Page 31 of All Twerk, No Play

“Hearing about it is different than seeing it for yourself,” Connor came to my aid as Mallory nudged a glass across the desk.

I backed away. “I’m not doing a tequila shot.”

“After that train wreck, you deserve at least three,” Mallory negotiated. “I need two just from watching Alex’s smug face when he threw you to the wolves.”

Kate lifted a glass. “I’ll do one for solidarity. Seeing my ex with his cute kid would wreck me.”

“You thinkthat’swhat bothered me?” I hadn’t felt … what were they expecting? Desire, longing, nostalgia? Yeah, none of that.

My marriage plan had been to advance our careers and shut up my family. After Spencer’s manipulative obsession with legacy, I’d sworn off having kids. Had Alexander wanted them, and I hadn’t listened when he told me?

“You don’t have to do the shot,” Mallory said. “but I won’t let tequila go to waste, so you might have to drive me home.”

Mallory licked the webbing of her hand, then Kate shook salt onto the wet skin. I’d seen girls do this in my college dorm, but Spencer had warned me not to fraternized with people below our level because they would exploit me.

Maybe he knew their game because he wrote the book.

“You in, or am I doing a double?” Mallory asked.

I inspected my hand. Beverly would chastise me about how unladylike licking myself would be.But Beverly wasn’t here.

The three people who were each held out their hands in solidarity.

Connor gasped when I lifted my hand to my mouth, pushing aside all thoughts about germs and decorum.

Mallory salted my hand. Connor slid over a lime. Kate lifted her shot glass and gave the toast: “To getting over asshole exes.”

The tequila burned as my lips pursed at the lime's acidity. Mallory jangled the bottle. “Another?”

I sputtered a cough. “You’re not going to let me go back to work, are you?”

"Hell no, it’s after six on Thirsty Thursday.”

“So why the fuck not?”

“Attagirl,” Kate lined up another round along the reception desk. “So how was the studio space?”

“Incredible,” Mallory breathed on a soft sigh.

I waved off her need to placate me. “Stop. If you don’t want it, I’ll find another tenant.”

“It’s not that I don’t want it,” she said, salting my hand.

My only reply was a lifted brow:Could have fooled me.

She swallowed thickly, fidgeting with the lime wedges. “I couldn’t think straight with Alex rushing to get back to Ruby and Grace proposing expansions she wouldn’t be around to do.”

I stilled. I hadn’t realized how pressured she’d felt.

“You know how Alex can be,” Mallory continued, earning a sympathetic nod from Kate and Connor.

As she distributed the shot glasses, Kate asked me, “Can I see the space?”

“I want to see it too—aftershots. Not only did I miss out for the tea party …” Connor said, wrinkling his nose in mock disgust. “I got relegated to Sleeping Beauty.”

"Don't Stop," Fleetwood Mac

Victoria

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