Chapter 36
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
WE’RE ASKING THE QUESTION EVERYONE WANTS TO KNOW… WHO IS NEPO BABY’S NEW WOMAN DU JOUR?
GREER
Ireally need to come home more often.
Fighting a grimace that turned into a gag, I hurriedly tossed out the rancid fruit from my fridge.
Thankfully, there hadn’t been a lot of it—Tripp had pretty much taken care of my meager stock when we’d hidden away on Christmas Eve.
But since I hadn’t been home in a week, what I did have leftover had turned.
Beyond turned.
I was pretty sure it was fermented.
It made me grateful that Maddie had asked to meet. Otherwise, it might’ve been another week before I’d come home.
I couldn’t imagine how it would’ve smelled after that.
After spraying the hell out of the fridge until the fumes gave me a headache, I bagged up the trash—rag and all—and took it down to the outside dumpster. I returned to my apartment to find Maddie waiting outside with her phone pressed to her ear.
She pulled it away and touched the screen when she saw me. “There you are. I thought maybe Tripp had you tied up somewhere.”
Of course she says that just as my neighbor steps into the hall.
“I could say the same to you about Easton,” I said, equally as loud. If she was making it awkward for me in our building, I would return the favor.
Even though she sort of had a point. If he wasn’t booked with his trainer for the afternoon, it was a safe bet he would’ve tried to convince me to stick around. And when that failed, he would’ve just followed me.
He wasn’t the only greedy man because Maddie smiled as she pointed down. “Full disclosure. Easton’s waiting for me in my apartment.”
My good mood soured worse than the rotten fruit as I thought about the last time she’d come to my place while her boyfriend waited downstairs. My already queasy stomach did a tumultuous flip as I let us into my place. I barely closed the door behind us before asking, “What happened?”
Instant understanding softened her face. “Nothing. This is a good visit, I promise.”
“Thank God. I don’t think I could take anymore drama.”
“Why? Did something happen?”
“No, the opposite. Mom is in Florence right now and seems to finally be enjoying herself, and I, uh, visited my dad.”
She gave an exaggerated yikes face. “How’d that go?”
“Better than I thought it would, honestly.” I gave her a recap of my visit but evaded discussing any of the legal matters.
I wasn’t sure how any of that worked, and I didn’t want to put any deal at risk.
Maddie didn’t ask, though I was sure she was curious since her parents were impacted by his bad decisions.
She did, however, hesitantly ask, “Where, uh, is he staying?” When I told her about his small apartment, she leaned against the kitchen counter—the picture of forced casualness. “And he lives there alone?”
“No Gloria,” I confirmed. “Trust me, I looked for any sign of her.”
“No pointy hat and broom in a corner?”
“I was thinking sulfur dust. Isn’t that what demons leave behind?” I gestured behind her. “Anyway, can I offer you something to drink? I have tap water and tap water.”
“No tequila?”
“My bottle broke,” I said, but the warm flush moving across my cheeks said more than my words did.
I shook my head at her knowing smile before getting us back on track.
“Why? Is this a visit that requires booze? Because I could go get the spoiled fruit that I just threw out. I’m sure it’s wine-esque by this point. ”
“I’ll pass. And that explains why it smells like a sterile hospital in here. But no, it’s fine. The drink would be the celebratory kind.” She inhaled. “I’m moving in with Easton.”
“Okay.”
Her shoulders dropped. “I expected some shock. Some excitement. A little razzle dazzle, at least.”
“Wow. I am in some shock. But I also feel some excitement.” I added half-assed jazz hands. “Is that better?”
She whacked my arm, and I lost the fight on my smile.
Grinning huge, I pulled her into my arms for a tight hug. “I’m really happy for you.”
“That’s more like it. It was bad enough that Wren wasn’t totally floored by my submissive revelation. If you weren’t stoked about this, I was going to find new friends.”
“Too bad. You’re stuck with us.” I released her and fixed two tap waters that didn’t pack the commemorative punch that tequila would’ve. “Speaking of, have you heard from our angelic perv lately?”
Some of the joy left Maddie’s face. “No. We talked about getting together when we were both home on Christmas Eve, but it never happened. She said she’s been good but busy.”
Unease prickled at the back of my neck since those were the exact words she’d used when she’d texted me. “I’m starting to get a little worried. She’s under a lot of stress, and if it’s not going well… Or maybe working with kids isn’t all she thought it would be.”
“This is Wren we’re talking about. Rainbows and sunshine Wren. If there was an issue, she’d tell us. We’ve all been busy with school and men and work. It’s part of growing up.”
“Ugh, I don’t want to. Can I opt out?”
She laughed. “Really? You? You’ve been a grown up since fourth grade when you assembled spreadsheet budgets for the three of us to smartly save our allowances.”
“Which you never used.”
“Because I never saved. Those Diet Cokes and fruit snacks weren’t going to buy themselves.
” She took a drink of water. “Anyway, the gap between semesters is already a lawless blur of holiday hoopla when time is a manmade construct. Once classes resume, we’ll be back to our routines and our brunches. ”
“I’m still going to reach out to her,” I said.
“I will, too.”
“Right. Because you have big, exciting news to share.”
We talked for a while more about her timeline.
Unsurprisingly, Easton was going at warp speed to get her into his house.
The moving company and cleaning company would be there in a few days, and in the meantime, he was having some life infused into his house thanks to a decorator who actually listened to what they wanted.
Yes.
They.
“I couldn’t move in with the way it was.” Maddie threw her arm over her eyes. “All the white. It was blinding.”
I thought about Tripp’s house. The cool shelf wall really made a difference. I was betting even a few more pieces would help.
“If everything stays smooth, and you would recommend her, pass me the name of the decorator,” I said.
She gave a pointed look around my simplistically neutral apartment. Fine. Bland. It had some personality, but it was my personality. Which was also bland. I probably didn’t have a lot of room to talk.
“For Tripp,” I clarified.
“Easton already gave him the name.”
I made a mental note to get the info since I was pretty sure that fell under my duties as assistant.
After vowing to get together for brunch—even if we had to kidnap Wren to make it happen—Maddie went to continue packing up her apartment.
I stared at the door for a while after she left, a smile on my face.
She’s actually moving in with a guy. And she isn’t the least bit freaked despite the fact she’s always been happy alone.
It probably won’t be long until Wren moves in with Chris—if she isn’t already.
And I’m…
Figuring things out.
Putting that last part into a box to deal with at a later time, I grabbed my phone to inform our third friend of the Sunday plan, threat included.
But when I checked my cell, everything was glitchy. I could barely open an app before it would freeze.
It took multiple times restarting it before I could get into the settings to turn off the blitz of notifications. Even then, everything was sluggish.
Did I accidentally stay logged into Tripp’s accounts?
I usually handled the social media stuff on his phone because his verified settings prevented the avalanche of notifications that left my cell literally hot to the touch. But I had logged in a few times from my device to quickly do stuff.
Guessing that something got wonky somewhere along the way, I opened TikTok first to see thousands of new followers.
Yup, I’m Tripp.
But when I went to the profile to toggle back to mine, I saw I wasn’t Tripp.
I was me.
Me, but with a shit-ton of followers and tags.
It has to be from the event last night.
Do people really follow a celebrity’s random assistant?
Who am I kidding?
Of course, they do.
They were in for a boring treat, however. I posted about brunch. Yoga. Hikes. I’d never recorded a video in Tripp’s house or even near him for my own account, so they could scour my page, but there wouldn’t be a sign of him.
A bunch more notification bubbles showed up in the menu bar, and my curiosity got the better of me. I clicked one.
Oh no.
It wasn’t a video of my boss with me in the background.
It was when he’d come over to flirt with me.
I’d thought we were out of view of any cameras. More than that, I thought it just looked like we were talking. I didn’t understand why that garnered so much attention.
Unless they could somehow hear the filthy-sweet things Tripp had said.
I almost dropped my phone in my rush to turn the sound up. It was just the added music and not the background chaos of the event. Even if someone could read lips, the angle was wrong to see our mouths enough to garner anything.
The angle was wrong in general.
If it was coming from the press side, it should’ve been Tripp’s back on the video. But it was our sides.
As I watched, the comment and like numbers shot up. Not by one or two at a time, but hundreds.
I clicked the comment button before I could stop myself.
·Who is that?
·Is that his new assistant?
·I liked the hot guy better. Where’s he?
·Why is he touching her like that?
·If that’s his assistant, I’m also in the market for one. I have a big job she can do.
·Her username is GreerMoves. What a dumb name.
I mean, they weren’t wrong. I’d picked the name since hiking and yoga were pretty much my only hobbies, but even I knew it was stupid.
·I wish she would MOVE away from MY man.