So … no midnight celebration for me. I was too cold and tired to care. Plus, the thought of standing in a dingy hallway while the ballroom chanted the countdown was depressing. I nodded, reaching out for Chanel. “Happy New Year,” I managed.
“Oh. Yes.” She looked surprised, her eyes dropping to my outfit as if realizing, for the first time, that I was at the party. “Happy New Year.”
I pulled out the card that I’d been given for the driver, his name in silver font above his number. Dante Radicci. I called the number, tapping the card against my leg as I huddled against an unused corner of the hall, waitstaff passing frequently on their way to and from the kitchen, my hunger growing with each pass of their trays.
After speaking to Dante and arranging pick-up, I hung up and glanced out the back door, the loading dock empty, the alley free of cars.
“Thinking of running?”
I turned at the question, seeing the stranger from earlier, his hands in his pockets, strolling toward me. He’d lost the jacket, it draped over one arm, and his bowtie hung loose, the top button of his shirt undone. I glanced away. “Waiting on a driver.”
“Leaving before midnight?”
I looked back. “My boss wants her baby taken home.” I lifted Chanel with a small smile.
“You look tired.” He raised a brow, and I wanted to launch across the hall, despite my tired state, and tackle his sexy ass.
I swallowed. “Just disillusioned. It’s a new job. A little different than I thought.” Wasn’t that the truth? It turned out actually working wasn’t fun. Another life lesson not learned from my parents.
“You’re … what? A pet nanny?” He glanced at Chanel and stepped closer. I tensed. Service provider or not, I wasn’t entirely sure I could resist myself if he came any closer. I could use some servicing myself.
“Personal assistant.” The reply came out wrong, dripping with self-importance. “What are you doing here?” I nodded to his nametag and prayed that he was at least management.
“Maintenance.” He glanced up at the ceiling. “It’s an old building. This is its first big event. I’m here in case it falls apart.”
I followed his eyes, suddenly nervous. “Is that a possibility?”
He laughed. “No. But there are a lot of little problems that could arise. Small fires.” He ran a hand through his hair and I noticed grime across his knuckles.
A maintenance worker. Great material for porn. Not so much for Chloe Madison’s Life Plan. I leaned down and picked up Chanel’s bag, edging closer to the door. I needed to leave before I lost all common sense. “Well.” I pushed open the door, a cold breeze sweeping through the opening. “Happy New Year,” I chirped in parting, shivering despite myself.
He didn’t move, just smiled, as if he could see right through me. “Happy New Year,” he said softly.
I shifted Chanel higher in my arms and walked out, into the dark and empty alley.
Better to risk my safety on a dim New York street than my heart to a blue-collar stranger.
They say the job makes the person. It needed to work faster. I was a disorganized mess, one that lived on fast food and my best friends’ scraps. I beat on the glass of my old world and desperately wanted back in, each day in my new life more discouraging, the varnish of my prior life rubbing off, a new Chloe emerging.
I didn’t want her—I only wanted the past.
New Year’s resolutions suck. When I’d packed up my condo, I’d found mine from last year. The list was on the back of a Nordstrom receipt and was filled with crap like lose fifteen pounds and start meditating and pin more. There were ten things on the list, and I had only successfully completed one: switch to diet soda. Whoopee.
Knowing my track record, I still sat down and made a list. I did it in the backseat of the Brantleys’ Escalade, Dante taking me home after work, the constant stop and go of the traffic giving the writing a slightly jagged appearance, as if the words were haunted. I kept it short, wanting to actually accomplish the list, each item pretty damn important.
1. Get an apartment.
2. Pay off NYU and get my degree.
3. Don’t sleep with Vic.
Granted, it was more of a to-do list than proper resolutions, but whatever. Being new to the grown-up table, I was allowed some slack. My list was also way less glamorous than Nicole’s, whose included being nominated for an Oscar (Resolution #4) and buying a house in Bali (Resolution #18). But I figured the chances of her getting an Oscar and me not sleeping with Vic were pretty neck-and-neck.
I carefully tore out the page and folded it in half, sticking it into my wallet, the action reverent, as if the location might increase my chances. I put the wallet into my purse, reaching down and pulling on my heels as Dante turned down Cammie’s street. Benta lived in a luxury tower, but Cammie loved her brownstone duplex. I wasn’t a fan. The heat came out through a steam radiator, for God’s sake. The woman couldn’t stand germs but bathed in water that shot from 200-year-old pipes.
The SUV rocked as we pulled closer, and I leaned across, trying to see through the snow, my eyes squinting on the figure in front of the brownstone. It was Cammie, stamping her feet against the cold, looking pissed. I cracked open the door, surprised to see Dante jump out, his grin wide and friendly, one he’d never flashed at me.
Hmmm. So the ice king did melt. Maybe I just wasn’t his brand of heat.
His grin instantly softened Cammie’s scowl. I stumbled out, slipping on the icy sidewalk, Dante completely unaware as he shook Cammie’s gloved hands, her giggle floating my way. I tried to sneak by and their lovefest came to an end, Cammie’s hand reaching out and grabbing my coat. “Can’t go up there.”
“Why?”
“Something clogged up the plumbing on our floor. The whole place is flooded. I’m waiting for a ride.”
“Boyfriend coming to pick you up?” Dante spoke from behind me and I turned at the question, raising my eyebrows.
“No, just a cab.” Cammie said, smiling. She glanced at me. “I thought we could go to Benta’s.”
“Let me drive you.”
Wow. Definitely not the Dante I knew. He and Cammie were suddenly in movement, one of his hands on her elbow, helping her across the curb, the other opening her door, apparently no need to consult little Chloe in the decision-making process. I slogged alone through the snow, and managed to climb, unescorted, into the passenger side.
We pulled away, and Cammie beamed at me, any irritation over the plumbing gone. “He’s hot,” she mouthed, nodding toward the front.
I shrugged as if I hadn’t noticed, more than a little irritated at Dante’s 180 toward friendliness. Then again, Cammie and I had always appealed to different types—a good thing for a friendship. “Go for it,” I mouthed back. I settled into the seat, turning up the heater, and watched her do just that.
9. My old friend: Tiffany
I woke up Saturday morning on Benta’s loveseat, a spare comforter wrapped around me, a puddle of drool underneath my cheek, to the distinct sounds of a hookup. Not skin-slapping, breath-gasping actual humping, but something solidly in the second-base vicinity.
My spot in the living room gave me a front-row view of the action, happening on Benta’s kitchen counter. Cammie’s dark bare legs were wrapped around one hell of a jean-covered ass, her pale pink nails digging into the guy’s white T-shirt.