to bed.
“Good morning!” She was in the kitchen turning on the coffee maker, way too cheery.
“How could you not tell me about the remodeling thing?”
She rushed over to the couch and sat next to me. “You have no idea how hard it was to not tell you. But isn’t it the best news ever?”
I still couldn’t believe that Shelby had sat on a secret that big. It was so unlike her. Not unlike me, but I wasn’t the one being questioned here.
“The best,” I echoed.
“This is going to be everything. His publicist put in a call to California Architectural, and they fell all over themselves to offer us the cover. The cover! I’m going to be launched into a different stratosphere.”
“That is going to be so great,” I said. I was happy for her, and it was selfish of me to be worried about how all this was going to affect me. Maybe it wouldn’t affect my life at all. I’d already told the guy we could be friends. What that was going to look like I wasn’t sure, but why would it be a bad thing if my best friend was fixing his atrocious house?
“And he is paying me so well. So. Well. He offered to double all of my fees and costs for doing rush work, and unlike you, I didn’t talk him out of it because I’ve found that I like making money instead of throwing it away.” She was teasing me, but it wasn’t the same thing. Him paying her versus him paying me. Although if I’d been pressed about it, I couldn’t have explained why.
I also hoped he’d pay her in actual dollars.
“And you know,” she continued, “you’re such an awesome person that he’s basically hiring me based on the fact that I’m your friend. I mean, he went to my website and looked at my other projects, and I got a floor plan of his house from that friend of mine who works in the records office and I pitched him my ideas in that program I have that renders 3D schematics—”
“So, for more reasons than just being my friend,” I interjected with a smile. “It’s because you’re talented and you’re going to do an amazing job.” But I didn’t really want to talk about Noah Douglas. “How was your night?”
Shelby rolled her eyes and went into the kitchen. I followed her and sat on the barstool at our peninsula counter while she rummaged around for coffee mugs. “The less I say about that, the better.”
“What do you mean?” I needed to go get changed. I had to return this dress, and it was feeling really uncomfortable. Formal wear was not meant to be slept in.
“Harmony pretty much ignored me for the entire evening. I was this close to getting up on her dining room table and doing my old tap-dance routine from junior high, just to force her to make eye contact with me. It’s a good thing I love Allan,” she said as she placed the mugs on the counter. “And I don’t have to ask how your night was because . . . BAM!”
She reached for her laptop and flipped it up. “I wanted to slam it on the counter for the full effect but I don’t want to break it and I need it for work, so . . .” She slid it across the counter toward me.
And there was a picture of me and Noah Douglas. He looked amazing, all self-assured and sexy with the barest hint of a smile. They’d published a picture of me gazing at him instead of at the camera, and it made me uncomfortable. Mostly because I resembled . . . the girl his mother had forced him to take out.
“We look like a set of Goth twins going to an emo prom,” I told her.
“You’re crazy,” she assured me. “You look like a matched set with your dark hair and dark eyes. Like you were meant to be together.”
I sighed. “You need to hurry up and get married so that you can get out of this isn’t-love-so-wonderful phase.”
The picture was listed with Noah’s name on it. No mention of me. Which made sense. Then I scrolled down a little farther, and that’s where the comments started.
Who is this fat ugly skank ho?
I would murder someone to stand next to him like that.
Ick. He could do so much better.
Call me instead, Noah Douglas.
I only ship Noah and Lily and I don’t accept cheap substitutes.
I