Page 72 of Bitter Rival

We’re getting a lot of pressure from the board and our investors to sell to the highest bidder, a vast corporation that wants to swallow us whole and refuses to negotiate.

We turned them down last year, and now they’ve come back with another offer.

But this isn’t the right time for that conversation so I text back.

Nope.

As soon as I pocket my phone, it starts ringing. I let the call go to voicemail, but he calls again.

If I don’t answer, he’ll keep calling just to annoy me, so I swipe my thumb over the screen. “Which part of no did you not understand?”

“I feel like you’re ignoring me.”

“You’re like a jealous lover. So clingy,” I tsk, just as the woman ringing up my order announces, “These tampons are on special. If you buy two?—”

“I’m good with what I have.”

She hums. “Well, okay, if you say so. But you could save some money.”

“Why the fuck are you buying tampons?” Grayson says. “Did you grow a vagina?”

I swipe my card over the reader and tuck it back into my wallet. I have no idea why I answered his call. “I’ll call you later.”

I cut the call, grab my bags, and stride out the door with a year’s supply of tampons.

This is what I get for putting Daisy in a room with enough water damage to sink the Titanic—a trip to the ER, a tampon-buying excursion, and a little reminder from Callie that Daisy isn’t quite as tough as she lets on.

And apparently, it’s now my job to entertain her.

“Should I just mute the volume and let you narrate the movie?” I say.

“I mean…you could. But why would you?”

She looks genuinely confused, like she doesn’t realize she’s been keeping a running commentary since the movie began.

Daisy isn’t even facing the TV. She’s leaning against the arm of the leather sofa, legs kicked out in front of her, with a bowl of popcorn in her lap.

“Who wouldn’t agree to be the getaway driver for a crime boss to protect someone they love?” she muses. “Of course, he’s going to say yes. He literally doesn’t have a choice.”

“There’s always a choice. He made the wrong one.”

“Oh, right. And I guess you would just say…who cares what happens to my girlfriend. Let some asshole put a gun to her head for all I care.” She stuffs a handful of buttered popcorn into her mouth and shoots me dagger eyes. “You’re so heartless. It wasn’t even his fault. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Sucks to be him. A fictional character in a movie.”

“Something like this could easily happen, though,” she argues.

“On a film set in LA, sure, happens all the time.”

She tosses a piece of popcorn at me. Or at least she tries to hit me. Turns out Daisy isn’t nearly as ambidextrous as she claimed to be.

She tries again, but the popcorn veers to the far right and flies over the back of the sofa. I lunge across the seat, scoop up a handful from the bowl, and settle back in my spot on the opposite end of the couch.

“You can turn the sound back on now,” she says. I toss a piece of popcorn at her face without even bothering to take aim. It hits her square in the forehead. The next one hits her top lip. She plucks it from her lap and pops it into her mouth. “I want to see if anyone dies.”

Not sure she needs the sound for that. If she actually watches the movie, she’ll see if anyone dies, but I don’t bother arguing. She’ll only pick holes in my logic and make some ridiculous argument to show that I’m wrong and she’s right.

“Try again.” She opens her mouth wide, and I have no idea why I’m playing these juvenile games, but I toss a kernel of popcorn and get a hole in one.

---