Page 10 of Rating the Book Boyfriend

“Fuck! It’s dead,” I curse, scrambling around on the floor, searching for my charger. I look under the coffee table and scoot the couch over, but it’s nowhere to be found.

“Yes, my name is Liberty Hill,” Gemma says, zooming past me, as she pretends to be me on the phone. “I don’t care what you have to do. Get me on a flighttoday.”

JoJo hands me a bottle of water and three tablets as I move things around on the desk against the wall.

Where the fuck is my laptop charger?

Gemma paces back the other direction, doing that fast-walk thing she usually reserves for work at her law firm. And that’s when I see it.Her “belt.”

Stopping her with my hands on her shoulders, I untie my charging cord from around her waist, earning me a confused look before she begins barking into the phone again.

Once I get my laptop plugged in, I wait impatiently as it powers on. Quickly pulling up the Book Boyfriend Builders website, I take a second to admire the setup, logo, and graphics. It really does look wonderful.

That’s when my eyes drop to the counter at the bottom of the page.

What the ding-dong hell? Almost half a million hits? In only a few hours?

Navigating to the sales page, I’m surprised once again.

Payment received.

Payment received.

Payment received.

Those words are repeated hundreds of times. Hundreds! I check the accounting numbers and almost fall off the damn couch. The balance is $8550. And that’s just the deposits people paid to retain our services. It doesn’t include the exorbitant fees we planned to charge once we begin with a client.

Apparently, vodka gives you a false sense of confidence that you can actually pull off a man-training business. But… these numbers…

Excitement bubbles in my stomach. Or maybe that’s still the vodka talking.

“Y’all, I think you need to come look at this,” I call, and everyone wanders over to look at my screen.

“Holy shit,” JoJo whispers as Gemma and Ava shake their heads in awe.

Gem says something into the phone and hangs up, jamming her hands on her hips as her green eyes sparkle. Then a crafty smile curls her lips upward, and she points a finger at the screen.

“Liberty Hill, don’t you dare fucking delete that website. We’ve got some book boyfriends to build.”

CHAPTER 2

Libby

Isettle into seat 2A and smile at the luxurious feel of the leather window seat. The only seat left on this plane was in first class, and with bossy-ass Gemma’s help, I was assigned here without any additional cost due to the weather situation.

I could get used to this shit, I think as I stretch my long legs and pull out my laptop. Opening it up, I begin organizing, making spreadsheet after spreadsheet of BBB stuff.

I still can’t believe we’re going for this, but after looking at the numbers in the light of day—and with most of the alcohol expelled from our systems—my friends and I decided that this untapped market had so much potential, and we were going to tap it.

“Hi, I’m Cara. Can I get you something to drink before takeoff?” someone asks, and I look up to find a pretty flight attendant with her brunette hair in a tidy french twist smiling down at me.

What the hell? They’re still boarding the plane. Is this normal for first class?

“Just a water, please,” I say, “with lots of ice.”Because I’m never drinking alcohol again. Ever.

“My pleasure.” She returns moments later with a real glass—not one of those plastic ones—filled to the brim with ice and cold water. “Would you like a snack?”

She presents me with a basket of goodies, and I quickly latch onto a bag of Skinny Pop, my body still craving salt even after eating the bacon sandwich JoJo ordered from room service this morning.

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