Chapter Ten Ella
Chapter Ten
Ella
The three of us found ourselves sitting in Raising Cane’s, a fast-food restaurant Katy had demanded we visit based on her TikTok recommendations. Fried chicken and crinkle-cut fries were piled high on the table as Zola and I munched, interrogating Katy.
‘So, he didn’t actually say he wasn’t married, right?’ Zola questioned.
‘No,’ Katy answered quietly. I could see the cogs in her brain in overdrive as she replayed her entire night.
‘But he didn’t say he was either. He was on a dating app, for fuck’s sake, Zo!’ I protested. ‘He’s the one in the wrong here, not you, Katy. He obviously thought he was going to get away with this and didn’t expect to be caught.’
‘I feel like such a bitch,’ Katy mumbled. ‘Fee is gorgeous.’
‘And so are you, duh?’ Zola held up her greasy hands. ‘He’s clearly a fucking scumbag, but he’s got damn fine taste in women.’
‘Look, the question isn’t who’s prettier out of the two of you.
That’s what men want us to do – they play us women off against one another.
Stop with the pick-me dance already, Katy!
Look, you slept with a Tinder hook-up, so what?
You had no idea he was married. You haven’t done anything wrong.
But we need to figure out what we do about him.
’ I dipped another fry into a little paper cup of sauce and sat back.
‘I am in shock, though. Last night was the best night of my life, I was on such a high.’ Katy was trembling, her food untouched.
I pulled her head into my shoulder. ‘Come here.’
‘He took me to a secret bar. It was so cool – you had to enter through a phone box, and suddenly a wall opened up and there was, like, a hidden passage. I felt like I was in Hogwarts.’
Zola scoffed. ‘A secret bar? Seriously. What was its name?’
‘Emmm . . . Please Don’t Tell, I think. Have you heard of it?’ Katy asked innocently.
‘No, I haven’t, babe. But a secret bar, Katy! For fuck’s sake, gal. There were signs!’ Zola seemed frustrated with our friend for being so gullible once more.
‘Hey, not her fault,’ I reiterated, pointing a finger in Zola’s face. ‘So, back to business, before Travis turned up, how do you think the pitch went?’ I changed the subject, keen to get Katy out of the hot seat.
‘Good.’ Zola nodded. ‘I could tell they liked us. I suppose it’ll come down to working out if the money adds up for them.’
‘I didn’t realise launching an app like that would be so expensive. Fee mentioned investing millions.’ Katy sat back up.
‘Yeah, think of the PR they’d have to pull off to keep up with competitors, never mind the development side of things. The dating game is big business!’ Zola replied.
‘What are you thinking, Katy? How do you want to play this?’ I asked when she looked more settled, her hangover hunger finally driving her to dig into some fried chicken.
‘I don’t know. I don’t want to ruin this opportunity for us, but I have to be honest. Fee deserves the truth.’ She took a deep, steadying breath. ‘No one’s husband should be out fingering tourists in Central Park, let alone shagging them senseless in a fancy hotel room.’
I laughed at her bluntness. Finally, she had some anger behind her voice.
‘Am I wrong?’ Katy challenged.
‘No, you’re one hundred per cent right. But, if you are honest, we need to be realistic that a working relationship with them would be next to impossible once you spill the tea.’ I shrugged.
‘This is such a great opportunity for us, Katy,’ Zola reminded her.
‘I’ve been majorly fucked over, Zo!’ she snapped back.
Both Zola and I agreed that our friend was in an impossible situation.
Part of me hoped Katy could just forget the night with Travis had ever happened, so we could take whatever opportunity came with Flirtify, but another part tugged at the injustice.
My friend had been played by exactly the type of man we’d created the website to avoid – the kind of man who deserved to deal with the consequences of his actions.
The kind of man who belonged in a dicktionary.
Mr Travis Mason needed to learn that he couldn’t go around hurting women like this.
‘OK,’ I said after a long silence. ‘If you want to tell Fee and clear the air, we’ve got you.
This isn’t your fault, Katy, and you shouldn’t be penalised for him not being able to keep his dick in his pants.
But . . .’ I paused. ‘If you want my honest opinion, I’m still not sure that I would.
I mean, we’re skint, Katy, and fuck knows how much a deal like this would mean for us financially.
That’s if Travis doesn’t insist on pulling the deal, of course.
And even if we forgot about the money for a second, working with Flirtify would look fucking amazing on our CVs when we’re pitching to potential clients back home. ’
Katy’s face saddened. I knew she felt like she needed revenge, but I wondered if taking the cash and being in constant display around Travis’s wife and family would unsettle him enough to constitute her own unconventional form of payback.
Plus, I knew I had taken a massive gamble on coming here.
I didn’t want to return a few days later, even more penniless than before, for this trip to be all for nothing.
‘Yeah, I mean, I do see your point, Katy.’ Zola huffed. ‘But there is no way they will take us on if you reveal what Fee’s hubby was up to, so it’s one or the other. We will do whatever you think is right, babe.’
‘Thank you.’ Katy nodded, looking slightly more relieved. ‘Just let me have a wee think about it.’ She was always the most caring person and I knew she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she kept this a secret. She would never treat anyone the way Travis had treated her, and his wife.
‘But if I tell her, I want to do it in style.’ Katy preened. ‘I need to get out of this dress. I feel like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.’
I laughed. ‘Why don’t we go shopping?’ I suggested, ‘Clear your head?’
‘Ooh! Sephora’s just around the corner, too. We could get our makeup done?’ Zola said, wide-eyed.
‘Yes! Come on then! Let’s shop.’
I stood up, tugging on Katy’s arm. She finally managed a laugh as we made our way towards the shops, planning and plotting how she could confront Travis and spill all the beans on the night’s events to his wife.
*
It was ten to two when we walked back into the Flirtify headquarters, bags in hand.
Katy had bought coconut-scented face wipes to scrub her noon in a McDonald’s bathroom, then changed into a burgundy midi dress with a cool slashed boat neck.
She also bought huge new shades after having her makeup done pristinely by a lovely girl at Sephora, with whom she had overshared her whole first-night-in-New-York ordeal in full-on detail.
She exuded confidence as she strutted in, looking like an entirely new person, but I knew her well enough to know that, internally, she was in turmoil.
Katy didn’t do well with rejection and she seemed to really think she and Travis had something.
For the second time that day, we headed through security and handed in our passes.
‘Sorry, wait one moment, ma’am.’ The security officer held out his arm, blocking Katy from entering the building.
‘What? What is it?’ She pulled her shades down.
‘I have to check something.’ He began typing and peered closely at his computer screen.
‘This is because of him, isn’t it?’ Katy snapped.
She was talking to Zola and me, but her voice was so loud it echoed across the lobby.
‘He’s blocked access in case his truth is revealed to the world.
I’m not having this, Ella.’ Her voice was angry, but I could hear flickers of more vulnerable emotions tremble around the edges of it.
‘Calm down, Katy,’ I said quietly.
‘Look what he’s done.’ She held her hand up, and I glanced around at the queue forming behind us. ‘This is supposedly the home of free speech. He’s taking away my First Amendment rights. I have the right to free speech, mister!’
‘Jesus, calm down, Martin Luther King Jr.’ Zola tittered. ‘Is there a problem here, sir? We have a meeting in five minutes. We really do have to get up there.’
The broad security guard huffed, turning his computer screen around. Spread across it was a photograph of Katy taken that morning with huge hair and pale, crusty-looking skin.
‘I’m working out if you are who you say you are, ma’am,’ he said.
I began to giggle looking at the photo. It really was a shocker. ‘She is. She just had a bad . . . well, a terrible hair start to the day. But come on, you can see it’s the same person, no?’
The noise in the lobby was increasing as we held up the entrance, as the guard continued to squint between the photograph of Katy and the glamorous version of her standing before him.
‘OK, on you go, ma’am. Next time, get that hair under control. Next!’
Katy’s jaw was gaping as Zola and I laughed, pushing her towards the lifts.
‘What a cheeky cunt!’ she practically screeched as she pressed the buttons.
We stepped into the lift and the doors slid closed.
‘Babe, no offence but you actually looked like Justin Bieber’s mugshot in that picture.’ Zola exploded as the lift shot us up to the fourth floor.
The doors popped open to the lobby, and once more we headed to the waiting room. As we neared it, Katy grasped my hand.
‘What will I say, Ella? I think I should tell her,’ Katy said quietly. The realisation of what she was about to do seemed to overwhelm her.
‘What do you want to say?’ I replied.
Katy glanced up to the sky, her eyes watering in thought. ‘The truth? She deserves to know.’
I smiled, although selfish disappointment weighed down on my shoulders. ‘Well, you could tell them who it was last night. But, Katy, it might be kinder pulling Fee to the side.’
She gulped. ‘Can you do it for me?’
I shook my head. ‘I think something this big needs to come from you, babe. It could end a marriage. We don’t know if they have kids . . . or . . .’
Katy paused, looking as if the wind had been knocked straight out of her.