Page 67 of Work: Strictly Professional

“Eh.”

Bridget not being in the mood for chocolate isn’t something I have a lot of experience dealing with, so I find myself at a bit of a loss about what to do next.

“We better go,” I suggest with some urgency, “the Dark Lord will be here any minute. He just stepped out to…”

“Hmm.”

Now, I love Bridget. I adore her, but I definitely prefer the version of her who speaks in full sentences.

Above the elevator door, the number twenty-two lights up, stabbing me with a similar dread to what I felt earlier. “Let’s go.” Some urgency has been replaced with extreme urgency. All of the urgency. “Here. Quickly. We can take the stairs. It’s only twenty-two floors. It will be fun.”

Bridget doesn’t move. She’s facing the elevator, and even though I’m standing next to her and can only see the side profile of one of her eyes, I know immediately that I was right. The look from before wasn’t a look. It was a knowing.

Shit, shit, shit, she’s onto me.

The elevator doors open at precisely the same time my ass starts to sweat.

Bridget is still facing forward, a soft fake smile tugging at her lips as she speaks out of the corner of her mouth.

“He’dbetternot be good-looking, Wyn Foster.”

Derek’s face lights up when he sees Bridget. His eyes crease, and he manages to look simultaneously younger than his years, dashing, terribly mature, and worldly.

“And who have we here?” he asks.

“I’m Bridget, Wyn’s…”

“…roommate, best friend, and platonic soulmate,” Derek finishes seamlessly, putting his hand out to shake hers. “Derek MacAvoy. Lovely to meet you, Bridget. Wyn speaks highly of you.”

I don’t need to look at her to know Bridget is charmed. Utterly charmed. As they exchange small talk, Derek is so attentive that I can tell it will take me months, possibly years, to convince her anything negative I’ve said about him in the past is true.

“You know what’s funny, Derek?” says Bridget. “You look exactly the way I pictured you. It’s uncanny.”

Derek looks amazed. “Really? It’s rare for that to happen. Wyn told me about your revenge hair, but for some reason, I thought you’d be blonde.”

They both hoot at that.

“Isn’t that funny, Wyn?” asks Bridget, giving me an even more pointed look.

“Mm, funny,” I croak.

“Would you prefer a table inside or out?” the hostess at Joey’s asks, scooping two menus up and readying herself to show us to our table.

“Inside, please,” says Bridget brightly, “preferably near the back. A confessional would be ideal, but if those are all taken, a booth will be fine.”

She orders two margaritas, shaken, not frozen, as soon as we’re seated and says, “Spill.”

And I do. Omitting only the fact that I was Derek’s fake boyfriend in Hawaii and that he routinely pays me for sex, I tell her everything that’s happened between us. It pours out of me in a torrent, a gushing stream that barely allows for pausing for breath.

When I’m done, Bridget sits, mouth ajar, and shakes her head slowly at the mess I’ve made.

“I blame myself,” she sighs. “I wasn’t myself because of the breakup. I dropped the ball and look what’s happened.”

I nod in resigned agreement. “I blame you too.”

“I mean, what were you thinking, Wyn? Your boss? What happened to the sex sabbatical? I thought you were looking for the one.”

“Sex sabbaticals aren’t for me after all.”

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