“There you are,” I say. “I ordered Thai food.”
She nods. “Sounds delicious.”
I hand her a glass. “Wild Turkey goes great with Thai.”
She smiles. “Wild Turkey goes great with everything.” She takes a sip.
I take a sip as well, enjoying the subtly harsh smokiness on my tongue. I let it trickle down my throat slowly.
The silence grows in the room.
“Braden?” Skye finally says.
“Hmm?”
“I’m…really sorry about…you know.”
“We don’t have to talk about that.” She doesn’t know how much I mean the words. She did it. I punished her.
Now it’s over.
I’ll file it away in my mind along with those myriad other things I don’t like to think about.
The list seems to grow longer by the day.
“But we do,” she says. “I don’t want you to think I’m the kind of person who—”
“Skye, you did what you did. No amount of telling me what kind of person you are will change what already happened.” The words come out more harshly than I mean for them to, so I continue. “Do you think I’ve never made a bad choice? Done something I regret?”
Offhand, about twelve scenarios come to mind, including a few on that long list of things I don’t think about.
“No. I mean, I don’t know.”
“You don’t get to the top without making mistakes along the way. I learn from every mistake, and I never make the same mistake twice. Do you see what I’m getting at?”
“Yeah. I won’t do it again. I told you that already.”
“I understand mistakes. I’ve made my share.”
Call that the understatement of the world. I vow never to bring up the piece of mail she stole again.
As long as she doesn’t.
I’m hoping she’ll take my cue and never bring up Addison and me again, as well.
She nods and takes another sip of Wild Turkey.
Christopher brings the Thai food into the kitchen.
“Sasha’s up with Annika,” he tells me. “She enjoyed the doggie place.”
“Thanks, Christopher. You’re off the clock now. Go have some fun.”
“I think I’ll just go up to my room and binge watch some TV,” he says, “so I’m here if you need me.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
He heads out of the kitchen, while I pull dishes and utensils out of cupboards and drawers. I dish out a plate of food and hand it to Skye.
“Thanks,” she murmurs. She sits on one of the barstools at the granite island and winces slightly.
“Sore?” I ask, warming. She’d better be sore.
“No. Just a little tender.” She takes a bite of the spicy curry.
Again, silence descends.
“Something interesting happened at work today,” she finally says.
“Oh? What’s that?”
“Strangest thing,” she says after swallowing a bite of curry. “The social marketing VP for Susanne Cosmetics called the office today. Addie does a lot of Instagram posts for Susanne, so naturally I thought that’s who the call was for. I put it right through.”
“And…?”
“Turns out she wanted to talk to me.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Oh? What about?”
“Get this.” She takes a sip of Wild Turkey. “Remember that post you tagged me in at the MADD Gala?”
“How could I not?” I say dryly.
“Well, after I made my profile public, as you suggested, someone asked about the color of my lip stain.”
“Right. I saw that.” Which effectively tells her I’ve been looking at the picture of us on Instagram.
Fuck it. I’m interested in this woman. Why hide it? Everyone else seems to know.
“Yeah, so I answered,” Skye says. “I told her it was Susanne Cherry Russet.”
I nod.
“So anyway, like I said, I transferred the call straight to Addie. A few minutes later she comes out of her office with smoke coming out of her ears. I mean, she’s pissed!”
I roll my eyes. “I imagine that’s a normal occurrence.”
“It can be, but she’s full of rage now, her whole face is red. She demands to know what’s going on. I don’t know what she’s talking about, of course. I’ve been answering emails, doing other grunt work, so I figure she’s mad about some new offer. You know, probably forty-five K instead of fifty or something. So I make some silly comment about lip plumper, and she goes off. Accuses me of sabotaging her, making her look like she’s out of the loop, all kinds of shit that’s untrue.”
Addie spreading untruths? Not real shocking. But I’m getting angrier by the minute at her treatment of Skye.
“Apparently,” Skye continues, “Eugenie—that’s her name, the social media person from Susanne—told Addie that they’ve gotten hundreds of orders for the Cherry Russet lip stain because of the comment I made on your Instagram photo.”
“Wow,” I say. “That’s pretty amazing.”
“You’re telling me. But then Addie flies into this serious rage. She grabs my purse and unloads it right on my desk. She grabs a tube of lipstick, which is of course the Cherry Russet lip stain. It’s my go-to shade. Then she throws it on the floor, making her yappy little dog shriek.”
“Her dog was in the office?”
“Yeah, she takes him on shoots for pet-related stuff.”
“Okay. Go on.”
“So I’m really mad now, but also curious, so I ask Addie if Eugenie called to thank me for making the comment on your post. Addie goes mental again and says Susanne wants me to do an Instagram post and promote the product.”
I widen my eyes.
“So I say, ‘Me? I’m no influencer.’ And she flies back into her rant. Apparently now that I’m Braden Black’s girlfriend, I have some kind of clout, and that Eugenie said the color was”—air quotes—“‘absolutely fabulous on me.’”
She stops abruptly then and closes her mouth. She wants to say something more, but she’s thought better of it.
I could press her, but I choose not to. I don’t want her pressing me on certain things.