Please log in to recommend or discuss...
Delaney
“We’ve got less than a month to make good on the vow we made when we were eighteen.” I swirl the small black straw in my lemon drop martini and heave a huge sigh. Around me, the rising volume of customers laughing and talking mingled with the current pop music playing through hidden speakers in the ceiling. The other people hanging out in the capitol city’s trendy bar are here for happy hour, and I love this hangout. The drinks are great and the atmosphere is perfect. But tonight I’m not just here to blow off steam. Nope. I’m here with my best friends and we have a tough decision to make and a promise to make good on.
I sip the tart drink, glance first at Ronni, then at Chloe who’s nervously tearing a napkin into tiny strips. “We could just not show up for the high school reunion.” I lick the sweet brim, loving the taste of the sugar but still unable to knock the bitter sensation of failure out of my brain. “Who would know or care anyway?”
“But that post in the private Facebook reunion group. We can’t turn back now,” Chloe says.
“Tell me about it. I’ve just been contacted by one of the organizers in a private message today and she congratulated me on my marriage,” I say. To a man who definitely exists but isn’t even close to popping the question let alone noticing me as more than a super smart employee on his payroll.
“I’ll be damned if we don’t show those jerks how awesome we are now,” Ronni says, then slugs back a healthy swallow of her chardonnay. “They really hurt you with that fake prom date setup and humiliated Chloe on a daily basis.”
“And you,” Chloe adds, nabbing another napkin to continue her nervous shredding. “They used you for your connections and money but they totally ditched you the night of the prom after they had that fancy catered dinner at your place.”
A huge band is winding around my lungs, making my chest ache.. How many times had Ronni helped me without making it seem like a handout? “They left Ronni without a date for the dance and didn’t invite her to any of the events afterward because of me.” I finish my drink. “If you hadn’t hung out with the Covington’s single party girl’s kid, then I doubt they’d have ostracized you.”
“And me,” Chloe says. “Come on, Delaney. You’re not the reason those jerks treated me like a blimp and loser.”
“Well, if they saw you today, they’d choke on their nasty teasing tongues.” I place my hand over Chloe’s, stilling her anxious movements. “You’ve completely remade yourself.” Chloe had lost her high school weight, taken up regular exercise and kicked butt in her career in biomedicine for one of the top companies in Baltimore.
And while I do have a fabulous career, establishing myself as one of the premier visu
al content strategists in my field, I’ve flunked the get-gorgeous and have a fabulous guy by the time I turned twenty-eight part of our vow ten years ago.
Other than the fictional husband my mom bragged about to my high school nemesis—while she’d been cleaning the bitch’s house as one of her many jobs she failed to keep.
“We have to go,” Ronni says firmly as she holds up her cell phone with the text from our band teacher, Ms. Rutledge. “She’s getting a Lifetime Music Teacher Award. And she wants us there. Remember how she was there for us when we were in high school?”
I sigh. “If not for band, we’d never have had anyone to go to with our problems. She even found us on prom night at the diner.”
“She made us promise to prove those jerks wrong.” Ronni takes another drink. “Now she’s a widow and she doesn’t have much family in the area. She wants us there. And she deserves it after the way she scraped us off our sorry personal pity party ground.”
“True,” I say. “But…”
“But none of us have a Plus 1,” Chloe says. “And I made sure to tell that bastard who stood me up prom night that I’d show him he screwed up.”
“Same.” I swallow down the more bitter flavor that floats in my mouth. And I silently vow to get back in the dating pool. After all, I want a family of my own one day. Unfortunately, it’s too late to change my all-work, no-play lifestyle before the reunion. “I refuse to show up at that reunion alone. It’ll be so embarrassing after what I did in our reunion Facebook group to prove those mean girls wrong with my fake wedding announcement. Now they think I am married and I’m not.” I usually stay clear of social media, preferring to keep my presence online super private. I prefer Discord and smaller chats, but the reunion Facebook group threw me major curve ball. Now I’m hoping that my boss takes the news of our fake marriage with a grain of salt and I’ll find a way to get him to agree go with me.
“You’re an up and coming visual content artist for a seriously cool tech company. Don’t sell yourself short. Besides, there’s still time to fix that problem.” Ronni places her hand on top of mine which is still covering Chloe’s. “We promised to show them just what they missed out on
by treating us like pariahs. I, for one, think we’re all smart enough to figure out how to get to make good on that promise. We owe it to Ms. Rutledge for everything she did to encourage us to go out and make good on our vow to show those people up. Most of all, we owe it to ourselves. If only to get that damn clique out of our brains so we can move on without ever looking back.”
“Never surrender, never give-up,” Chloe says after a breath of silence.
“Right,” Ronni says. “That’s the spirit. I’ll order another round of drinks. We’re going to have a plan before we leave this place.”
After the server returns with our favorite cocktails, Chloe stares at her third shredded napkin, then balls the pieces together. “I could just hire an escort,” she says. “But… I think I’ll try another tactic first. If my idea fails to deliver, I’ll go with Plan A.”
“Okay, sounds good,” Ronni says. “I’ll just tap my usual Plus 1 for a date. He’ll go along with it since he owes me for throwing the last wannabe bride off his scent.”
I laugh. “You’re lucky he’s in your corner.” Ronni’s a total feminist and a poet laureate who teaches at an all-women’s liberal arts college. She claims she’ll stay single before giving up her freedom for anyone. So far, I believe her.
“Yeah,” Ronni says. “He’s the perfect fake date. Plus, we’ll also get bonus points with the parents for going home to visit.”
“So a fake date for you, an escort if all else fails for Chloe, and then there’s me.” I look around the table at my friends. “And I have no idea how I’m going to convince my boss to show up as my fake husband.” But maybe, just maybe, the fates will give me a lucky break and I’ll find a way to get Evan Prescott, AKA my sexy boss, to agree to be my Plus 1.
Evan
“This new campaign will take your company to the next level,” I say, mentally crossing my fingers that the man I’ve been trying to nab as a client will bite on my sales pitch.
David Conner has his financial fingers in a ton of corporate pies, but he isn’t super savvy about e-commerce. And that’s here to stay, especially after the economic roller coaster during the last couple of years.
Being an optimist, I took those negative downturns and turned them into positives to build my online tech and social media company into a sought-after powerhouse.
But I want more.
I fought for DesignTech to make it through those shit times. Now I want to level up my company’s global reach. The fifty-year-old entrepreneur sitting opposite me today represents my first step toward getting there.
Plus, I’ll finally be free of jumping to my dad’s tune since he fronted the startup money to get DesignTech off the ground. I needed the cash after I made the mistake of dating a co-worker at another company. Tessa cheated on me with a rival and nabbed a contract I’d worked on for a few years. That cost me a coveted promotion. So I quit to run my own company with the cash Dad gave me. Now I want to cut the strings he’s attached to that money. Which I still resent because I deserved the financial help. He’d pretty much abandoned me as a kid. Divorced my mom and went on to wife number two, then number three. I stopped counting wives after that divorce.
I wait for Conner to speak, hiding my impatience and resisting the urge to check my smart watch’s notification on my dating app. I don’t want to piss off the man when I’m getting close to landing this contract. And even closer to shaking off dear old dad.
“I’m interested,” he says. “But I don’t invest my money lightly. And I don’t bring my connections in on the deals I make unless I can guarantee their success.”
I inhale a long breath, then glance through the window behind his head. Fluffy white clouds with the first streaks of gray cutting around their edges mar the blue skies outside. A funky cold feeling settles inside my chest as I formulate a response that makes me sound confident, in charge.
Because I want this deal on so many levels.
“That’s why you’re my first choice. The Tyson’s Corner tech corridor has grown tremendously during the last twenty years. I’ve been part of that growth for the last five.” I train my eyes on Conner’s sharp brown gaz
e. It reveals zip about what’s going on in his brain. “You’ve got a solid track record with your companies and enterprises around the world, but your branding is old, too classic and won’t reach the next generation.”
“You saying I’m out of touch with what millennials want or will buy?” he asks, then takes a sip of his coffee. “If they’re not out finding themselves or gaming?”
He says it like my generation is a bunch of lazy, self-entitled jerks when most of the people I know busted their asses. They had to fight to get a toehold in what Conner’s generation made ridiculously hard to attain.
But I don’t react to the dig. Just went on with the rest of my pitch while he was willing to listen. That’s all that matters to me. “They’re up and coming. Many are movers, shakers, starting up smaller companies.” I cut to the chase. “Conner Enterprises will benefit from the rebranding DesignTech provides and gain a greater access to the future generation of buyers, entrepreneurs, software engineering companies and more. In the US and globally.”
Conner sets his porcelain white cup on the modern steel desk between us. “You’ve provided an excellent argument, but I only do business with the best.”
“Then this is the right place for you.” A measure of triumph rushes through my veins. I know I can land this client. “I’ve got the best visual contest specialist heading the department overseeing all the rebranding content.” A quirky, font-obsessed woman with a genius level brain. Kind of like a unicorn in a field full of horses.
“I know,” Conner says. “Delaney Murphy is one of the most sought-after people in her field. You sure she’ll stick with you given the opportunities she’s got to advance somewhere else?”
The air in my lungs stutters for a nanosecond. I hired her straight out of college and she’s stuck with me through the dips in the industry, benefited from the highs. But if I lose her now.
Shit. I shake the doubt out of my head. No way that’ll happen. She’s loyal to a fault. Plus, she hates change, preferring to stick to the known.
“You don’t have to worry about her jumping ship,” I assure him. “With your cash infusion, I’ll give her added incentive to stick with my company.”
He purses his lips, and doesn’t reveal any other emotion. “I want to see what she comes up with in the mockups for my corporation’s rebranding across all the social media platforms and the internet before I agree to the deal. By the end of the week. Bring it to my board meeting and sell it to my team.”
My mouth goes dry. Not a no. But not a yes. Just a maybe. And it all hinges on Delaney doing what she does best. Good thing she’s obsessed with perfection and has zip social life. Because four days isn’t a shit ton of time.
“We’ll be ready.” I push away from my desk and stand. “I guarantee it.”
Conner stands too and grips my outstretched hand, giving a firm shake. “Three o’clock Friday. My personal assistant will send the details to your office.”
“Excellent. I’ll see you out.”
I walk my potential new client out of my office and escort him to the industrial style hallway with its bank of elevators. After Conner enters one and the doors close, I make my way to the editing and design banks of open air desks to discuss the new project with Delaney.
I check my cell phone quickly. ...
