Warm water ran down Tori’s back. She closed her eyes and let the shower wash all of today’s worries down the drain. Day one at the Napa Farmer’s Market had been a success. Well, she certainly thought so. Penny would make the judgement call after balancing the books. In the morning Tori would check all of her social media to see if they’d been mentioned anywhere online. A good portion of her day would be spent in prepping images and getting them up on Pinterest.

It had been a good work day.

But she still needed to be able to demonstrate an improvement in social media reach, as well as make a positive impact on the income of PnK. That part just wasn’t fair. Social marketing wasn’t the same as advertising. She couldn’t control whether anything would go viral or net responses. She polished up PnK’s social presence, and she responded to tweets and shout outs. Penny didn’t grasp what social media actually did. She assumed Tori could do all kinds of graphic design work, when she really couldn’t. At least Penny gave up on the idea of producing a video a day.

It had been an absolutely crappy friend day.

Another day Sam hadn’t texted back.

Ali had snapped at her over text messaging. OMG stop asking me if I want to go to your stupid dance class.

I thought you liked to dance. That’s why you took those burlesque classes? Tori had asked.

No, I like to take my clothes off.

That had felt like a low blow. Then again, Tori was already realizing that her dancing time didn’t need to blend with her bar time. It was probably a good thing to keep tequila out of the mix.

Besides, minimizing time spent with Ali might not be a bad thing. Unfortunately, it was a lonely thing. Tori hadn’t made many friends since moving here, something that she was reminded of every time Erin and Ali called her interests stupid, bitched about not going to the Spigot, ditched her on movie night—well, that had actually worked out in her best interest hadn’t it? The movie sucked, but being tucked up next to Les was memorable.

Sigh. Les.

Hopefully he would be at the dance school again tonight. And this time she was going to get him to dance with her.

She turned the water off and wrapped up in towels, one for her hair and one for the rest of her. She had plenty of time to get ready. The most important goal, at the moment, was to be dry enough before she wrestled herself into her elastic girdle.

She padded into her bedroom, proceeded to dry off, and wrapped up in a thick warm robe.

Once all bundled up, she walked down the short hall into the rest of her apartment, really just a large room with a narrow kitchen along one side, separated from the rest of the space by a short counter top. The end-unit apartment wasn’t the biggest, but it had nice hardwood floors. Her downstairs neighbor was a home furnishing store, so there was never any noise at night, and her other neighbor was a middle aged couple who kept to themselves.

Tori pulled a frozen dinner from her freezer and noticed she was out of ice cream. She closed the door and made a note on the shopping list magnetized to the front of the fridge. The paper board box made a zipping sound as she ripped the package open, and the plastic wrap made a satisfying pop pop pop as she punched holes in the top. Tori set the temperature on her small oven, and slid the frozen meal in, on a cookie sheet. She set a timer on her phone, and went to lay down for a micro nap, while she dried off and her dinner cooked.

And after all her preparations, it looked like it was going to turn into a crappy Les night.

Tori’s heart sank when Les walked into the dance school escorting a beautiful woman with languid dark eyes, full red lips, and a cloud of dark hair. Tori instantly wished she hadn’t selected a body contour dress tonight. It had been a bold choice, because she wanted to make a bold move. Now she felt like the bad example in how to dress for your body type while Les’s date was the example of how to make a bodycon dress actually work.

She slapped her best fake smile on and asked Lucinda if she wanted to dance. They were down a man, no Miguel tonight and an extra woman. Joy. Tori refused to let this get to her, at least not during the hour she had with music and movement. She could drown herself in vodka and ice cream when she got home. Well, vodka, since she didn’t have any ice cream.

After Lucinda, Tori danced with Trey.

Les danced with the goddess twice before he let himself be taken in by the geriatric set.

Tori couldn’t help but notice the men were all clamoring to dance with Les’s date. She was gorgeous, so of course they were. Tori was partnered with Lucinda or Pricilla when she wanted to dance with Les. Even though there was nothing in the rules that said she couldn’t ask him just because he’d arrived with another woman, she just couldn’t.

The one dance she got with Hank, he was so concerned with Les’s date that Tori ended up bowing out before the song was over.

The night couldn’t be over soon enough. For the first time in the month Tori had been coming, the evening dragged. Finally Sara called last song, and Tori made a beeline for Charles. His wife got there first. Tori turned to see who else was available. Les.

Okay, she would do it because she didn’t have any other options.

“I guess it’s you and me for this one,” she said as she approached him.

Les shook his head and sat down. “Not this time, Tori. I’m done for the night. It’s been a long day.” He nodded to the empty chair next to him. “Sit, enjoy the music.”

Tori huffed out a sardonic half chuckle. “I’m going home. Let everyone know I said good night.” She offered a small wave to Pricilla, lifted her coat from the line of hooks along the wall, and pushed through the door.

She didn’t pause to put on her jacket but slid her arms in as she walked. Picking up her feet took extra effort. They suddenly felt like lead.

“Hey, wait up. I’ll walk you home.” Les ran up next to her.

“Why?”

“So that you don’t have to walk alone in the dark. So that we can talk. So…” Les shrugged.

“You won’t get back before the song’s over.”

“So?”

“Your date. Won’t she be wondering where you went?”

Les guffawed, not nearly as nice on her ears as his laughter. “Sofi? She’s Hank’s girlfriend. Definitely not my date. Hell, she isn’t even my type.” Tori had seen Les with women who looked like that numerous times. “Oh and your type is?”

“I like women who can form complete sentences. You thought she was my date?”

“Well, you did walk in with her, and then you spent all your time dancing with her,” Tori said, abashed.

“I wanted Sara to be able to show her how to dance, but we got there late. Hank sucks at teaching anything. I mean, he’s not that smooth on his feet anyway, so I had to show her the basics. The tops of my feet are beat to hell from her pointy-ass shoes.”

“So Hank brought a girlfriend to dancing? I guess he was trying to impress her?” Tori asked.

“Or show her off. Or both. He won’t admit it, but I think he really likes her. He even went to Sunday dinner at her mother’s house.”

“Sounds serious.”

Les tilted his head and raised an eyebrow in a noncommittal answer.

“Here you are.” They stopped at the bottom of the stair leading up to the landing in front of her apartment.

Tori’s stomach flipped. Should she ask him up for a drink? Crap, what did she have to offer? Tap water. She couldn’t invite him up for tap water. She had some vodka in the freezer, but how much? Maybe she should lean in to kiss him on the cheek.

As she panicked over her next move, Les patted her on the shoulder.

Ah, right, she was the shoulder pat kind of girl. Hey, buddy, how ya doing, buddy, there ya go, buddy, see ya later, buddy.

“I’ll see you next delivery, right? Or will I?” Les asked.

Tori shrugged. “I’ve started working the farmer’s market for Penny, so it just depends on who is on the schedule. I’ll make the delivery rounds a few times each month to check in on everything, but it won’t be nearly as often.”

“Then I’ll catch you at Carnita Joe’s or something.” He lifted his chin in a nod.

“Yeah, I’ll see you.”

The stairs were impossible to climb. But somehow she managed to run up them and into her apartment without a backward glance or one last wave at her door.

***

Tori sat with her feet up. Her laptop was open on the table in front of her, open, with a movie streaming. Her feet hurt from working at the farmer’s market all day, and she desperately needed to find a sun hat so she could continue to be outdoors for this job. If Penny was going to insist she spend time working the farmer’s markets she was going to need better sun protection than just sunscreen. And she was going to make Penny pay for it.

While the “social” in her job title did mean talking to people, it meant talking to them online. Of course, if she brought it up, Penny would counter with the “Special Projects” portion of her job title.

It was hard to balance working the markets and minding the media outlets on her phone. It made her look like she was slacking off and playing on Facebook instead of selling vegetables. Well, she was, sort of. But she was paid to interact with clients and fans online. Tori wanted to make sure that the sixty new followers PnK had gained on Instagram remained. If PnK ignored them, they might not stick around. But if PnK responded to their shout-outs with a happy quirky reply, Tori increased their chances of getting a second share.