Page 22 of One More Time
‘Wait, is this cashmere?’ Lucy exclaimed, holding out her friend’s arms to take in the finely knitted cream halter top and lounge pants set her friend was wearing.
‘When traveling first class to Las Vegas,’ Kim preened.
Only Kim Rusike could wear cream-colored cashmereon an airplane and come out the other side looking like she stepped from the pages of a magazine.
‘You’re damn gorgeous. I would have ketchup down my front and a suspicious brown stain on my ass, for sure.’ Lucy laughed.
‘You’re right,’ Kim teased. ‘You would.’
‘Thank God you’re here.’ Lucy beamed.
‘Uh-oh, that sounds ominous.’ Kim tugged on her rolling suitcase. ‘Let me get checked in, then tell me everything.’
By the time the two friends were marching down the fortieth-floor hallway, Lucy had spilled all the dirt on her encounter with Nicky Broome.
‘Which one is his?’ Kim whispered.
‘That one,’ Lucy whispered back as they passed room 4023.
Kim only hummed, and pressed on toward the end of the hall, right across from Lucy and Chloe’s.
As they crossed the threshold, Kim’s shoulders visibly relaxed.
‘Enough about me,’ Lucy said, suddenly feeling bad about the info dump she’d just laid on Kim. ‘What’s going on with you?’
Kim was a partner in a law firm that worked with lobbyists, politicians, and other unsavory types.
‘Just the usual,’ Kim griped, slumping into the sofa in the suite’s living room, mostly supine on its goose-downydepths. ‘Hate DC. Hate politics. Hate the hours. Hate the job. Just like you.’
‘Like me?’ Lucy asked, genuinely confused.
‘Lucy, you’ve whined to me about the department chief …’
‘Chair,’ Lucy corrected.
‘The Dean of the Candidates …’
‘College.’
‘The President Pro Tem …’
‘You mean the provost?’
‘Whatever. My point is, you’re worn out. Same as me.’
Was she? Sure, things had been a bit tougher lately. Her patience for the bureaucracy and office politics had become extremely thin. And okay, lately the balance between frustrations and achievements often tipped toward the negative. But worn out?
Lucy deflected, ‘Have a solution yet?’
‘Eh,’ Kim grunted. ‘I don’t want to get into all that. Right now, what I need is a week in Vegas.’
‘What a coincidence, you’re in Vegas.’
‘Am I? Because this feels like the Mandarin Oriental in Tokyo. Where’s all the Elvis tat?’
Lucy looked around at the one-bedroom suite, which was at least as tastefully over the top as hers and Chloe’s.
‘I think you have to request that in advance,’ Lucy deadpanned. ‘But if you call the concierge, I bet you could have a rhinestone jumpsuit up here in ten minutes flat. You could probably have a hot, willing maninsidethe rhinestone jumpsuit if you gave them fifteen.’
