“I love you too, my anxious babe.”
“Lucy,” I started again in a miserable tone. “The meeting was at 2:30, it’s almost 3. Maybe I should leave? Maybe they made a mistake scheduling this. I mean, who am I kidding, right? Clearly, this isn’t happening. I don’t want to wait around to see someone jump out and scream, ‘Jokes on you, sucka!’ I just wanna come home. Can I come home, please?”
“No, you can’t come home. I forbid you to come home before you take that meeting and come back with good news and lotsa money. Now, close your eyes.”
“Why?”
“Do it, Olive.”
“Fine. My eyes are closed shut. You can come and pry them open if you want to win the best friend of the year award.”
“I already own the shit out of that award, babe, so that’s a useless threat. Are your eyes closed?”
“Yes,” I huffed.
“Ok. Now, imagine you are a river.”
“Ahhh,” I groaned. Not this crap again. “What are you doing?”
“Calming you the hell down.”
“By telling me I’m a river?”
“Yes. Now, shut up and imagine that you’re a river. You are flowing; no one and nothing can stop you. You feel the sunlight on your…whatever and it makes you happy. You are a twinkle of laughter in the air. Then, you turn into a small waterfall, no, you turn into a majestic waterfall and then yo—”
“Ok, ok, Lucy.” I cut her short before she could sputter more bullshit. “I’m calm. You calmed me down. I’m a cold river that hears twinkles of laughter in the air and then turns into a majestic waterfall thing.”
“Great, good for you. Now, I saw Jameson’s hot ass walk by me so I gotta go and take a bite out of that.” I tried to cut in, but she shushed me. “Make me proud and I’ll meet you at the house. Byeeeeee!”
I opened my mouth, but she had already hung up on me. I lowered my phone and smiled to myself. She hadn’t come anywhere near calming me down, but she always had a way of making me smile.
I looked around the black and white office. Everything looked so expensive: the art on the walls, the furniture, the carpet, even the damn windows looked all expensive and shiny. Feeling naked, nervous, scared, excited—did I mention naked?—I took a step forward to go sit down next to the clicker happy chick, but when I saw her take a selfie stick out of her bag, I decided against it.
Pacing it was.
My gaze landed on the women that sat behind the huge, crescent-shaped reception desk. They all looked like models, not secretaries. Not a single hair on their head was out of place while mine was a crazy wavy mess. I glanced down at my clothes… Well, obviously I didn’t fit in with their pencil skirt, blouse, and high-heeled office attire, but I looked good. Just a few hours before, Lucy had forced me to wear a black bandeau skirt with a simple white shirt and a thin leather jacket. Of course, she had tried to force me to wear high heels, but I had gotten away with wearing my lucky combat boots. I liked to think I looked chic and relaxed in a fashionable sort of way. However, it wasn’t helping me not feel out of place at all.
I focused on the brunette that had told me that I needed to wait a few minutes because the execs were running late. That few minutes had turned into forty minutes exactly one minute ago.
Please, don’t judge me. Normally I’m cool with waiting. Hell, any other time, I would’ve loved to sit down next to the photo chick and take pictures of her taking pictures of herself and have a laugh about it with Lucy and Charlotte when I got back home. But, minutes had a really slow way of moving when you were about to lose your cool and throw up in front of a handful of strangers. I couldn’t be held responsible for all the daggers I was throwing at the model-secretaries.
Hell, shame on them. What kind of cruel people were they that they were playing with my emotions like this? As far as I was concerned, they deserved all the imaginary sharp little daggers.
Finally the brunette met my eyes, held her finger to her ear to listen to whoever was talking on the other the end of her bluetooth thingy, then nodded once.
“Miss Taylor,” she called to me.
I closed my eyes, took a deep, shaky breath, and walked over to her.
She was already up from her seat and walking toward me. We met in the middle.
“I’m a river. I can flow peacefully,” I muttered to myself.
“Excuse me?”
“Oh, nothing. Sorry.” I gave her a shaky smile.
“I’ll walk you to Mr. Thomas’ office. They are ready for you.”
“Thank you,” I said, trying very, very hard to keep my hands at my sides instead of doing something crazy like slipping my hand into hers to steal some of her cool.
That wouldn’t be weird, right?
She gave me a sincere smile, the first one actually, and led the way down the long hallway.
We turned right, passing more expensive paintings, and some movie posters, then we took a left turn, this time passing a whole bunch of small offices. Each time we passed an open door, I was ready to jump out of my skin with nervousness. When we made yet another turn, I was starting to feel like a hamster trying to get to its treat. Then there was only a big door in front of us.
I came to a halt. Was I really doing this? Was this really happening?
Shit!
Who was I kidding, this was going to be a complete disaster!
I was no majestic waterfall. Not even close.
The brunette stood next to the door and her hand paused on the handle before she pulled it open. Clearly, she was waiting for me to come closer, but I was having none of that. I lifted my eyes up to hers.
Fight or flight?
I was seconds away from flight.
Damn it!
How many turns had we made? Could I even find my way out of that labyrinth of hell without her?
I took an involuntary step back to test the waters and the next thing I knew she was standing right next to me, asking if I was okay, her hand surprisingly strong at my back.
I made an awful, awful mewling sound in my throat and then started coughing. When I was done with all that nonsense, her face had softened up.
“Sorry,” I murmured.
“You are nervous about the meeting?”
“It can’t be that obvious,” I said, trying to chuckle.
“You have nothing to be nervous about. I loved your book,” she stated, shocking the hell out of me.
My eyes widened. “What? You did? You read my book? You actually know who I am? Did you say you liked the book?” I asked, holding my breath. Well, she obviously had good taste; it was a damn good book after all.
“Yes, I did, and of course I know who you are. And right after this meeting, if you accept their offer, a lot more people will know about your story. You hit it big.”
I didn’t want to hit it big or get bigger. I didn’t want to get anything. At that moment, all I wanted was to get in my bed and hide under my covers.
“But you have to go in now.” I could see she was waiting for me to move already. “Mr. Thomas has a packed schedule and he is already behind.” She checked her dainty little watch then looked back at me. “Go on now, there isn’t much time until his next appointment.”
I wasn’t budging.
Before I knew what was happening, she had opened the door and was ushering me inside.