Page 60 of The Perfect Mistake

“You’re taking a taxi,” he says. “I’ll reimburse you.”

“Is this you talking as my employer?” My voice is just shy of mocking on that last word.

His jaw tenses, and there’s a fire flashing in his eyes. Maybe I haven’t spoken back to him like this before. But it’s been a week since we kissed, since he broke it off and disappeared into his home office, and I’m tired of feeling on edge all the time. Waiting for him to come home, hiding my excitement when he enters a room. It’s worn me down.

“Yes,” he says testily. “It is.”

“Okay then. I’ll take a taxi.”

He doesn’t breathe a sigh of relief. He doesn’t breathe at all. Just glances down at my lips with an angry sort of stare, and I know how he’s feeling, because I’m feeling it, too.

I leave with quick steps, and the front door shuts behind me with a heavy click.

The subway journey is long. The weather when I emerge on the other end isn’t great either, dark clouds roll in overhead, and I’m glad I’ve brought an umbrella. One of my mother’s many rules that I rebelled against as a kid. Now I never leave the house without one.

Funny, how we become just like our parents, even when we try our hardest not to.

Elena is nowhere to be found when I arrive at the half-crowded comedy club. It has a neon martini glass sign outside the door and a two-for-one special on Bloody Marys, which has to be the world’s least popular cocktail.

“Think they ordered too much celery?” Sebastian asks. He was already here when I arrived, my cute little brother, who isn’t so little anymore. His hair is long enough to hang over his eyes, and I brush it away while he chuckles.

“Maybe,” I say. “I’m all for saving money, but we’re not getting that two-for-one.”

He’d grabbed us a table close to the stage. I get us beers, weaving around a group of rowdy college kids goading their friend to take the stage during the open mic portion.

“Where’s Ellie?” I ask.

Seb nods toward the restrooms. “Getting ready.”

“Nerves?”

“Pretty high,” he says and runs a hand through his hair. He’s added a new silver ring to the collection on his fingers. “But she’ll kill it.”

I nod and look around at the crowd. More people have filled the space in just the fifteen minutes I’ve been here. “Might be a full house tonight.”

“Yes, but don’t mention that to her,” Seb says with a grin. “So your rich asshole boss gave you tonight off?”

“What? He’s not an asshole. And I have plenty of evenings off.”

Seb rolls his eyes. “Not the vibe you’ve been giving off in your texts. Seems like he keeps you pretty busy. How awful are the kids? Tell me,” he says with obvious relish. “How spoiled are they?”

I open my mouth to reply, but he keeps going. “On a scale of one to ten, where one is Oliver Twist and ten is screaming that their morning lobster is overcooked.”

I chuckle. “There’s no lobster. And I am kept busy, but they’re not particularly spoiled kids. My boss just works a lot.”

“Okay, okay. So he’s just a simple man of the people. Just one of us, except with a chauffeur and a penthouse apartment.” Seb holds up his beer glass with his pinky out. “Maybe he’s pro-tax-the-rich, in that rhetorical way plenty of rich people are, where it’s actually just a defense mechanism to stave off the ‘eat the rich’ protests?”

I shake my head. “Are you writing Ellie’s material again?”

“Of course not. But I could do stand-up too, right?”

“You’d be great,” I say.

My sister joins us, and thankfully the discussion about Alec drops. I understand my brother’s joke. We’re from an entirely different world than the Connovans. Same city. Different universes. A few years ago, I would have been making similar jokes.

Ellie flops onto the vacant chair. Her bob-cut black hair is a bit teased, just shy of frizzy in a cool way. She’s wearing her septum ring and a T-shirt with an old-school pop band printed across it. I think she’s wearing it ironically, but it’s not always easy to tell with Elena.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” she tells me with pure sincerity and grabs Seb’s half-drunk beer. She drains it while he looks on in affronted horror.

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