Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of the male, umm, anatomy. Big ones, small ones (okay, not so small), thick and thicker. Even that guy from Constitutional Law 101 in college who veered slightly to the left . . . I’m just saying, when I get up close and personal with a guy’s assets, I know how to have a good time.

Best cock forward, so to speak.

But there’s a time and a place to throw your penis party. And seven thirty p.m. on a Thursday night, while I’m stuck working late in the office Xeroxing deposition transcripts?

RSVP: Nope.

“What the fuck?” I squawk, as fourth-year associate Tommy Milstein lurches towards me, his pale, limp dick swinging free from his unzipped pants. “Put that thing away!”

“Relax, Jules,” he grins, leering at me. “Nobody’s around.”

“Um, hello? Somebody, right here.”

I slam the photocopier shut and stride back across the office, my hands shaking with shock—and anger. I should have guessed he’d pull a sleazy stunt like this. Out of everyone at the office, Tommy would be voted Most Likely to Sexually Harass. His crimes are well-known around the office: brushing up against you in the elevator, staring down the assistants’ blouses, sending sexist memes from his company email—and that’s just the stuff everybody knows about. Word is that he cornered a first-year associate at the holiday party last year and propositioned her for sex in exchange for better cases. And not just regular, “lie back and think of England” sex, but a three-way with his racquetball partner, while dressed as Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones.

Unfortunately, since Tommy also puts the Milstein in Harper, Wells & Milstein—he’s the managing partner’s son—nobody’s been able to go Red Wedding on the creep. I’ve steered clear of him, but we’ve been working on a case together the last few weeks, and apparently emailing sweet nothings like I think we should be able to file by Friday and Do you want to circle back with the client or should I? were basically an open invitation to drop trou and show me the best that his gene pool has to offer.

Spoiler alert: not much.

I get to my desk and start shoving files in my briefcase, but not fast enough. Tommy saunters over, holding his pants up with one hand. “Come on, Jules,” he says, offering me a grin—lopsided, the kind that he must think is charming. “We both know there’s something going on here.”

“Unless that ‘something’ is me recoiling from you in total disgust, then no,” I tell him with a glare. “Now zip your pants up and get the fuck out of my way before I start screaming for security.”

Tommy’s grin twists into a nasty scowl; he shoves himself back inside his fly without bothering to button up. “There’s no reason to be such a bitch about it,” he snaps.

“There’s no reason to flash your fucking junk like a pervert on the subway, but clearly, we’re way past logic right now,” I retort.

Tommy’s eyes narrow. “I’d watch that mouth if I were you, Jules.” He takes a step toward me, and I feel myself tense. The guy is a skinny weasel but you never know with assholes like this. “Do you even care about your position here? I bet my dad would be real interested to hear about your attitude problem.”

He takes another step, backing me up against the desk, and I sigh.

“I really didn’t want to have to do this,” I tell him sadly.

And then I punch him in the face.

---

“Are you serious?” my best friend Kelly demands the next afternoon at Bicycle Bar, a narrow, slightly mildewy-smelling haunt on the Lower East Side. We were regulars here back in our law school days, when we had a standing date for 2-for-1 fireball shots on Tuesday nights. Three years later, it’s still our favorite place to meet in any kind of emotional emergency. Droopy Christmas lights shaped like chili peppers hang above the dusty liquor bottles; a chalkboard hawks $4 Bud Lights and pickleback specials. It’s a total dive—one we’re way too old for at this point—but at least I know I won’t run into anyone from the firm. “They fired you?”

“It wasn’t so much a firing as the not-so-gentle suggestion that I resign.” I slouch miserably on my ripped barstool. “To be fair, I broke another employee’s cheekbone.”

“Sure, in self-defense,” Kelly says, waving her hand dismissively. “Did they miss the part where he was swinging his fucking dick around by the Xerox machine?”

“Did you miss the part where he’s the managing partner’s son?” I sigh. “I’m a third-year associate, Kel. It’s my own fault. I mean, not the dick-swinging, obviously,” I clarify quickly. “But it’s not like I didn’t know what kind of company I was working for. Harper Wells is basically the evil corporation from a superhero movie. I can’t very well act surprised.”

Kelly narrows her eyes. “Can we sue?”

“I mean, we could,” I say, loving her even more for her use of the first-person plural. Kelly and I have been best friends since the first day of law school, when I slipped into the last row of the lecture hall with my heart pulsing in the back of my throat. Everybody else in the class looked like they’d willingly throw me in front of a subway car if it would somehow improve their grade, but Kelly just smiled and held up a baggie full of Cheerios. “I brought snacks,” she whispered, like she’d known me forever. Right away, it felt like she had.

“But it’s a total he-said she-said situation,” I continued. “And if I know them at all they’ll do everything they can to make me look deranged—which, spoiler alert, is not exactly something other firms look for in potential employees. They’re counting on it feeling like more trouble than it’s worth, and the grossest part is that they’re actually right.”

“That is so unfair.” Kelly considers the tiny bowl of peanuts on the bar between us before shoving them away in disgust. “Well, if we can’t turn this into an opportunity to smash the patriarchy, at the very least I hope his nose bled a lot.”

“Oh, yeah,” I grin, thanking the universe for a mom who taught my sister and me how to throw a hell of a right hook. “It gushed. I heard from my assistant he’s going to need a plastic surgeon to repair his weaselly face.”

Kelly grins. “Atta girl.”

The hipster bartender nods in our direction. “You ladies ready for another round?”

“Yes, please.” I order a tequila and soda with extra lime, barely resisting the urge to tell him to just bring the bottle. I turn to Kelly, motioning to the highball glass she’s been nursing since I got here. “What is that, a vodka tonic?”

Kelly hesitates. “It’s a seltzer water, actually.” She takes a deep breath. “So, this is not how I was planning to tell you,” she says, then trails off and casts a meaningful look down at her belly.

“What!” My mouth drops open in shock and delight, my train wreck of a professional life momentarily forgotten. “Are you serious?”

“Due in May,” she admits, before lifting her palms in a dorky approximation of jazz hands. “Surprise!”

“Kelly!” I hop up off my barstool, flinging my arms around her and squeezing tight. “Are you kidding me? How did you not say anything this whole time? Oh my God, I can’t believe you’re pregnant and you let me take you to Bicycle Bar.”

Kelly laughs at that. “I’m sorry,” she exclaims. “It just felt weird and kind of bitchy to be strolling in here with good news when—”

“Are you kidding me?” I wave her off. “Don’t even start. Come on, you know that’s not how our friendship works. Oh, Kel, I’m so happy for you.”

“I’m so happy,” she admits, a little shyly. “And completely terrified, clearly. I don’t feel remotely qualified to be somebody’s mother.”

“Oh stop it,” I say, accepting my own drink from the bartender. “You’re going to be amazing. Phil too. This kid hit the parental jackpot.”

Kelly claps a palm over her face, peeking at me from between her fingers. “Does this mean I’m an actual grown-up now?”

I laugh, dragging her hand away. “I mean, I hate to tell you this, but you’re twenty-eight. You’ve got a hot husband and a sweet job and a fantastic apartment on the Upper West Side. You were already the mayor of Adult Town—which, now that I say it out loud, I realize sounds like a creepy, badly lit neighborhood full of porn shops and glory holes, but you know what I mean.” I gesture around. “Not to mention the fact that, sincerely tragic as it is, it’s not like we’re closing this place down every night of the week anymore.”

“Or buying all our party clothes off the sale rack at Forever 21,” Kelly says with a sigh.

“Or eating Cinnamon Toast Crunch for dinner,” I add, “although, full disclosure, I actually did do that a couple of nights ago.”

Kelly grins. “Or taking off on wild trips to Vegas.”

“Oh my God.” Now it’s my turn to hide my face in my hands. Our post-grad weekend in Sin City feels like a hundred years ago now, the two of us dancing by the pool at the Bellagio and strolling the strip, cocktails in hand—me in a tight black mistake of a dress, catching the attention of a tall, handsome mistake of a stranger. Even now, the memory of that guy’s crooked smile—and his arms, and the rest of him—makes me blush. Still, there’s another part of me that misses how free I felt back then: wide-eyed and fresh out of law school, the whole world full of once-in-a-lifetime adventures waiting to be had.

“Well, nothing for me to do but drink for both of us, I guess,” I tell Kelly now, raising my glass in her direction. “To new babies—and, oh please God, new jobs.”

“To whatever’s next,” Kelly agrees, and we toast.