Page 58 of Positively Pricked

Chapter 20

I stared at my former neighbor. "Wait, did you say theBenningtonHotel?"

Standing with me in the library, Lydia nodded. "Yeah, my uncle's a manager in the main kitchen."

My shoulders slumped. "Oh."

Lydia and I used to live in the same apartment building. We'd lost touch after I'd moved, but meeting her by chance seemed like the best luck ever, until like thirty seconds ago.

"Why?" she asked. "Is that a problem?" She hesitated. "Youdidsay you'd take anything, right?"

It was true. I had said that.

We'd been chatting for maybe ten or fifteen minutes when I'd asked her if she happened to know of anyone who was hiring. In what felt like amazing luck, she told me that she knew of a big hotel that was ramping up its catering staff.

Best of all, they were looking to fill those positions right away. The timing was perfect, and the way it sounded, the pay wasn't half-bad, at least by food-service standards.

There was only one problem. The job happened to be at the one hotel I was determined to avoid.

Lydia gave me a sympathetic smile. "If it makes you feel any better, I'm working as a barista."

That made me pause. "But wait. What about your art degree?"

"What about it?" she said. "I paint on the side, but…" With a shrug, she let her words trail off. "Well, you know how it is."

Ididknow. Still, I was curious. "But the job you just mentioned… Don't take this the wrong way, but if it's so great, why aren'tyouinterested?"

"Oh, that's an easy one," she said. "You know how I’m working at that coffee shop? Well, the owner's really great. She lets me hang my paintings on the walls,witha price tag."

"Oh, so you sell them?"

Lydia frowned. "In theory." She glanced away. "I mean, I haven't sold any yet, but you never know, right?"

I nodded. "Right. Definitely."

"But how about you?" Lydia said. "Why don'tyouwant this job?"

"It's not that I don't want it," I explained. "It's just kind of complicated."

I glanced toward the nearby copy machine, the one I'd been using to print off more copies of my resume. I wasn't even sure why I bothered. After all, you didn't need a resume for low-level service jobs.

But in my own defense, I'd been applying for plenty of professional jobs, too. The only difference was, for those jobs, I usually applied on-line, because that's what most hiring agencies insisted on.

In front of me, Lydia asked, "Complicated how?"

I sighed. "Well, the truth is, I've met the hotel's owner, and let's just say we kind of hate each other."

Her eyes widened in obvious surprise. "You don't mean Zane Bennington?"

And there it was, that dreaded name again. "Uh, yeah. Actually, I do."

"Wow." Lydia was grinning now. "You lucky dog."

"Hardly." I tried to laugh. "Youdidhear the part where we hate each other?"

"But you actually met him?" She leaned forward. "What wasthatlike?"

"Awful."