wasn’t Shelby’s fault. She’d warned her about Cory, after all.
“Sorry,” she mumbled.
Shelby wrapped her fingers around her mug. “Changing the subject, you never did tell me what happened after Cory went tearing after you last night.”
“We had a nice little chat in his car. Like he announced to the world via his Wally Hood interview, he said he wants me back.”
“And you believe him?”
“He’s pretty insistent about it. Considering how he went on and on about it in that interview and then chased me down on the sidewalk, I guess he must.”
Shelby chortled. “I’m pretty sure that’s not what any of this is about.” She sat back in her chair. “Let’s think about when he made a sudden reappearance in the media, going on and on about being brokenhearted. It was right around the time you and Jesse started getting top billing in the tabloids, just as much as he was getting for his encounters with Cady.”
Emily nodded. “That seems right.”
“Do the math. If you can help pull an indie band from obscurity to the limelight, imagine what you can do for an already-famous musician when it comes to getting media attention right when his new album’s first single drops. Headlines are headlines, right? Anything that keeps you in the spotlight is good press when you’re looking for album sales.”
Emily thought about what Shelby had just said. Something nagged at the back of her mind. When it came to her, she put her head down on the table.
“What?” Shelby asked. “Are