Page 16 of Broken

“Right. Well. See you then, I guess,” I finish lamely.

The maître d’, bless his soul, has my outer coat waiting for me when I come back by.

She wasn’t that bad. As far as horrible choices go, she’s probably the cream of the crop. It’s December now. Like most of my business deals, I plan on wrapping this up quickly.

June at the Plaza should get my parents off my back.

* * *

I stopat the liquor store by my house on the way home.

“Rem,” the cashier, Kat, waves as I enter. She has a line in front of her, so I go to the other guy instead. He’s a bit of a prat, but whatever. I don’t need friends. I had those. Look how that turned out.

“Is there a limit to how much liquor you can buy?”

The guy gives me a bemused expression, then slowly shakes his head. His eyes flick to the phone, and I huff in exasperation at his dim-wittedness.

“No,” Kat says, shaking her head. “I’ll pretend that any excess you purchase is being used for a party. But I won’t sell to you if you come in already wasted,” she adds in a stern tone.

That only happened once.

I pull my wallet from my pocket and pull out three fifty-dollar bills.

“Dollar shots, right?” I confirm, pointing to the rows upon rows of tiny bottles filled with liquor that line the front of their register.

“Yeah,” the moron says hesitantly, like he still doesn’t understand my intention. Fucking idiot.

“Can I get a bag, please?”

The guy in front of me just stands there until Kat rolls her eyes and hands me a grocery-sized paper bag. I begin grabbing bottles, five at a time, and dropping them into the sack.

“You know therapy would probably be cheaper,” she suggests sarcastically.

“But then who would pay your rent?” I snark back, and she laughs before ringing up the next person in line.

New York has a sales tax of about nine percent, so I stop when I have a hundred bottles in the paper bag and start shoving the rest into my pockets.

“Keep the change,” I say, estimating I probably have a hundred and thirty dollars in shots on my person. I pop the lid on one and chug it back, then throw it into the trash before pushing my way back into the New York cold.

I don’t know why I didn’t think of this weeks ago.

I can’t carry bottles of Crown Royal into the office. I feel the tiny shots weighing down the pockets of my coat and slip a few into the pockets of my suit jacket. Perfect.

But this? This will work just fine.

EIGHT

REMINGTON

I can’t believe how stupid I am. So incredibly stupid. Every year, the Annual Holiday Ball is hosted by a different family out in the Hamptons, where the houses are grand enough to support a hundred people or two (probably more like three or four). It’s not just an event. It’s a production. Kind of like the Met Gala, only at Christmas time. The date of the Ball changes yearly to not interfere with Hanukkah or any other holiday that isn’t set to a specific day.

This year’s theme is Fairy Tales, and there’s a blue carpet with twinkle lights, frosted trees, and magical pumpkins to pose beside so the paparazzi can take your picture.

Usually, we’d stay at the Williams’s beach house for a day before and the day after, and let Mrs. Williams ply us with eggnog and obscene amounts of french toast and cookies.

Somehow it didn’t occur to me that just because we weren’t going together this year, didn’t mean they weren’t going to come. Of course JJ were still going to come. Julia had been working on her dress since the summer.

This is why, from halfway across the room and with Imani dressed like Tiana fromthe Princess and the Frogbeside me, I can’t rip my eyes away from Julia.

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