Page 146 of Girls Will Be Girls
“It most definitely is.” He chuckles. “Don’t worry, by the time I’m done making this up to you, you won’t even remember tonight.”
“Yeah?” I turn to him with a smirk. “What did you have in mind?”
Right as I start relaxing, back in the familiar comforting territory of flirting with Lou, an older man comes up and interrupts us.
“Congratulations, Lou!” The man slaps him on the back.
“Thank you, sir.”
“I need to steal you away for a second.” He says. “You need to settle a debate that’s started about thePost’slatest issue.”
“Oh, umm…” Lou says, turning to take my hand.
“We’ll be right back, honey.” The man says. “It’s all shop. Don’t bore yourself.”
I plaster on a fake smile and nod for Lou to go.
He reluctantly agrees. “I’ll be right back.”
I nod, smiling.
The bartender finally gets back after restocking the ice, and I order a triple amaretto.
“I’ll have the same.”
I look up and see Otto’s smiling face sliding up to lean next to me.
I turn my face forward. I have no interest in talking to him. We both know this whole party is his fault, and he knows Lou hates it.
“Had a lovely chat with your parents.” He says.
I sigh loudly. “What do you want, Otto?”
“Apparently you’re a financial journalist?” He says. “Funny, I could’ve sworn you wrote about yoga or makeup or something.”
I take a sip of my drink as soon as it’s in front of me, ignoring his question as a new wave of panic rises.
“It’s funny.” Otto continues. “They seemed proud of you, doing economic research for a very big newspaper.”
The storm’s back in my mind, and there’s no way out.
“So weird how they think that, right?” He says. “You think they’d notice those Louisa Candie articles popping up… Or no, wait, is it LouisaMichaels?”
My heart rate skyrockets.
Not only am I lying to my parents about being engaged, I’ve been lying to them for years about my whole life.
And now Otto knows. He knows I’m lying to my parents. He knows I use a pen name to hide the lie.
Not even Lou knows, not my friends, not anyone.
I always say it’s for privacy — which is technically true — and when people say Candie is such a better name, I laugh it off, fully agreeing that it would be. But the more common the name, the less likely my family would notice.
Otto could bring my whole world crumbling down right now.
Shit.Shit, shit, shit!
“Don’t say anything,” I say, trying to train my voice not to waver.
