Diana in Love (Dirty Diana #2)

Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

Home in my own bed, I get a fitful night’s sleep. I’m dressed and ready for work by five a.m . I wait for Emmy to wake, then drop her at her grandparents. When I get to my office, I find a giant gift basket, overflowing with long, oversize strips of beef jerky, dried deer meat, and a bottle of warm Chardonnay. The card attached reads:

Thanks for putting in a good word with Petra.—Allen

I spend the morning at my desk, but it only takes me a couple hours to catch up. My favorite email is from Petra:

I guess by now you’ve heard I’m officially keeping my money with the old shriveled dicks! See you around the office. xoxoxo

By the time Liam texts asking if I’m free for lunch, I’m starving.

He offers to come by and pick me up: There’s someone I want you to meet.

Is this a setup? I’m not dating any of your friends.

Gross. And no—I’m still scarred from watching you flirt at the mall. Remember?? I sure do.

—

“Hey,” Liam says as I climb into his car. “Ugh. What’s that smell?”

“It’s a thank-you.” I plop the gift basket on his lap. He wrinkles his nose but picks through the free stuff anyway.

“Where are we going?”

“Not far.”

I roll down my window and we drive across town, picking up burgers along the way. We eat in his car, and he hurries us through the meal. He drives fast with the stereo as loud as it goes and we hum along, until Liam pulls up to a massive ivy-covered brick house.

“Are you moving out of L’Wren’s basement?”

“And forfeit a lifetime supply of free La Croix and my dad’s low-grade disdain? Bite your tongue.”

As we get closer to the front door, a smile spreads across his face.

“Liam. Tell me.”

“We have a new employee. For the site.”

“You hired someone?”

“Sort of. An intern. This is her place.”

“Liam…”

But he’s already ringing the doorbell and soon a petite blond woman appears. Her eyes are warm but she doesn’t smile, and it’s hard at first to guess her age—she’s dressed much older than her features suggest. She runs a sensibly manicured hand down her calf-length beige skirt. Her hair is held in place with bobby pins and hairspray.

“Diana, this is Kirby.” Liam beams. “She looks like a Fox News anchor but that’s just her vibe.”

“Liam,” I scold.

“It’s fine.” Kirby’s smile is small and polite. “It’s actually true that I’ve never met an Ann Taylor Loft I didn’t love.” She holds out her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Diana. Come in.”

Liam and I follow her into her home, which is neat and tidy and looks like it belongs to someone who always uses a coaster.

“Kirby was a music major at SMU.”

“Woodwinds, originally.”

“She plays the clarinet. Like a beast.”

“Then I switched to composition. I thought for a minute I might like music therapy but…” She pulls a face that suggests we should know exactly how crazy an idea that would have been. Liam laughs like he gets it.

“And now she’s looking to get into sound design. So I sent her a few of the Dirty Diana interviews.”

I’m less surprised that Liam has gone rogue and more preoccupied by trying to get a read on Kirby. “So you’ve listened to the interviews?”

“I spent time on two of them so far.” Her expression is completely neutral.

When she doesn’t follow up with what she thought, I ask, “Where are you from?”

“Highland Park, born and bred, but my parents are originally from River Oaks in Houston. I was meant to be a Kinkaid girl, but my mom ended up homeschooling me. And by ‘mom’ I mean the myriad of paid academics she hired to teach-slash-raise me.”

“See?” Liam digs his elbow into my ribs. “She can totally afford to intern.”

If it’s an insult, Kirby doesn’t register it as one. She leads us farther into her house and into a small room, soundproofed, with two large computer monitors and several keyboards. “Liam thought maybe I could play you something. If that’s okay?”

“Sure.”

She hands me a pair of professional-looking headphones and gestures to the love seat. Liam and I sit. “I’m interested in sound design, obviously, but I’m also interested in collaboration, in the intersection of art and commerce, and in entrepreneurial work, specifically, and witnessing something built from nothing.”

When she speaks, it’s deliberate and confident, almost like a party trick, never an um or an uh. She makes me want to sit up straighter. “We’re not really a proper business,” I tell her.

Kirby shrugs. “Not yet.”

“I had this idea”—Liam jumps in—“while you were away, for a way to elevate some of the interviews, something new to try. And I met with Kirby and she took my idea and made it way better.”

“We can listen?” she suggests.

I put on the headphones. At first it’s strange to hear my own voice—but it’s so immediately obvious that Kirby’s made the experience of listening to the interviews more pleasurable. I listen closely, trying to dissect exactly what she’s done to make the sound so much more intimate, but whatever it is, it’s subtle. The audio has been cleaned up and she’s added a few tones as transitions. It gives the interviews polish. When I look up, Kirby is watching me—for the first time she does look exactly her age, her eyes wide and expectant. When I tell her how much I love what she’s done and how I can’t wait to hear more, her shoulders relax. And when Liam catches her eye, she breaks into a grin.

Outside, I shield my eyes. The sun is bright and between the jet lag and being in Kirby’s small, soundproofed room, I have the most disoriented feeling—suddenly I’m unsure how long I’ve been at lunch and away from the office. I walk to Liam’s car in a daze.

He opens my door for me. “She’s a nice fit, right?”

I nod and close the door, my head swimming, thinking about what Kirby rattled off so easily about collaboration and how she’s taken what we’ve been working on and made it better. “My friend Petra offered us some space in her suite of offices. She has an entire empty floor that she never uses. Maybe we should think about it. A place for all of us to work together sometimes.”

“So you like Kirby?”

“Liam, I think you like Kirby.”

“Whaaaat?” He blushes. “True. But it’s totally one-sided. The Dirty Diana HR department has nothing to sweat.”