Chapter 3
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What a stellar investment.
August
“December’s freshly painted pink toenails kicked back and forth, back and forth while she lay reading on the floor in August’s office. Elegant as a princess, she turned the page, lifted her red pen, and scribbled her distaste in the manuscript’s margin.”
December, the prettiest person in the world, does not oblige my narration, choosing to instead draw a little heart in the margin of my latest novel while her legs sway. “Don’t you have work to do?” she asks.
Nose wrinkling, I turn toward my computer and the list of deliverables I’m supposed to be chugging my way through for Mont Business.
Alas, the program my esteemed employer uses to organize everything is…
overwhelming. Neat and tidy, sure. But a lot.
Every item comes with colorful details, sub-assignments, and deadlines.
Emails. Follow-ups. Phone calls. Reports. Reviews.
As a virtual assistant, the variety of what I manage is determined solely by the whim of my boss, and their boss, and that boss, and finally my favorite, the big boss, Ali Montgomery.
That means I do everything from reviewing and condensing the latest studies to scheduling appointments for the hierarchy that stands above me.
Whatever ends up tagged with my name in this program, I handle.
And, right now, that means I should be tidying multiple inboxes.
Despite this, I instead use my free will to clutter an inbox I shall never see myself sorting, as it is entirely leagues above my paygrade.
Today, 6:26 p.m.
FROM: awinslow@
TO: alim@
SUBJECT: What if…
Greetings esteemed slave driver:
What if instead of work tonight, we just watch anime?
May this petition find itself within the bounds of your mercy and grace, which I know you possess in abundance.
Barely holding on,
August
(Your Favorite) Virtual Assistant
Does Ali’s business offer twenty-thousand-dollar business management courses, done-for-you management for literal millionaires, and other expensive, highly professional services?
Sure.
Do I ever act like it?
Absolutely not.
It’s far more fun, after all, to pretend she’s just like other girls. Grinning, I click when her reply comes through.
Today, 6:30 p.m.
FROM: alim@
TO: awinslow@
SUBJECT: RE: What if…
Good evening wee slave:
I’ve neither mercy nor grace. Adorable you thought otherwise.
Duct taping your hand to mine that we might hold on together,
Ali Montgomery
(Your Favorite) CEO
Despondent, I sort through five entire emails while December giggles over the final pages of the fantasy romance I finished and printed off for her after getting home from my early evening shift two hours ago.
With this much giggling, I imagine she’s reached the first, and only, kiss scene in the book.
Which is approximately ninety-nine percent of the way in.
Very soon, she’ll be done and asking me for another story. Cruelly, I shall then have no choice but to torment her with the reality that I have nothing else to give.
Because the CEO of the company I work for expects me to actually work or something abusive like that.
Today, 6:54 p.m.
FROM: awinslow@
TO: alim@
SUBJECT: RE: RE: What if…
Dearest holder of the duct tape:
I have sorted five (5) emails.
Might I be freed of this tyranny now?
From the fetal position,
August
(Your Favorite) Virtual Assistant
Her reply, per usual, comes swift:
Today, 6:55 p.m.
FROM: alim@
TO: awinslow@
SUBJECT: RE: RE: RE: What if…
Darling captive:
You’re so cute when you’re begging.
Offering morale support via cuddles,
Ali Montgomery
(Your Favorite) CEO
I gasp. My big bad boss. Cuddling me! While I’m in the fetal position?!
What an absolute scandal.
Glowing, I draft my response with glee.
Today, 6:57 p.m.
FROM: awinslow@
TO: alim@
SUBJECT: RE: RE: RE: RE: What if…
Mont Business CEO:
Professionally professional, I am doing my work professionally. (Two more emails done, with professional professionalism, probably.)
CCing HR for breach of personal space and the scandalous attempt to transition our (VERY professional) relationship into a workplace romance,
August
(Your Super Duper Professional) Virtual Assistant
With utmost thorough competence (also known as the words that came up when I looked for “professional” synonyms), I sort through several more emails.
Ignoring Ali’s reply so I can actually get this work done, I keep sorting until December is tugging on my skirt and turning her giant blue eyes up at me.
Aghast, I plant my palm on my cheek. “Oh no, an orphan! Who let you out of the factories, little one?”
Her perfect pink bottom lip juts. “I don’t work in the factories.”
“The coal mines, then! Come, come, little orphan. Before your lungs recall the sweet taste of fresh air, we must return you to the bowels of the earth.”
Her head hangs, beautiful black waves cascading around her shoulders. Pitifully, and with some small faith in my possession of a soul, she lifts the marked-up pages of my latest story and says, “All gone.” Her eyes rise, glassy and hopeful, big and doe-like. “More?”
Taking the pages, I say, “There’s an Oliver Twist reference here, I just know it.”
Dramatic as ever, December melts against my carpet, arm thrust across her brow. Breath leaves her in a long, depressing sigh. “I am to die by dawn.”
Oh no! I’ll be friendless by dawn!
“What a shame,” I provide, quaintly, “considering my next story is to be about a regal prince, and I know you love regal princes.”
She perks, glittery eyes peeking out at me.
Dreamily, I provide, “He’s blond.”
Her wee nose scrunches. “Ew.”
No one understands me.
Hopeful, she murmurs, “Can’t he be…big. And dark-haired. And…maybe grumpy?”
Oh, so…can’t he be my brother? “Ew,” I counter. “He’s going to be blond, and secretly evil, and maybe he’ll duct tape the female lead’s hand to his and tell her she’s cute when she begs, I dunno. TBD.”
“I’m listening again.” Sitting up, December wiggles her painted toes as a dimple settles in her cheek. “Why duct tape?”
Because. Reasons. “So he can rip it with his teeth, duh.”
“That sounds like a sensory nightmare.”
“You have a better idea?” I drawl.
Sparkly, like an angel, my beautiful friend puts her precious dimples on full display and says, “Handcuffs.”
I tut. “No more eight-page-long kisses for you.”
Her expression shatters. “No, I’ll be good. Please.”
Humming dubiously, I begin my perusal of her final comments on my manuscript.
Lots of little hearts. A handful of misplaced clauses.
A slew of exclamation marks and bids for more romance, at only the most inappropriate times.
On the whole, it’s looking like she did not hate the conclusion of the book. “I take it I should publish this one?”
She bobbleheads. “Yes, please. In hardback, too. Because it’s fantasy, I want a dust cover.”
’s free indie publishing platform does not presently provide such whimsical options. “I can probably ask my cover artist to format a dust cover file then find a way to print it at a FedEX or Office Depot.”
“If you’re going through all that trouble, please spray the edges gold and black, too.
” She folds her hands in her lap, angelic.
“Do also include extra kisses in the hardback-exclusive bonus scene that you’re certainly going to write for me, because—and I’m not saying you can’t count, but—you have never given me eight pages of kisses.
There were but a mere thirteen paragraphs in this precious tome. ”
I skip to the kiss scene and count thirteen whole paragraphs, then I arch a brow at December. “Why do you know that?”
“I keep track, so I can determine whether or not my begging works. Overall, kissing percentages have steadily been growing, yet they remain oh so pitiful, and this slow burn was an outlier that quite nearly begat the death of me.” She plants her fingertips together, innocence incarnate.
“I believe in our ability to do better.”
Uh-huh. And I believe she’s a siren, steadily luring me toward the brink of closed-door smut.
Granee would be oh so proud. I, however, am determined not to fall prey to such fickle things.
“I have just decided. The regal prince story is a five-hundred-page slow burn with a single last chapter peck that I won’t even show.
They’ll lean in, and then I will type fin. ”
Melting back against the carpet, December declares, “Dawn. By dawn, my spirit leaves this vessel and seeks greener pastures in the great beyond.”
Well then, it’s a good thing Walmart has coffins, isn’t it?
I should order one for my dearest friend.
I wonder… Would a coffin make a comfortable bed?
Considering I have no suitable guest accommodations here, purchasing such a thing may prove an excellent investment.
Turning to my computer, I look up coffins on Walmart’s website and locate a slew of burial boxes labeled as caskets.
They are a couple thousand dollars, but the price does happen to include shipping.
Wow.
That means they’re basically free!
“Twenty-seven and a half inches wide,” I murmur.
I wonder if that would be large enough for Dominic’s shoulders.
Maybe I should stop by my brother’s place in the morning and measure them.
I only asked for one shift at Bear’s this week, and my job with Mont Business is infinitely flexible, so that means I’ve plenty of time to be a menace.
“August.” My sweet friend’s voice drifts, surely not laced in judgment.
“December,” I coo.
“Why are you looking at coffins?”
Ah, so that was judgment in the tone of how she said my name. Tsk, tsk. Ever benevolent, I delineate my thought process for her: “Someone needed a place to stay today, but I had no guest bed, and therefore I was robbed of a charitable opportunity.”
A low, pondering sound escapes my friend as she perches herself on the floor beside my desk. “If you get one to use as a guest bed, I can also get one for my room, and then we can have sleepovers with fewer fights.”
“Spoken like you aren’t the problem,” I note.
The girl sleeps like a koala. Sharing her bed is a fight for my life.
Proceeding to pretend she isn’t the problem, she smiles wide. “These are really pretty. I fully support you purchasing one on my behalf, to test before I get my own. Probably that one.” She points at the prettiest one there is—all shiny dark brown wood, lacy pink accents, and ivory padding.
“Excellent.” I add it to my cart, check out, and hope my prince story really is five hundred pages long, because I’ll need about that much time between this book and the next to save up for the cover after this—highly necessary—expense.
Turning to my office full of cramped bookshelves, I peer over my agape friend’s head and begin rearranging the furniture in my brain. “It makes the most sense to have my guest bed in here, doesn’t it?” That means quite a bit of relocating.
“You just…actually…bought a coffin…”
“No, I didn’t. Technically, it was labeled as a casket.
” I should look up the definitions and determine the differences, considering I’m about to own one.
“And you fully supported it.” I, for one, am very content in my purchase.
“Would you like to help me move furniture to make room for my new guest bed?”
“Your new guest bed,” she hedges. “The casket?”
I meet her eyes. “Why, yes. What other guest bed might you perceive is soon to be in transit?”
With a subdued sigh, my lovely friend rises, smoothes the pleats of her skirt, and turns toward my overflowing bookshelves. “Oh boy,” she drones, “manual labor.”
“Must make you long for the coal mines,” I croon.
Tossing her head, she crosses her arms. “I shan’t assist unless you make the regal prince in my new story tall, dark, and grumpy.”
“Dark…as in…personality?”
“Dark as in brunette.”
“Mm, no.” Leaving my seat, I cross my office and get the first stack of books out of the first shelf of the first bookcase I plan to relocate.
December continues her negotiation, “First kiss is twenty percent of the way in.”
“Absolutely not.”
“She’s a vampire, and she sleeps in a pretty casket, and while there aren’t kisses, there are bites?”
It’s been a minute since I’ve dabbled in paranormal.
I could be convinced to do a pretty blond vampire boy.
So I say, “He’s a vampire, and he sleeps in an elegant casket that matches the flaxen shades of his long blond hair.
He refuses to bite her, because he might lose control once the first taste of her sweet blood hits his tongue.
In fact, quite truly, he refuses to so much as graze her with a fingertip he’s so frightened of what he might do. Just think of the angst!”
December whimpers. “You loathe me.”
I load her arms up with books. “I looove you.” I tap a kiss to her forehead. “Please send these to my room. I think I’d like to create a maze of shelves leading to my bed, and we only have a bit of time before your curfew, so we best chop-chop.”
Sorrows abandoned, December’s eyes shine. “Ooh. Yes. I love that! A secret path!”
A secret path indeed.
We spend the rest of our time before sunset redecorating to make room for my casket while debating the elements of my next story. Bit by bit, a story comes together, and I can’t wait to see where it might go.