Chapter 3
LUCY
“Not funny.”
I don’t know why, but on the way home from work I join my besties at some team event for Petal’s husband, Rake, the pro hockey player. Normally I’m happy to accompany her to these things for the free food and alcohol, and it’s really generous of her to include me and the other third of our posse, Gilly, but I am in one lousy mood.
Regardless of my fabulous new hair.
“Why not?” she quips, trying not to smile now that she sees how irked I am. “All I said was ‘that sounds like a real shitty job’.”
She side-eyes Gilly and they each bite their lip to keep from laughing.
I should leave, right now, before I murder someone. I love my best friends, and deep down, don’t really want to hurt them.
Despite the urge.
“Look, you guys, laugh all you want. I am not in a good place at this moment in time. I’m PMSing and my thong is scraping the bejesus out of my asshole.”
Gilly whoops and a spray of beer hits Petal. It’s a damn good thing she misses me.
Petal covers her hand with her mouth, but in the next moment, she realizes it’s futile. She and Gilly are doubled over in laughter at my misfortune.
“You have no idea how upset I am about this ‘work assignment’,” I say. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
Gilly holds a finger up. “I’ve got it. The perfect solution. Well, it might not be the perfect solution, but it might ease the pain of your crappy assignment.”
She and Petal dissolve into giggles. Again.
I wait for them to catch their breath. “What? What’s your brilliant idea, Gills?”
She straightens up, trying to look serious. “You can… take Petal with you on your research. She’s only working one day a week now at the bookstore, so she has tons of time.”
Petal’s head snaps in Gilly’s direction and if looks could kill, I’d definitely be down one friend. “That… that’s not true, Gil. I’m very busy. You know I am.”
Gilly shakes her head sadly. “Now, Petal, that’s not what you told me earlier today. In fact, you said you were a little bored and needed something to fill your days. You said you might even join your mom in her charity activities. You know, like all rich housewives do.”
Petal’s back goes ramrod straight. “I am not a housewife!”
Gilly presses her lips together and looks at Petal with all the suspicion she can muster. “But you are looking for something to do with your days, no? And you are rich, right? So you kinda are…”
I toss my backpack over my shoulder. “You know what, I’m gonna head out. I have an early morning?—”
“Really? What time do the public restrooms open?” Petal asks with wide eyes.
More laughter.
I put a hand on my hip. I’ve been friends with these two since kindergarten, when Petal was in the habit of peeing her pants. This might be a good time to remind her of that.
But first things first.
“Not sure when they open, but when I do find out I’ll come pick you up and you can explore them with me. In fact, you can be the photographer in case I find some interesting people frequenting them, people who might be good to interview.”
Horrified, Petal takes two steps back and bumps into a cluster of hockey players who appear to have consumed a lot of beer.
Like a lot, a lot.
“Watch it, baby,” one of them calls, catching her as she stumbles.
“Oh shit, dude, that’s Rake’s wife you just called baby,” another one says.
The guilty hockey player, one I’ve seen at these events before but who I don’t know, turns to Petal. “M’lady, I am heartily sorry for addressing you so,” he says with a bow.
Shit. He’s kind of cute. In fact, they’re all pretty damn cute.
But I’m not getting involved with one of Petal’s husband’s friends. That would be too weird, us both with hockey guys.
Hell, it wasn’t that long ago we’d never even been to a San Francisco Aftershocks game. And look at us now, sucking down their free beer.
“Seriously, guys,” I say to Petal and Gilly, “there’s an early meeting at work. We have to be there at nine a.m.—”
“That’s early?” Petal says.
“Yes, yes, it is. For us, anyway. We don’t have a lot of team meetings, and Michaela said to be on time.”
The girls cringe. They know my boss is cool and asking us to come in ‘early’ must mean something is up.
“Hey, ladies.”
We look up to see Petal’s handsome red-headed husband, Rake, and his buddies.
Rake gives Gilly and me kisses on the cheek, and lands one on his wife’s lips.
“Look at the happy newlyweds,” his friend says.
“Hey, you ladies remember Tyler and Jonas, right?” Rake says, gesturing at his friends.
Just as we start nodding and saying our hellos, someone’s phone alarm goes off.
“Oh, shit,” Jonas says, grabbing it out of his back pocket. “Gotta run. See you all later.”
He hands his beer to Tyler and we watch him disappear through the crowd, heading in the direction of the restaurant’s front door.
Rake turns back to us. “He’s got kid duty.”
That’s right. He’s the single dad with two little kids.
I’m dying to get out of here too. The party has just dialed up a notch by getting much more crowded and considerably louder. Not a good place to be when you have the urge to really hurt someone.
But before I shove off, I have an idea. Lemons out of lemonade, and all that.
“Tyler,” I say, turning to Rake’s mop-haired buddy, “do you think I could interview you sometime? For the SF Freekly?”
He turns his attention in my direction like he’s seeing me for the first time. “Sorry? What’s the paper?”
I know I’ve told him before what paper I work for, during some interminable small talk, which I am terrible at. I don’t blame him for not remembering, though. He’s not exactly our target market. I’m not exactly his target market either, from the women I’ve seen him checking out this evening.
But I’m not letting him go yet.
“I work for the San Francisco Freekly, Tyler. It’s the city’s ‘free weekly,’ also known as ‘Freekly.’ Get it?”
He nods with pretend interest, and if he doesn’t stop looking over my shoulder at the hot girl with the fake tits behind me, I just might have to spill my beer on him. Or accidentally stomp on his foot with my high-heeled bootie.
“Freekly, yeah, I get it,” he says, pretty much as uninterested as a person could be.
That’s when Petal steps in. “Ty, Lucy’s a really good journalist and it could be good for her career to do a story on someone from a local sports team.” She looks over at me, smiling, and I remember why she’s my ride-or-die.
“Yeah, Tyler, Lucy gets all kinds of interesting assignments, like her latest one covering dirty bathrooms?—”
This time, I do step on someone’s foot, and that someone is Gilly. Oops.
She squeals and hops up and down for a moment on her good foot.
“Jesus, Gills, I’m so sorry,” I lie.
She throws me a well-deserved stink eye.
“So what do you say, Tyler? Are you open to a quick and easy interview? To be carried out at your convenience, of course,” I promise.
Rake slaps him on the back, hard, so hard some of his beer slops out of its cup, but hell, he’s paying attention now.
“Oh, sure, I’m sure that will be fine. I gotta clear it with our PR guy, but I’m sure it will be fine.”
“Great,” I say. Maybe this day isn’t a total wash.
Rake pats him on the back like a good dog, and I remember why I can’t stand this pro-athlete-playboy-big-swinging-dick archetype, and it’s not just because I, and women like me, are invisible to them.
“Oh say, Lucy,” Tyler starts to say.
At least he knows my name.
“I was thinking it might be fun to do your interview thing over dinner sometime. What do you say?”
Huh?
Petal, Gilly, and I are silent. I mean, dead silent.
Where the fuck did that just come from?
I look at my friends, then to the crowd surrounding us to see if someone is punking me.
Ashton Kutcher, show your face.
“Um. What’s that, Tyler?”
A second ago I could barely get the guy’s attention.
Rake snorts. Does he know something?
“Lucy,” Petal says, leaning closer to me but speaking loudly enough for all of us to hear, “Tyler just asked you out to dinner,” she says like she’s talking to a toddler. “That’s known in some circles as a date.”
“Yeah, thanks, Petal. Super fucking helpful,” I say with a snort.
Oops. That might have been a bit too aggro. But in case I am being punked, I want everyone to know I don’t care. I’m cool with it. A hot guy can ask me out as a joke. No skin off my back. I’ll just keep smiling.
Even if I feel like dying on the inside.
“Thank you, Tyler. That’s very nice of you. However, it’s against company policy to socialize with an interview subject.”
Now it’s Petal’s turn to snort.
Tyler, unbothered, shrugs his shoulders. “No problem, Lucy. I’ll check on that interview thing and let you know.”
He and Rake are whisked away for some sort of group photo thing, and once again I hoist my backpack on my shoulder.
“You know, Lu, you don’t work for the freaking New York Times. You can go out with the guy,” Petal says.
“I know. But you know how I feel about jocks, at least hanging out with them. They’re so… bulky. Besides, they go for bimbos. Not girls like me. And that Tyler is a major fuckboy. Just look at him. He’s been scoping the crowd the whole time we were talking to him. If that’s not fucking rude, I don’t know what is.”
I watch him run his fingers through his dark, messy hair as he gathers with a bunch of his other teammates.
So. Vain.
Maybe I should ask him if he’d like to borrow my lip gloss.
“Lu, in case you haven’t noticed, you’re surrounded by jocks right now, and your best friend”—Petal pauses to point at herself with both hands—“is married to a one.”
Busted.
Gilly nods, which doesn’t help.
My hand flies to my chest as I attempt to get my big foot out of my big mouth. “Petal, you know I didn’t mean that. Of course, Rake is awesome. You know how I adore him. It’s just that, you know, having dinner with one is just not… my cup of tea.”
She side-eyes me, not letting me off the hook in spite of my attempted backpedal.
“Didn’t you say you were leaving?” she snips.
“Yeah. I’m outta here. And don’t be mad Petal. What I said was stupid. You’re not a bimbo. Seriously.”
Gilly pipes up. “Yeah, Petal, just chalk it up to the thong panty that’s torturing Lucy’s buttcrack.”
Petal holds her hands up. “TMI!” she yells.
I catch Tyler’s eye on the way out and he looks away quickly.
Nice.
Why the hell did he ask me to dinner if he can’t even look at me? He couldn’t possibly be interested. I am so not in his league.
Although, that’s what Petal thought about Rake at one time, and look at them now, so lovey-dovey it could make you sick to watch. But Rake didn’t give off the major player vibes Tyler does. And he certainly never looked around a party for someone hotter to talk to.
I’m not offended. I’m really not. In fact, I’m grateful to the guy. He just gave me an idea for a new assignment, something way bigger than just an interview with a little weekly paper.