LAX was a goddamn mess to navigate, especially since Jenna’s flight had arrived two hours late, without her luggage. She waited at the bag claim conveyer for what felt like an eternity, only to find her pink suitcase missing from the lineup of dull black business cases and bland blue duffle bags. So then she had to waste an hour waiting in line and speaking with a customer service rep who had the fakest smile Jenna had ever seen, only to be told her bag had been routed to Denver by accident and wouldn’t arrive until sometime tomorrow. If she was lucky.

“Fantastic,” Jenna spat at the woman’s face.

And that was enough of LAX for one day.

Jenna marched through the busy airport until she found an exit that let out into a pickup area filled with cabs and Ubers. She’d called an Uber of her own while she was waiting in line to file the claim for her missing bag, and she found “Paul” waiting at the end of a long line of cars in a beat-up SUV the color of vomit. Of course, Jenna had no right to complain about Paul’s choice of ride. She’d never saved enough money to buy a car of her own, and her boss didn’t budget for rentals. She could barely drive.

A sad, sad state of affairs for a twenty-one-year-old woman.

Alas, this is my lot in life, she thought as she made her way to Paul’s SUV.

Paul, thank goodness, took one look at the pinched expression on Jenna’s face when she climbed into his vehicle and decided not to say a word the whole drive. Unfortunately, Marvin decided to call when they were halfway to the hotel near the convention center, and Jenna had no good excuse for sending him to voicemail. So she answered with a chipper, “Hey, Mr. Potts. I just left LAX. I’m heading to the hotel now to make sure everything’s set for your arrival on Friday.”

“Just leaving the airport?” Marvin huffed in a nasally tone. It was his natural speaking voice, which he masked when he gave his “award-winning” motivational speeches. “Why’d you wait so long?”

Jenna sighed inwardly. There was no point in explaining flight delays to a man who chartered private jets. And Marvin didn’t accept excuses, even if they were valid. “I apologize, sir. But I’m back on track now.”

“Good. Have you checked in with the conference staff yet?”

“I’m scheduled to meet them in person tomorrow morning to run over the schedule and staging setup. Like you always say, Mr. Potts, never do over the phone what a face-to-face can do better.” She rapped her fingers on her carry-on backpack and rolled her eyes at the secretary voice she always had to use around Marvin. If she stopped quoting his sound bites or dropped even an ounce of enthusiasm from her tone, he’d start nagging her about her “bad attitude.”

“Good. Taking initiative.” He slurped loudly for a few seconds, and Jenna guessed he was gorging on Japanese or Chinese food again. He had this weird obsession with noodles and always demanded she reserve tables for him at multiple high-end Asian restaurants in whatever city they were heading to. “That’s what I like to hear,” he finally finished. “So no hang-ups?”

“No, sir. None at all.”

“Then I’ll see you on Friday.”

He ended the call without saying goodbye.

Jenna stared at her phone screen until it went dark, then muttered, “Dick.”

* * *

“What do you mean you lost my reservation?” Jenna stared at the man behind the reception desk in disbelief. “I tripled-checked the reservation when I made it. Two rooms. One high-end suite and one small, single room.”

The man scrolled through the list on his computer, grimacing. “Sorry, ma’am. All I have here under Marvin Potts is a reservation for the suite. No single room.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Jenna tugged her phone from her purse and located the email from the hotel, proving she had indeed booked two rooms. She turned her phone around for the man to see. “Right there. My single.”

The man skimmed the email. “Looks like there might’ve been a mix-up then. Maybe a glitch in the system. Sorry about that.”

“Okay, so? Just book me another room.”

He frowned. “I’m afraid I can’t. We have no vacancies. Everything’s taken due to that big marketing conference down at the convention center this weekend.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that. It’s why I’m here. It’s why I booked the rooms with you in the first place.” Jenna resisted the urge to tug on her hair, a bad habit from her childhood that had once resulted in some unsightly bald spots on the back of her head. She could feel the eyes of the people waiting in the line behind her boring into her back. The line stretched across half the lobby, and the people in it were annoyed that Jenna was holding them up. “Isn’t there something you can do? You already took the deposit.”

“We can refund the deposit,” the man offered, “and comp you half for a room in the future. But there’s nothing I can do to get you a room now, I’m sorry to say. There’s no space at all.” He shrugged apologetically. “Would you like a list of other hotels in the area?”

Jenna shook her head. “No, I’ll manage on my own. Just make sure the refund goes through.” If Marvin found out that Jenna had “mangled” the reservations, he’d chew her out and call her incompetent. And there was no possibility she could get away with booking a room at another hotel using his card. He was a stingy bastard—he cut corners everywhere he could, except when it came to keeping up his wealthy image—and he would demand the money for the other room come out of her pay. Because the faulty reservation was “her mistake.”

She’d have to find somewhere cheaper to stay and pay with her own money.

What little she had to spare.

“I’ve initiated the refund,” the man at the desk said.

Jenna sighed. “Thanks. I’ll be on my way.”

She felt far too much like she was on a walk of shame as she passed by the line of irritated businesspeople in sharp suits that had piled up behind her. It didn’t help that she almost ran face first into one of the panes of the revolving door because she misjudged its speed, or that she stumbled as she exited onto the sidewalk, in plain view of everybody walking by.

Keep it together, girl, she told herself. You can do this. You’ve managed in worse situations.

Much worse.

Jenna stood on the sidewalk for some time, staring out at the vast expanse of Los Angeles, a city she’d never been to before and would likely never visit again. A city of possibilities she wouldn’t get the chance to explore, any more than she’d been able to explore Houston and Miami and NYC. She’d be here for a long weekend, running around like a madwoman to take care of Marvin’s every whim, and then she’d get on another plane, head back to Chicago, and wind up smooshed into her closet-sized office again. Until Marvin picked out his next unsuspecting target to deliver his “life improvement” spiel to. Probably using darts and the map of the United States taped to the back of his office door. (There were holes in it. She’d seen them. And she swore his destination choices were random enough to be the result of actual chance.)

Three years ago, after bouncing around between homeless shelters and literal tenements for months, this job with Marvin had seemed like a dream come true. She could afford a tiny apartment. Monthly trips to the grocery store. Even some decent clothes. With enough left over to build up the savings she needed to rescue Dylan.

But Jenna had long realized that Marvin was simply looking for a pretty face to use as his office slave and show off like a painting to the right people, and that in some ways, he wasn’t much better than the man she’d run away from when she was a teenager. He took her for granted. He verbally abused her. He treated her like a pack mule. And one day soon, that would bite him in the ass, because she was going to walk out of his office and never come back.

That day was not today, however.

She had at least six months left on this job to hit her savings goal.

So she turned away from the multitude of opportunities that LA had to offer, and brought up a Google search on her phone. She had to find a place to stay that she could actually afford. And it wasn’t anywhere around here.

Guess I’ll be calling another Uber, she thought, when the list of budget motels popped up on the screen. Great. Just great.