The admission spilled out of me, and the truth of it dragged my high down to the bottom of the ocean.
But Veronica reached for my hand and squeezed it. “Pen, listen, that’s Peggy talking.”
“Ugh, fucking Peggy!” I groaned.
“Exactly. She’s trying to sabotage you, but don’t let her. Fuck that bitch.”
I didn’t respond — I was too busy feeling sorry for myself — so she kept going with more determination.
“You are the toughest chick I know, and the very last thing I expect from you is to let fear stop you from doing anything. Jump out of the plane, Pen. Because Bodie isn’t Rodney — he’s not going to manipulate you or hurt you, not on purpose. Plus, you aren’t sixteen; you’re twenty-six. You’ve lived and learned, and you can do this. Bodie’s worth the risk even if you fail.”
I dropped my eyes to the table.
“You aren’t going to fail.”
I still didn’t say anything.
“Okay, how about this? Let’s come up with a … safe word of sorts. If you feel the psycho coming on, you just text me the safe word, and I’ll save you. I’ll be your shot of whiskey. I’ll be your fucking life jacket.”
I perked up a little. “Maybe that’ll work. Can I pick the safe word?”
She laughed. “Of course.”
I smiled as filthy words rolled through my head, but it didn’t feel like a Dirty Sanchez sort of a safe-word situation. “Hmm,” I hummed, thinking. Then I snapped my fingers. “Bear trap.”
Her eyebrows shifted; one went up, and one went down. “Bear trap?”
I sat up a little straighter in my seat. “Yeah, like I’m skipping through the forest, minding my own shit, and then — wham. Bear trap. Totally derailed, chew-my-own-foot-off crazy.”
Veronica chuckled. “I like it. So you just say the word, and I’ll spring the trap so you won’t have to eat off an appendage.”
I sighed, feeling relieved. “I like this plan. Plans are good.”
“Plans are great. And you know what?”
“What?” I asked hopefully.
She smiled with knowledge and understanding, and I felt a zillion times better.
“You’re going to be okay.”
And I was dumb and desperate enough to actually believe her.
#ThingsThatAreLies
Phil shook his head and pushed away from his desk. “I can’t fucking figure this out, man.”
I rubbed my bleary eyes with the pads of my fingers and rolled over so I could see his monitor, scanning the code, looking for errors.
“Here.” I tapped the screen. “You divided by zero, and it’s terminating.”
Phil groaned. “I’m so tired. We can’t keep going on like this.”
I nodded. “Look, we’ll get caught up tonight if we can keep our shit together. And tomorrow, you can sleep all day.”
Angie appeared behind him with a plate of brownies, her big brown eyes shining. “Sounds like it’s time for a break.”
“Oh, sweet,” Jude said, leaning over to swipe one. “Man, I’m starving,” he said with his mouth full.
“Maybe we could order another pizza,” Phil offered.
I glanced around at our desks — a graveyard of plates, coffee cups, napkins, and empty cans of Red Bull. “We had pizza yesterday.”
“And the day before,” Jude added.
Angie lit up. “Let me make you guys dinner.”
Phil rested a hand on her hip. “You don’t have to do that, babe.”
She shrugged and smiled. “Oh, I don’t mind. I’ll make something easy. How does spaghetti sound? I’ll run down and grab a salad and some French bread too, and make it extra fancy with sausage instead of beef.”
My mouth watered at the thought. “So much better than pizza. You’re an angel, Angie.”
She blushed and waved a hand, giggling; the sound was like tinkling bells. All three of us smiled back at her.
Jude jerked a chin at Phil. “You picked a good one, Philly.”
Phil just smiled.
I ran a hand over my face as I yawned, hoping I could stay up for another eight to twelve hours so we could get back on schedule. We were less than a week from the meeting, and the demo was so close to being ready. We just needed to spend the next week spit-shining it and working out the kinks.
And honestly, Jude had the most work cut out for him, getting the graphics where we wanted them. Because graphics would be the first thing that would sell it. Then story, then usability. And we were ambitious enough to want all three to be of such quality, there would be no way they could tell us no.
My phone rang from my desk, and I picked it up, smiling at a photo of Penny and me, a selfie we had taken at the wedding.
I hadn’t seen her since I burned her pancakes two days before. And I hated the eight to twelve hours that stood between us.
I answered and sat back in my chair. “Hey.”
“Hey yourself,” she said on a laugh. “How’s it going in the cave?”
“None of us have showered in days, we’ve had pizza for the last three meals, including breakfast, and our coffeepot has had hot to warm coffee in it for forty-eight hours straight.”