“Are they single?” “Are you with them?” They spoke at the same time.
I nodded before clarifying. “No. Like, I’m here with them. We all work together. Kinda.”
“What do you do?”
My throat was still raw. “We’re lawyers. He’s a banker.” I pointed to my right at Didier, who sat staring at the dance floor.
“No shit! Good for you, girl!” the tall one said, slapping my shoulder.
“The balding one and the one with good hair are married. I’m not sure what that guy’s deal is, but I get the sense that he’s in a relationship,” I said, pointing discreetly at Doug, and then indicating Didier. “That one is single.” I figured a little poetic license was called for.
They both seemed discouraged to hear that Jordan was married, but I cocked my head toward Didier. “This banker is the best catch. His ex-wife is an idiot. He spoiled her rotten. And he’s the nicest . . .”
They left my side without so much as a word and slipped over to Didier. I turned and battled my way through the crowd toward the ladies’ room.
“Hey there,” a tall blond man with a deep sunburn said as he stepped into my path, and I stumbled into him before I could stop myself. He put his drink up to his lips and the light caught his wristwatch. I grabbed his hand and pulled it to my face, closing one eye and frowning.
“Is that the right time?!”
He tried his best not to laugh at me as he nodded.
“Shit.” I raced back to our table. “Our flight’s in three hours!” I whined, pulling on Matt’s arm as he ignored me entirely and snorted a line up his nose from the table, leaving a layer of white residue behind. I looked to Jordan for help. Doug Capshaw had his arm around Didier and was speaking to him while Didier nodded, his eyes trained on the waitresses I’d spoken to about him earlier, dancing close to one another right in front of him.
“Guys! Hello? We have to go!” I yelled over the music. They all looked up for a quick moment before ignoring me again. “This isn’t funny. We’re going to miss our flights.” I had never missed a flight in my life.
“My assistant will rebook us,” Matt said without looking at me, the red lights emanating from the DJ booth lighting up his face.
“Wait—I have a plane!” Doug announced, as though it had just occurred to him.
All of the guys stopped what they were doing and looked at him for a moment before diving on top of him with back pats and sloppy kisses. I exhaled. It was amazing how small your list of worries became when money was no longer an issue.
I made my way over to Didier. “Up,” I ordered, and he enthusiastically cut me a line with his credit card. I remember nothing after that.
I awoke in my apartment to the whisper of running shower water and the sound of Sam clattering around in the bathroom. I was lying on top of the covers, wearing only a pair of black underwear. I felt as though I had been in some sort of accident. I wiped the drool pooling around my lower cheek. I should get up, I told myself, but I couldn’t move.
Sam came out of the bathroom in a cloud of fragrant steam, a towel around his waist.
“Hey,” he said, rubbing his wet hair with another towel. I grunted a good morning as I cursed myself for not being able to remember my first, and probably only, trip on a private plane. I drifted back to sleep.
I opened my eyes again to find myself lying on my stomach, cheek flush against our bed, and Sam standing over me with a mug of coffee in his hand, now fully dressed in jeans, a blue button-down, and a blazer, presumably for a meeting. I closed one eye so I could see him more clearly, then opened both.
“What?”
“How was Miami?” he asked, a challenge in his tone.
“Good. I’m so tired,” I said, closing my eyes again.
“I bet you had fun.” He was angry about something, but I was vacillating wildly between still-drunk and hungover and couldn’t worry too much about what it was. Flashes of deplaning, an Uber SUV, and fiddling with the key in my apartment door bounced around my brain. I remembered tiptoeing into the bedroom and stripping down before falling into bed next to Sam. I didn’t wake him when I came home, I thought. I could pretend the trip was all work. No fun. He couldn’t be mad at me for that.
“Not really. It was a ton of work. I’m exhausted.” I prayed that he would let me go back to sleep and cupped my forehead in my palm, feeling like my brain might explode if I didn’t. “How was work for you while I was gone?” I mentally pleaded with him to focus on anything but how banged-up I must have looked. I breathed into the pillow and caught a whiff of my own breath as I inhaled. It didn’t smell like morning breath. It smelled like vodka. I cringed and began breathing through my nose.
“Good. I need to prepare for the final investors meeting next week. I have to brief everybody on potential VC funding and equity dilution, which is obviously a good discussion to need to have. It’s a really big . . .” I needed to shut my eyes for just a moment, hoping he would simply continue speaking, but he didn’t. I peeled my lids apart to prove to him that I was still listening. He shook his head with a disappointed laugh and walked out of the bedroom.
Just as I was about to close my eyes again, he popped his head back into our bedroom doorway.
“Oh, it says ‘I’m the worst’ with a fairly detailed drawing of a penis and balls in black marker across your back.” With that, he turned and left the room, and I heard the front door close a minute later.
“Shit,” I whispered. Jordan. I let my head sink farther into the pillow. Despite the sensation that a metal rod was splitting the two lobes of my brain apart, I burst out laughing. I put my palms to my abdomen and felt my muscles convulsing, before letting out a large sigh to calm myself.
There was the briefest moment of panic as I wondered if my phone had made it home with me from Miami, but it was responsibly plugged in on my nightstand. I grabbed it and dialed Jordan.
“Skippyyyyyyyyy,” he croaked into the phone.
“Uhhhhh.” We groaned at each other for a few minutes. “You’re an asshole, you know? You drew on my back in permanent marker.”
He paused. “I refuse to apologize for things I have no recollection of doing.”
“It says ‘I’m the worst’ with a picture of a penis across my back.”
Jordan burst out laughing. “Oh my god. I totally remember doing that. I’m sorry, Skip.”
“Sam saw it this morning,” I told him, laughing now too.
“Sucks for you, dude! I have Jessica thinking I worked the whole time.”
“Are you making it in to the office today?” I asked, hoping the answer was no and I could spend the Friday in bed. I knew that there was no way Matt would be making the trek in from Westchester.
“Zero chance. Can you just look at the term sheet Matt sent around this morning?”
“Yup, will do,” I said and hung up. I spent two hours on it before sending it back to Jordan, then stared at my in-box, which was reasonably quiet today. I turned on my side to go back to sleep for a bit, but the adrenaline from the weekend got me up and into the shower. I emerged clean and dizzy from the heat and checked my email again to see that only a few administrative emails from the firm had dripped in. Matt and Jordan had probably gone back to sleep as well.