13

CARLY

 

Ally answers the door in the same clothes she wore to work, but her hair is now up in a bun like mine.

“Oh wow. You look hot!” She eyes me head to toe.

I’m in my sweatshirt dress and flip flops.

“That sweatshirt dress is smokin’! And anyone who comes to my door with pizza is automatically a hottie, but even if you didn’t have pizza, you’d still be smokin’. Come in!”

I notice immediately that the apartment is a lot less impressive than the one upstairs. It’s more like a corporate apartment than mine and Aiden’s, which is like a home.

There’s black leather furniture, no photos on the walls, and it’s small. It has no personality.

There’s a cute Filipino girl on the leather couch with her laptop. She waves.

“I’m Meryl. Hi!”

I hadn’t met her yet. She was doing some weird hours the past few days so was off today.

She has long black hair, big brown eyes, and she’s absolutely gorgeous. She’s dressed very conservatively in a white blouse with tiny blue flowers that’s buttoned to her throat and a long navy blue skirt, but she could absolutely be a bombshell if she didn’t dress like she’s Amish. She’s dressed like this on her day off, for heaven’s sake.  Her face is make-up free and her complexion is perfection. She’s wearing pink grandma slippers on her feet. Her smile makes me like her immediately. I think she’s in her early 20’s.

I bring the pizza to the coffee table and Ally sits with a giant magnum of wine and two glasses.

Meryl’s drinking apple juice.

Three slices of pizza and four glasses of white wine later and I’ve told them both what the jerk did.  I’ve told them the other stuff, too. Not about that girl and the video, because I have the sense to be somewhat cautious, but I do tell them about him eating my food, being a rude ogre, and leaving messes. And about the endless flirting when he’s nearly naked. I beg them to keep quiet about it, which they assure me they’ll do, since he’s a VP.

Meryl’s mouth is open, in shock, the whole time.

Ally’s muttering things like, “Lord Jesus”, “Holy shit”, and “Shut the front door!” throughout my story.

Ally cracks open a new bottle of wine and during my fifth glass, I tell them about my ex, my bitch of an ex bestie, and my junkie ho-bag sister.

“That’s it,” Ally declares after I tell her about Steph. “We’re not just office besties; we’re bestie besties. That bitch is OUT. I’m in.” She jerks her thumb at her chest and then lifts her other hand up high for a high five.

I slap it.

“Sealed!” Ally declares, then glances at Meryl. “No offence, sister. You’re leaving soon, but while you’re here, you’re office bestie number two.”

Meryl laughs good-naturedly. “I have a perfectly good bestie at home. And Carly here needs you.”

“I do.” I agree, eating a piece of pepperoni off one of the remaining pieces of pizza.

Yep. I know; breaking my own rule.

I know I was going to keep people at arms’ length. I know I take a risk by trusting, but I’m breaking the rule right now because I need comradery tonight. I just hope I can trust them.

“Two things. One: I can loan you some money. And two: face it: You’re totally going to wind up in bed with him,” Ally tells me.

“Thank you. But I won’t take loans from people. And no, I will not!”

“Sorry, but it’s gonna happen,” Ally predicts.

“Is not!” I hiss.

It can’t. No bloody way. “He’s hot, but he’s a jerk. I’ve got no room for a jerk in my life.”

“We’ll see,” Ally says. “But, my predictions are rarely wrong.”

“Come eat with us the rest of the time until you get paid. I have lots of food here. More than we can eat before I go back home. Just go up there to sleep. Stay away from him,” Meryl warns. “And if it gets too much, come sleep on the couch. Maybe you can move down here when I go.”

“Thank you. That’s so sweet. I’ll buy a bunch of food when we get paid and drop it off. And take you to dinner on payday. Big fancy one. You’re lovely!” I reach over and squeeze her hand.

She gives me a big smile. “Don’t even worry. Just cook once or twice before I leave. You already brought dinner tonight. They gave me extra gift cards for the grocery store because I don’t earn San Diego wages so our pantry here is fully stocked.”

“I’ll cook tomorrow then. Wait… we should go to the steakhouse. Do you both still have your gift cards?” I ask

“Got mine, still,” Ally replies.

“Used mine,” Meryl says with a pout.

“Then dinner is on me and Carly tomorrow night,” Ally tells Meryl.

We pour more wine and two hours later, Ally and I wind up taking selfies. Many of them.

We try to get Meryl to let us play dress-up with her. Ally’s begging her to go clubbing on the weekend. She tells us maybe about the weekend, (but I don’t believe her) then goes off to bed as we’re getting tipsy and probably a little annoying.

I take a sexy selfie with my sweatshirt dress falling off one shoulder, sexy duck lips (I don’t usually think it’s sexy, but after all this wine, even I can admit it. It’s sexy). I post it on Facebook and change my relationship status to single, my location to Sunny San Diego, and add San Diego, BITCHES. Suck It to my profile picture.

I also post a pic of me and Ally on my Instagram and hashtag it with “BestBestieEver” #AllyRox #IgotaNewBFFnowandshesnothinglikeYOU.

Steph’ll see it, too. She’s always on Instagram.

Good.

 

***

 

It’s almost midnight. Ally’s yawning. 

So, even though I’m not tired, I head back upstairs to go to bed.

Gotta get up for work in the morning, too. At least I don’t need to be there at seven like Meryl.

I come out of the stairwell and see him getting to our door at the exact same time.

“Youuuuu!” I hiss.

His eyebrows go up.

“Stuck me with the pizza bill. Shoulda known.”

“I left cash on the bar,” he replies, turning the doorknob and pulling his key out. He holds the door open and gestures for me to go ahead.

I do. But, it’s a very small opening he’s left. I squirm in, but this means my boobs are smushed against him as I do.

“You tanked, peaches?” he asks. “Tanked on a Tuesday? You’re full of surprises.”

“Pff. None of your business. Even if it was you who drove me to drink. What money? Where? You took your three hundred dollars when you left.”

He walks to the bar. It’s empty. As I coulda told him.

He’s in Converse shoes, button-fly jeans and a black button-down shirt, rolled to the elbows, the first few buttons undone.

Man, he’s hot.

“What a waste.”

“Hm?” He turns and looks at me.

“Nothing.” I wave nonchalantly.

“Where’d you go in that getup to get smashed? Down to Pinky’s?”

“Yup.”

He squats, and I stare at his butt. He’s got a hundred-dollar bill between his index finger and middle finger. 

“See? Left you one. Had to run out for somethin’.”

“It fell?” I ask.

“Yeah. Didn’t try to stick you with the bill, peaches.”

I snatch the bill from his hand. “I didn’t see it. I’ll get you some change.”

“Forget it. Call it even for the food I ruined and stole.” He looks amused.

“Well, fine,” I snap and fold my arms across my chest. And he’s smirking at me.

I tuck the money into my bra. Wait. No bra. I take it out of the front of my sweatshirt and stuff it into the kangaroo pouch instead.

He’s smiling at me as I do this, eyes on my chest. I glare at him and stomp over to, then flop onto the sofa. He opens the fridge.

“Where’s that pizza, Curly Sue?”

“I took it to the girls. We ate it. All of it.”

He chuckles and scratches his temple. “Shit. I guess I deserved that.”

“You bet your fine ass you did!”

“My fine ass?”

“Fugoff,” I mutter and wave my hand at him and pull my feet up under me and scroll on my phone. Lots of Facebook notifications on my profile picture. Oh yeah, it’s only, like, nine o’clock back at home.

“Call me!” my sister.

“Miss you” Mom

“Jelly!” Sonia from my old work. Poor Sonia. Doesn’t know yet she’s getting canned. My heart sinks.

“Woot Woot” A friend from high school.

A couple “no way” type messages. A “What are you doing there?”

And a whole bunch of likes and loves.

An inbox message from Jon.

I open it.

“I need to talk to you. Please answer my calls or call me back. I’m sorry about what happened. I made a huge mistake. I love you, Carly. I screwed up.”

What? WHAT?

“Fuck you, you rat bastard,” I reply and then I throw my phone. It lands on the rug.

“We got anything to drink?” I ask.

He opens the fridge. “You’ve got a glass or so of wine in here still. If you wanna call it wine.” He makes a face.

“Bring it on over, Banana Thief.”

He reaches for the cupboard.

“Forget the glass.”

He snickers as he carries the bottle to me and twists the cap off.

He sits down.

“Motherfucking jerk,” I grumble, staring at my phone on the floor.

“What did I do now?”

“Not you. Jon.”

“Jon Who?”

“My ex. Forget about it, Hot Sauce.” I wave my hand and take a swig from the nearly empty wine bottle.

He laughs.

“You got nics for me, I’ll keep usin’ nics on you. Here. Not at the office. You call me Peaches at work and I’ll maim you. Why peaches, though?”

He looks at my chest.

“Oh.” I roll my eyes.

“There’s also that booty. Like a perfect round peach.” He wiggles his eyebrows and makes a grabbing motion in front of him with his hands.

I scrunch up my nose.

“I like you callin’ me Hot Sauce a lot better than Banana Thief,” he informs.

“Well…” I take a swig of my wine from the bottle. He waits for me to swallow, a big smile on his face. “Keep bein’ hot then. And stop stealin’ bananas.”

He scoots over close to me, then grabs my ankles and pulls my feet out from under me, into his lap.

“What’re you doing?” I demand, trying to pull back.

He doesn’t let go.

He pulls my flipflops off and tosses them to the floor.

“Even your feet are cute, you know that?” He’s massaging my feet.

“Huh?” I try to sit up, yanking my sweatshirt dress down my thighs as it was dangerously close to riding up way too high.

He squeezes the arch of my foot and I groan and flop back.

“Oh wow, that’s…”

I don’t have words, so I don’t bother. I don’t think I’ve ever had a foot massage from a man. Nope, never. This is way better than the foot massages my mani pedi salon begrudgingly gives back home in Buffalo. You can tell they’re talking in their language about how gross our feet are as they slough dead skin away and then they fake smile as they’re forced to squeeze our feet with their rubber gloves on.

“Sorry I’ve been a bad roommate. I’ll do better.” He’s smiling at me. Eyes twinkling. Fingers working magic on my heels.

At least I had the sense to have a pedi before I came here. I’d be mortified if he had my feet in his hands and they were peeling or rough or had flaking nail polish.

“Yeah?” I ask hopefully.

“Yeah,” he assures and keeps squeezing my feet.

“Okay.” I smile. I put my head down on the arm of the comfy slouchy couch.  Wow, that’s nice. Comfy couch. Nice foot massage.

I feel my eyes droop a little. I’m gonna fall asleep here with my feet in his lap.

His hand starts moving up my leg. His strong, warm hand. It’s moving with purpose up and down my calf.

Okay, this isn’t exactly appropriate. I mean, a foot massage wasn’t either, but this?

Alarm bells go off after a second when I realize his hand is creeping under my dress. It’s grazing the bottom of my ass cheek!

I jump up and point at him. I’m gasping and pointing.

He tilts his head curiously, a smile on his face.

“You rat bastard!”

He holds his hands up in the air innocently. “What? You didn’t like that?”

“You’re a rat bastard!”

“Maybe. Jury’s still out on that.”

I glare at him.  He’s still smiling.

“I’m goin’ to bed. Getting away from you. Only a creep would take advantage of a tipsy falling asleep girl when he’s sober, you know that? You creepy egg-stealer.”

He shrugs. “I can’t let an opportunity pass me by. Want company?”

“Not on your life.” I down my wine and hand him the empty bottle. He takes it.

I reach down to the floor and grab my phone. Luckily, it survived my tossing it.

“All right then. Night, peaches. Sweet dreams.” He’s watched me bend over. Darn, I didn’t bend at the knees.

“You’re charming, aren’t you?” I snap.

I give him the finger and wander toward my bedroom, hearing him laughing.

“Back to professional in the morning, Aiden!” I order.

He’s not gonna try to be a better roommate. He’s just an opportunistic jerk.

“Carly?”

“What?”

“If I turned the charm on, you’d be under me in a heartbeat.”

“That’s what you think.”

“It’s what I know.”

“Pfff.” I have no better comeback. “Professional in the morning. From now on.” I point.

“Got ‘cha.” He salutes me.

 

***

 

I’m awake.  I think.

I’m sitting up. I’m still in my sweatshirt dress and my hair is in a weird loose bun over on one side by my ear. There’s a hundred-dollar bill stuck to my thigh. What?

My phone is to my ear. Did I answer it?

“Huh?” I say into the phone, looking around, disoriented. My lights are on. Did I fall asleep with the lights on?

“Carly! Cab’s outside. He’s been here five minutes. You still in bed? Wake up!”

“Ally? Oh fuck. I’ll grab another cab. I’ll be there soon.”

“I’ll go and send Ash back. I’ll cover for you,” she assures.

“Okay, okay. Shit. Thanks, Ally.”

I get a text ten minutes later from her. I’ve fallen back asleep.

Damn it, Carly!

 

“I’m here @ work. I sent him back. I paid him so don’t worry about the company charge account. You can pay the cab home when we go clubbing on the weekend we get paid. If you head down in ten, he’ll be there and you should only be ten or fifteen minutes late. I’ll pour you a coffee and put it on your desk so you can slip in and maybe not be noticed. See you soon, bestie.”

 

Thank God for new besties.

I grab the fastest shower ever and as I’m rushing out of the front door of the building, Seth the security guard is trying to make small talk.

“Runnin’ late?”

“Sorry. Gotta go. Late for work. Bye!” I rush out the door and Ash’s cab is sitting there. He has a smile on his face.

“Sorry for making you wait earlier,” I tell him.

“This is okay.” He smiles big and drives super-fast to get me to work. I get there at 8:58. I’m supposed to start at 8:30.

I try to tip him, but he won’t take the money, tells me Ally already paid.

I wave bye to him and rush inside.

***

“Good afternoon, Miss Adler. My office, please,” Aiden is at the opening into my cubicle, looking down at me.

I had just gotten my bottom into my chair, but he’s seen me sneak in and he’s looking at me with a look on his face that makes me uneasy.

Fuck. Damn it. Late on my third day. And he knows why.

Aiden goes back into his office, looking fresh in black pants with a wine-colored shirt, no tie today. He’s in there with his father.

Double Fuck. I don’t like that Aiden saw me come in late, but Mr. Carmichael? Ugh.

I take a big sip of my lukewarm coffee, courtesy of Ally, and grab a notebook and pen and go into his office and sit down in the chair beside Mr. C.

My hair was a little wild after sleeping on it, so I washed it fast and tied it up wet into a bun. It’s still wet.

I’m wearing black dress pants and a white button-down blouse with a pair of high-heeled sandals.

I’m also wearing my eyeglasses as my contacts were driving me nuts and I’ve put on zero make-up. I had planned to get in and then slip into the bathroom and get my face finished, but no such luck.

Thankfully, I’m not hung over. Just a bit fuzzy and frazzled.

“Good morning, Mr. C.” I adjust my glasses on my face and open my notebook and wait.

Mr. C is smiling at me.

“How are you settling in so far, Carly?”

“Excellent sir, thank you. I’m still finding my feet, but yeah. It’s good.”

I barely get ‘good’ out of my mouth when Aiden cuts in.

“Great. Have you had a chance to look over last month’s reports on our paid Adwords campaigns?”

“A little, yes.”

“And?”

“And…” I swallow. I needed more coffee than the one sip I’ve had. “And I think we could do much better.”

“Really? How?” Mr. C asks, crossing one ankle over the other knee and smoothing out his pants.

“Sorry, sir. I’m not exactly on the ball yet this morning. I could use an IV drip bag filled with coffee. Still a little, uh, jetlagged.”

He’s studying me with concern.

“Don’t you mean wine-lagged?” Aiden grumbles and my face burns hot.

I roll my eyes and laugh like Aiden’s joking and then I start to ramble to tell them both what’s wrong with the way they’re doing things, but I’m fumbling a little through my words.

Mr. C gives me an amused smile. I see Aiden glaring at me and realize I might have been less than diplomatic here about stuff his department has been responsible for before me. I blame the lack of coffee. I try to backtrack a bit and talk about what they’re doing right, but I’m stuttering now.

“Well, the algorithms Aiden set up to automate all that might need a bit of tweaking. I’m sure you’ll work closely with Aiden to show him the way.” Mr. C. winks. “I like the re-targeting idea. Why aren’t we doing that already, Aiden?”

Oh shit. Obviously, I’ve just taken a poo-poo all over Aiden’s thing.

“We are, Dad.”

I tilt my head. “It didn’t look like it.”

His eyes narrow at me. “I’ll show you from my dashboard. We’ll have a one-on-one.”

“Good, good. Now, next week, New York. Let’s talk strategy,” Mr. C says.

“New York?” I ask.

“Eastmark, the East Coast marketing show and conference?”

“Oh?” I say.

“Have you been before?”

I shake my head. “My bosses went when I was back home, but I didn’t get to go.”

“Well, now you will.”

“Oh.” I’m a little surprised.  That’s only days away.

“You and Aiden fly out Monday night, I believe. So, you’ve got a few days to get up to speed before you go. Did you not get the email with the itinerary?”

“I… don’t think so.”

“Hm.” He looks at Aiden.

Aiden clicks through his email. “You’re cc’d on the email, Carly.” Aiden looks at me disapprovingly.

I feel like I’m in the principal’s office. The jerky hot alphahole principal. And his dad.

“I… when was it sent?”

“Yesterday, 8:32, by me.”

“AM?” I ask.

He looks at me like I’m a dummy. “Wouldn’t have expected you to have read it by now if it’d been PM, Miss Adler.”

Mr. C’s pocket starts ringing, so he lifts out and glances at his smartphone. “Be right back. I have to take this.”

“I didn’t know I was supposed to go to Eastmark. Nothing was said,” I defend.

“You’re the new online marketing strategist,” Aiden says. “Of course you’re going. Check your email again. You’re on here.” He gestures to his screen.

“Okay,” I say quietly. 

He’s being all business. He’s being so all business that it’s like he’s never been anything but professional. Which is not true.

“Did you get my emails about the ads they’re running at Franklin?”

“Uh, I’ve never had an email from you, ever. Maybe you’re defaulting to my spam folder.”

“Spam from an internal email? Not likely. Go get your coffee, get the cobwebs out and figure out your email and then we’ll meet at 11 o’clock to talk about it,” he mutters the last bit like I’m wasting his time with my incompetence.

“Will do.” I rise and red-faced, head out of his office to my desk.

Not my fault if my computer thinks stuff from him is garbage.

I’m new here, for fuck sakes. But, he’s right. Spam from an internal email address?

God, I need coffee. And to go back and not drink seven glasses of wine last night.

I get to my desk and take a big sip of my coffee, and Mr. C is suddenly in my cubicle behind me.

I choke on my coffee.

“How’s everything?” he asks. He looks concerned.

I grab a tissue and wipe my mouth. Darn. I’ve got a coffee stain down the front of my shirt now.

“Good. Thanks. Just a little out of sorts this morning, sorry.” I dab uselessly at my blouse.

He waves a hand. “You’re fine. I just… I need you to check your emails, Carly. I sent you a few as well and I haven’t heard back from you.”

I click into my email and my inbox is empty. He’s over my shoulder.

I click to expand the folders and see a hidden spam folder. I click it and there are 68 unread emails, dating back to Monday.

Oh shit.

“Oh shit,” I say without even thinking.

He sees over my shoulder and gives my shoulder a friendly squeeze.

“Ah, that explains it. I’ll let you get through all that, then. Tip for you? Make sure you see the folder. Then if there are unread messages, it’ll be bold and stand out, so it’ll prompt you to have a peek. I skim my Spam folder once a day just in case.”

My eyes are wide.

Oh shit. 

“This is awful. You must think I’m such a slacker.”

He chuckles, but doesn’t correct me.

“I thought you all were just letting me get adjusted. I’ve been getting acquainted with all the tools, going through reports. Look.”

I quickly click through folders on my desktop to show him I’ve actually been working the past two days, not just sitting here ignoring emails.

“No. We needed you here to hit the ground running. That was why we brought you here so quickly. Talk to IT, make sure things are all good. Ask them why that happened, and get yourself another coffee and just get through them one at a time. Mine first.” He winks.

I’m Miss Efficient. I always have been. I can’t believe this shit.

The only person I’ve had emails from are Alice and the marketing intern.

Why on earth are everyone else’s emails going into Spam?

Ugh.

“Don’t stress.” He smiles.

Yeah, that’s coming from the guy who is firing everyone in my old office for being non-performers.  And easy for him to say now with me looking like a slacker. A slacker who shows up late and doesn’t read her emails.  Ugh.

At least he saw they were in my spam folder, sees I have a defense.

Now, more than ever, I need to prove myself here.

Dreams of life in San Diego are feeling like they’re about to evaporate into a puff of smoke.

It’s like I jinxed myself by changing my profile on Facebook last night.

God.

I call the internal help desk and tell them my problem. The helpdesk guy tells me he’ll be at my desk within ten minutes.

Meanwhile, I start reading through the emails. A lot of them were just me being cc’d, thankfully. A few of them were important, though. Mr. C asked some information about my old job, which I answer quickly.

The ones from Aiden are curt.

“Action this”

“Stacy, go over this w/Carly. Get her up to speed.”

“Carly, Look @ this Franklin stuff & get me info on how we can do better than them @ this.”

“Fresh coffee?” Ally pops her head in.

“I can’t get away right now,” I whisper.

“I heard. Down it, sister.” She jerks her chin toward my cup.

I down it.

“Give it,” she reaches.

I hand her the empty cup.

She returns two minutes later with the cup, two granola bars, and a banana.

“Eat. Work. I’ll bring you lunch.”

I nod and swallow. My chin wobbles. Shit, Carly. Don’t start crying at work.

“It’s cool, Car. It’s day three. Okay? Don’t sweat it.”

I nod, fighting back the tears. Thank goodness for my new bestie.