Page 41 of Play Me
Fair. “What if I talk to her?” That feels a lot like walking into a lion’s den right about now, but there’s no alternative. And I probably have it coming.
His lips twist as he thinks. Finally, he shrugs. “You have until midnight. I can reinstate the bonus before the end of the day. Otherwise, it’s over.”
“Okay.”
“But if you do get her to agree to this, and youeverpush her to this point again …” His look is cold.Lethal. “Don’t do it. Let’s leave it at that.”
“Understood.”
“Now get out of here,” he says, shooing me toward the door. “You’ve wasted enough of my day.”
I get up, grab my bag, and rush to the door. Before I open it, though, I turn to him. “Renn?”
He looks up from his computer.
“Thanks,” I say, swallowing hard. “For all that.”
“Pay me back by bringing a title to Nashville. Now go.”
“Yes, sir.”
I step into the hallway, yanking my phone out of my pocket before Renn’s door is even closed. Astrid’s name is in my recent text log, and I click on it.
Me: Can we talk?
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
Astrid
“I think you need a hobby,” Audrey says, poking at her salmon with a fork. “You need something to think about besides work.”
“Unless we’re going back to berry picking and cave dwelling, I have to think about work,” I say. “That’s what happens when no one teaches you financial responsibility, and you’re up to your eyeballs in debt by the time you’re a full adult.”
Audrey rests her fork on the edge of her plate and looks at me with the sweetest blue eyes. “In your defense, you were surviving. And you were just a baby. Let’s give little Astrid some grace.”
“I’d rather we had given little Astrid a personal economics class,” I mutter.
Stupey’s is packed for a Wednesday night. We waited thirty minutes for a table, which has never happened on a weeknight. Kim saw us waiting and snuck us two sangrias and an Arnold Palmer. Apparently, a food vlogger gave them a glowing review on Sunday, and they’ve been smashed ever since.
Social media ruins everything—almost as quickly as men.
“You don’t need a hobby, Astrid,” Gianna says, lifting her lipstick-stained glass. “You just need to get fucked.”
“There are children around,” Audrey whispers with cheeks to match her cardigan.
I take my third glass of sangria and sit back, considering Gianna’s advice for once. I usually assume she’s saying things for shock value—and that might be true. But I can’t deny that I need to work some of this tension out of my body, andwhat better way to do that than to have it screwed out of me?
It’s better than the fucking I’m taking from everyone else in my life. Hell, I’m still getting reamed by a man who cheated on me, kicked me out of his house, and made me get a round of antibiotics as a party favor.It never ends.Between my bills, legal threats, and losing my extra pay over Gray’s bullshit, I’m bent over a barrel, and there’s nothing I can do about it … and I hate it.
Might as well be bent over something else and get something out of it.
I yawn, the sangria giving me the first taste of relaxation I’ve felt since I got that damn letter. Stress management is typically one of my strengths—mostly because I keep everything in my life in tidy little clusters. But I’m one wrong word from crashing all the way out.
“Do you know what, Gianna?” I say. “You might be right.”
Audrey shakes her head. “No. Don’t take Gianna’s advice.”
