“Oh my god, Sandra, I’m so sorry, but I completely blanked on that, can you say it again?”

I cradled my phone against my ear as I swiped my badge at the door to the company offices. Thankfully I didn’t need my full brain to navigate, even though I’d never been there before—corporate structured all these places the same, right down to the brain-deadening beige of the carpet and the mass-produced inspirational posters on the walls. The whole place had a completely predictable layout and color scheme, all gleaming sterile neutral tones and easily disassembled cubicle partitions, all traces of individuality scrupulously erased from the workspaces except for the odd golf trophy.

I trotted down the hall, avoiding the curious gazes of the men in expensive suits, the younger ones looking at me like I was the dessert option on the menu, and the older ones looking at me like I must have taken a wrong turn on my way to the kitchen.

I tried not to fumble my phone in my suddenly sweaty hands. There was no reason to be nervous. No reason to be nervous. No reason.

Maybe if I repeated that enough times, I’d actually believe it.

“‘A warm color scheme,’” Sandra repeated as per my earlier instruction. “Lots of rich carmines and golden browns, think hunting lodge meets the red carpet.”

“Got it,” I said. I most definitely did not have a hangover, not even a tiny little bit, but this headache I’d woken up with was really starting to get on my last nerve, and the coffee and ibuprofen I’d had for breakfast weren’t working their magic just yet.

“I’m sorry to make you memorize all my crap,” Sandra apologized, before her voice went slightly tinny and further away. “James! Icky! Icky icky no no!” Her voice returned to its normal timbre. “Sorry about that, he was trying to get into the cat food again.”

“Tell the little monster hi for me,” I said with a grin. I just couldn’t be annoyed at that little moppet with his big brown eyes and mess of dark curls, not even if he was keeping the best art partner I’d ever had stuck back in Washington, D.C. “Has he figured out how to dismantle the DVD player yet?”

“Don’t give him any ideas,” Sandra ordered. “Really, though, I swear, I am going to strangle that babysitter; I let her know I would need her three months in advance and she swore that she would be available and then at the last minute—”

“Don’t sweat it,” I told her. “I got this, just go over some of this stuff with me and I’m golden.”

“Sure thing—James! Mommy’s credit card is not a snack!”

Once Sandra managed to wrest her wallet away from her son’s sticky, adorable fingers, we went over the preliminary art concepts she’d created for my pitch today, Sandra repeating the necessary buzzwords until I was sure they were drilled into my brain and unlikely to come jarred loose by anything less than a tank.

I could feel my confidence level rising I as I trotted down the hall towards the elevators. This was it. This was my big chance. There was nothing that—

“Did you see the hooters on that chick I banged last night? Like frigging planets or some shit.”

“Aw bro, don’t tell me you thought those were real!”

“Like I care? She wanted the D so bad, I swear, I barely got back to the Caddy before she was on her knees—”

My mood deflated like a rapidly punctured balloon as the gang of tanned young men rounded the corner, all pastel polos and hundred dollar haircuts and acrid cologne that filled the air almost as stiflingly as their entitlement.

“Sorry, got to go,” I told Sandra.

Her voice went tense. “Let me guess, the Testosterone Squad has arrived?”

“Giving them that nickname is an insult to testosterone everywhere,” I muttered quietly enough that they couldn’t hear me, ducking my head in the hope that they would take a second to see me through the fog of their own arrogance.

“And ‘Douchebros’ is better? Honey, I don’t want to even think about them anywhere near my vagina.”

I snickered. “And that’s why it’s perfect,” I told her. “Because they act like they’re God’s gift to women, but they’re actually harmful and gross.”

“Yo, Ally!”

Oh no. I had been sighted. I sighed, reluctantly turning to face Harry, Supreme Douchebro In Charge. “Hello.”

“Making an appointment for a spa day?” Harry said with a smirk that made it clear he thought that was the wittiest one-liner since Bob Hope. “You know, to console yourself after we sweep this meeting? Tell you what, I’ll buy you some chocolates and throw in a back massage, just for you.” He leered, his eyes traveling downward to a part of my anatomy that was definitely not my back.

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes; they’d just take that as evidence of how emotional and unprofessional I was, as if leering and broadcasting exaggerated stories of sexual prowess were somehow Business Conduct 101. “I’ve got to go, Sandra, talk to you later.”

“Let me know how it goes—James! No! Not the hair dryer!”

Harry was still leering, his collar popped up high like he thought he was still a frat boy. “Nice outfit, but you really should’ve gone with something that emphasizes your body more. Only way to distract the client from your incompetence.”

“Charming,” I said dryly, refusing to engage despite the rage boiling in my gut.

“We’ve got this locked up,” Douchebro #2, also known as Greg, chimed in, shoving his hands in his pockets as he took his place next to #3, Chad. “Why’d you even bother showing up? It’s a joke, getting a chick to pitch a dude brand like this. What’re you even going to do, stick a pink label on it?”

“What a brilliant idea,” I said flatly. “I don’t know how I didn’t think of it.” I gave them a smile that probably looked like I was preparing for the dentist to extract all my molars, and got into the elevator, trying to ignore how blatantly they checked out my ass as they followed me in.

They didn’t matter. Nothing they did mattered. The only thing that mattered was that I had gotten my boss to agree to let me pitch after them today, and I wasn’t going to mess it up. I wasn’t going to let this opportunity pass me by. It was my first chance to really show everybody what I was capable of.

It was time to step up. Time to show them what I was made of. Time to fight back.

I clenched my fists at my side as the elevator began its slow ascent.

And may the best woman win.

This would have been a very inspirational moment, but then my phone rang. And the ringtone was ‘All the Single Ladies.’

I made the mistake of glancing at the Caller ID before jabbing the power button. Great, my mom. Answering this call was the last thing I wanted to do in front of the Douchebros, up to and including stripping down to a string bikini and dancing the cha-cha, but if I didn’t pick up now, my mom would go into an anxiety spiral and by the time I called her back an hour later, would have convinced herself that I’d been kidnapped, taken overseas, and held for ransom on a modern day pirate ship.

I chose the lesser of two evils, and answered. “Hey, Mom.”

Chad smirked, and I shot him a glare.

“Ooooh, watch out, I think she’s on her period,” he stage-whispered, and the other guys snorted and gave him high-fives.

“Daaaaarling,” my mom said in my ear, skipping straight past ‘hello’ and any sort of perfunctory inquiry into how my life was going. “I’m ordering the champagne this very instant, and you haven’t respondez s’il vous plait’ed to dinner yet.”

“I always come to Friday dinner, Mom,” I said. I tried to say this like a reasonable adult stating a fact, which, technically, I was. Only somehow, it came out as a whine.

Family: it’s fucking magical.

There was a heavy sigh, as if I had just single-handedly brought about the fall of Western civilization. “It is called etiquette, dear. It exists for a reason.”

Is that reason to give you something to nitpick about other people, all of the time? I very nearly said, but avoided voicing out loud since I didn’t want to be the first person to cause spontaneous human nuclear explosion.

“I’m coming, Mom. Put me down for a plate.”

“If you’d simply responded to the letter, dear—”

Yep, that’s right. My mom sends gilt-edged paper invitations through the U.S. Postal Service for the weekly family dinner. And then expects you to respond in kind. Sometimes I stop and think about how much free time she must have, to think of all these tiny, pointless things to fill it. And then I eat an entire carton of ice cream to try to stop being depressed.

The elevator reached our floor, and the Douchebros and I made our way to the conference room as my mom rattled on despite my best efforts to tune her out. “And try to wear something appropriate this time, dear, I know more and more women think slacks are appropriate attire these days, but they’re just so unfeminine, and really a skirt is much more flattering for our body type. Why, I remember when your father first started courting me—”

This was what happened when you made your whole life about a man.

I wasn’t going to let it happen to me.

I took my seat at the conference table, and saw the elevator button light up. That had to be the Knoxes! And I’d barely had time to go over Sandra’s tips!

“Gotta go, Mom!”

“Allison Brierly Beignet Bartlett, is that any way for a proper young lady to—”

“Probably not, love you, bye!”

I jammed my finger down on the power button, killing my cell with only a weak buzz as its death throes, before unceremoniously stuffing it into my purse. I was going to pay for that later, in spades, but there was no point in dwelling on that now.

I took a deep breath, smoothing down my skirt as I stood, ready to greet the new arrivals. I thought about puppies and chocolate and tried to make that translate into a friendly smile on my face.

Meanwhile, Harry puffed out his chest and stretched his neck like a bird doing a mating dance.

The first Knox representative into the room was a small, weedy man with platinum blonde hair and watery blue eyes. He looked like he’d gotten his fashion advice from the same place as the Douchebros, but hadn’t managed to get the sizing quite right. His eyes fastened on me, and a leer began to tug at the corner of his mouth.

I ratcheted up my internal gears in an effort to keep my own smile from disappearing. “Mr. Charles Donahue—” I started.

“Call me Chuck,” he barked in a heavy New York accent.

“Certainly. I’m—” I hadn’t even gotten out the first syllable of my name when Harry practically threw himself between us, like a bodyguard trying to stop a bullet.

“Bro, that tie pin! Nobody said you were a—” He preceded to rattle off more Greek letters than I’d even known were in their alphabet.

Chuck’s grin widened. “Good to see the brotherhood still going strong. What year were you?”

“2009, my man.”

And just like that, they were chatting away like best friends, and I’d lost my big chance to establish a personal connection with the client. I watched with a sinking feeling in my gut as Chuck and Harry gabbed away as if everything were already a done deal, and resisted the urge to grind my teeth. Shut out of the boys’ club again.

Still, Hunter Knox, the CEO and owner, was still chatting with some of his flunkies down the hall by the elevator, and he was the one I really had to convince—

I turned to take a closer look at Mr. Knox, and froze.

Bourbon eyes—

Caramel waves—

Freckles like a sweet dusting of brown sugar—

Hunter Knox was my one-night stand.