Page 4 of Meet Me at Midnight

Avery: Did you record any of it? I wanna see some footage before my mani/pedi at noon.

Me: Are you serious? You’re not even here, and you’re already talking about leaving again? This is our first official day.

Avery: Yeah, so?

Me: Not sure if you realize, but we’re supposed to actually work.

Avery: Oh my God, June. You’re too funny. Like my dad would actually fire us or something. Plus, they shouldn’t have expected us to work a full freaking day after Labor Day weekend. Like, I partied hard, you know? We should’ve at least had Monday off to recover.

Me: Avery, we did have Monday off. It’s Tuesday.

I roll my eyes and start to slide my phone back into my pocket to concentrate on the meeting—okay, on Beau—but when it vibrates again in my hand, I glance at the screen.

Avery: Well, then they definitely should’ve given us today off too. I barely had enough time to fit in my hydration IV this morning.

Me: Hydration IV this morning? Wait… I thought you said you went back to the condo to fix your hair?

Avery: I did. While Carlton was giving me my IV. Anyway, you want a mani/pedi too? I can add you to the schedule. Oh! Maybe you need a massage? You do seem really stressed…

Me: I’m stressed because it’s the first day of our intern job at YOUR DAD’S company, and even though we both left the condo at the same time, you’re still not here because you’re doing hydration IVs and Starbucks and shit.

Avery: You sure you don’t want a Starbucks?

Me: OH MY GOD. NO.

Avery: I’m definitely scheduling you a massage. Be at the office in like 10 min. Love you!

Clearly, I’m not leaving work at noon to go get a freaking massage, but it’s not even worth explaining that to Avery. Instead, I go back to focusing on the meeting and taking notes—and how Beau’s eyes look like dark honey beneath the conference room’s lights.

I scan my bullet point list about all things Midnight as one of Marcus Hughes’s many minions continues to explain logistical details about profile settings and sign-up options.

Users create a profile and pick a profile name to stay anonymous within the app.

They can search for users to chat with by interests, location, and sexual orientation.

Once a user decides they want to chat with another user, they’ll obtain a Dream Code that will create a private chat room for both users.

That chat room stays active unless one of the users decides to leave it.

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