Chapter 16 Seventeen Terrible Life Choices and Counting
AMANDA
I barely step into Monarch before I’m being ambushed. Like, full-on tackled by my best friend.
“Oh, thank God.” Izzy’s voice is pure relief mixed with barely contained homicidal rage. “Get in my office. Now.”
“Wow, okay. No good morning? No ‘Hey, Amanda, did you sleep well after your completely reasonable and well-thought-out adventure’?” I don’t even get a chance to finish my sarcastic deflection before she’s gripping my wrist and dragging me down the hall.
“You’re lucky I let you sleep at all,” she hisses under her breath. “I was five minutes away from showing up at your place with a SWAT team and a therapy dog.”
“The therapy dog would have been a nice touch, honestly.”
She swings open her office door and practically shoves me inside, and that’s when I see him.
Cal’s sitting in one of the chairs, arms crossed, expression completely unreadable in that terrifying way that makes grown men confess to crimes they didn’t commit.
Oh. We’re really doing this. Full parental unit activation.
Except when Cal sees me, he holds up his phone. On the screen is a fake news headline he must have typed up: WOMAN FOUND ALIVE AFTER MOTORCYCLE INCIDENT—“I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE ROMANTIC,” SHE SAYS.
I bite back a laugh. “You’re an asshole.”
“Just preparing your obituary,” he says, completely deadpan. “Wanted to get ahead of it.”
Izzy pinches the bridge of her nose, and I can literally see her counting to ten.
“I know you guys have this thing involving increasingly darker shades of humor and deeper levels of irreverence, and yes, sometimes it’s funny, but I’ve literally been up all night worried about whether you were being chopped into pieces and dumped in the Hudson, Amanda. ”
“Good soup,” Cal says, and I snort.
Izzy glares at Cal, and he just smirks back at her. “Sit. Down.” She sighs, looking back at me.
I drop into the chair, and immediately Cal slides a piece of paper across the desk. I look down. It’s a hand-drawn scorecard labeled AMANDA’S TERRIBLE LIFE CHOICES with tally marks.
“We’re at seventeen,” he says. “This one counts for at least three.”
“Excuse me, the warehouse only counted for two!” I protest, examining the rows.
“The warehouse had backup. This had a stranger and a motorcycle.”
“Okay, that’s fair.”
Izzy looks between us, her expression somewhere between exhausted and resigned. “Do I even want to know?”
“We started keeping score after the incident with the Chanel-wielding socialite,” I explain.
Cal nods. “Amanda threatened her with a stiletto.”
“She deserved it.”
“Not arguing, but it still counts.” Cal shrugs.
“If we could all get back on track,” Izzy says pointedly. “You rode off with a stranger last night, Amanda. A complete stranger from the internet. In New York City.”
I scoff, waving a hand dismissively. “Oh, come on, you make it sound like I hopped into an unmarked van with ‘Free Candy’ painted on the side.”
“It was basically the motorcycle version of that,” Izzy says, but there’s less heat in it now. More defeat.
“Yeah, but motorcycles are inherently cooler, so the math works out differently.”
“That is not how math works, Amanda.”
Cal pulls the sheet toward him and adds another tally mark to the scorecard.
“What’s that one for?” I demand.
“Motorcycle math. That’s a new low.”
“You’re the worst.”
“Top three, easily,” he agrees.
Izzy slumps back in her chair. “I don’t know why I even bother anymore.”
“Because you love me?” I offer sweetly.
“I’m just glad you didn’t end up on a Dateline special,” she scoffs.
“Okay, but what would the episode be called?” I tap a finger to my chin.
“ ‘Matched with Murder,’ ” Cal says immediately.
“Ooh, that’s good. But I was thinking ‘She Swiped Right… into Danger.’ ”
“Too wordy. Keith Morrison likes it punchy.”
“ ‘The Last Ride,’ ” I counter.
“ ‘Motorcycle to Mayhem.’ ”
“Now you’re just showing off.”
Izzy looks between us again. “This is helping exactly no one.”
“Well, if it makes you feel better, the only thing that got wrecked was my self-control. So that’s something, right?”
Izzy picks up a pen from her desk and tosses it at my head—not hard, just enough to make her point. Cal catches it in midair without looking—because of course he does—and hands it back to her. “Your aim’s getting better.”
“I’ve been practicing,” Izzy says tiredly.
Cal looks at her then, and there’s something in his expression that makes me feel like I’m intruding on a private moment. Pure pride mixed with that disgusting amount of love that makes my chest tight. “It shows.”
Izzy’s lips twitch despite herself, and for just a second, they’re in their own little world.
“Okay, hey, excuse me.” I wave my hand between them. “Can we please get back to the fact that I almost died? I feel like that’s being severely underappreciated here.”
Cal makes a considering noise. “Generous assessment. I’m putting it at ‘moderate danger, possible kidnapping scenario.’ ”
“Seven out of ten on the stupid scale,” I counter.
“Eight point five, and that’s me being nice.”
“Eight.”
“Point five.”
“Fine.”
We shake on it.
Izzy looks at the ceiling like she’s asking a higher power for strength. “What is happening right now? Why am I even here?”
Cal leans back in his chair, completely unbothered. “Look, I can figure out who this guy is if you give me something to work with. License plate, physical description, literally anything. I’ve got contacts.”
I blink at him. “The sketchy ones or the really sketchy ones?”
“The ones who owe me favors.”
“Ah. The really sketchy ones.”
Izzy waves a hand weakly. “Sure. Why not? Let’s add felony stalking to the morning agenda.”
I open my mouth to consider it, because honestly, having Cal investigate Chad would probably be the smart, responsible thing to do. But then I realize something: I don’t want to know. Not yet. Not like this.
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “Honestly? This is the most excitement I’ve had with a guy since… well, never mind.”
Cal’s eyebrow rises a fraction, the equivalent of anyone else gasping dramatically. “You’re saying no to a background check? You’ve never said no to a background check.”
“There was that one time—”
“That doesn’t count. You googled him yourself.”
“True.”
Izzy stares at me, and I can see the concern bleeding through her exasperation. “Amanda, what if he’s actually dangerous? Like a genuine sociopath?”
I smirk. “Even hotter.”
Cal makes another mark on the tally sheet.
“What’s that one for?” I demand.
“Terrible taste in men.”
“You’re one to talk. You literally stalked Izzy through a hacked app.”
“And it worked out great,” he says, completely straight-faced. “I’m a success story.”
“We don’t know anything about him!” Izzy continues, though she sounds like she knows she’s already lost this battle. “We don’t know his name, his job, his background, his credit score—literally nothing!”
I gesture to the motivational poster behind Izzy, a kitten dangling from a clothesline with HANG IN THERE in bold letters. “Life is all about taking risks and embracing the unknown.”
Izzy turns to look at the poster, then back at me. “When did you even hang that ridiculous thing?”
“Last week. It speaks to me.”
Cal nods solemnly. “It’s very inspiring.”
“It’s a kitten in distress,” Izzy points out flatly.
“Yeah, but he’s hanging in there,” I say.
“Barely.”
“Still counts,” Cal and I say at the same time.
Izzy lets out a long breath. “I hate both of you so much right now.”
“Look,” I say, softening slightly because I know she’s genuinely worried. “I know you’re trying to help me, Izzy baby. And I appreciate it, I really do. But you have to trust me on this one.”
Cal clears his throat. “For what it’s worth, Amanda did clear that warehouse with me in four-inch heels. If she can handle armed criminals in stilettos, she can probably handle one guy on a motorcycle.”
“Thank you! See? Cal gets it.”
“Cal is enabling you,” Izzy says, but without the energy to really mean it.
“Cal is being supportive,” I correct.
“I’m being realistic, but also…” He looks at me. “You’ve got your piece on you?”
“Josephine? Obviously.”
“Good. Keep it that way.”
Izzy crosses her arms, slumping further into her chair. “This is not the reassurance I was looking for.”
“You married me,” Cal points out. “Your standards for reassurance are clearly questionable.”
Despite herself, Izzy’s lips twitch. “You have a point.”
I stand up, brushing imaginary lint off my dress. “Okay, if this intervention is officially over, I have actual work to do. Bills to pay, rich people to enable, the usual.”
Izzy rolls her eyes but gets up and steps forward, wrapping her arms around me in a hug that’s way tighter than necessary. “You’re going to give me gray hair before I’m thirty,” she mutters into my shoulder.
I pull back and pat her cheek. “You love me anyway.”
“Unfortunately.”
When I pull away, Cal holds up his fist.
I stare at it. “Are we… fist-bumping my terrible life choices?”
“Seventeen and counting. Might as well commemorate it.”
I bump his fist, and he makes an explosion sound effect, which gets him an exhausted look from Izzy and a snort from me.
“I promise I won’t get murdered,” I tell Izzy. “And if I do, I’ll haunt both of you, but I’ll haunt Cal worse.”
“Appreciate that,” Cal says.
“Just… be careful,” Izzy says, and she sounds tired now. Worn out from worrying. “Please. For my blood pressure.”
“Always am,” I lie with a completely straight face.
Cal coughs. “Liar.”
“Takes one to know one.”
I grin, spin on my heel with perhaps more flair than necessary, and head straight for my office. Behind me, I hear Izzy’s tired voice: “Why does everyone in my life have a death wish?”
And Cal’s response: “You’ve got a type, baby. Just accept it.”
I smile all the way to my office. I settle into my desk chair, fully intending to be a responsible, productive member of society.
I pull up inventory reports, determined not to think about mysterious men in leather jackets.
I am in my working woman era. I am taking charge of my professional life.
I am focusing on quarterly projections and profit margins.