Page 15 of Three Wickedly Bad Neighbors and a Very Grumpy Girl (Three Guys and a Girl Volume 2, #8)
? Chapter Fifteen
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A very
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O kay, what’s happening right now?
“Avery,” I say to myself, trying for a strong voice, but I can’t hide the tremor. Oh god, I’m crying. I never cry. Not anymore, anyway. Tears slip down my cheeks, and my lips quiver.
Wait, why am I crying? It’s not the traffic. Are these happy tears? They’re happy tears, right? I’m starting a new job at a prestigious firm, and my salary is triple what I earned before. This is my dream job. So I’m happy I got what I wanted. Except that’s not the reason I’m full-on sobbing now.
It’s them. They’re going to wake up, find me gone, and go about their day. Tonight, there’ll be someone else on their gigantic air mattress, which was there solely for an orgy they planned to have if I hadn’t interrupted them.
They’ll pick someone else, and they’ll like her better because I’m too grumpy, bossy, and not pretty enough. Did I really think I was going to be the chosen one? On a scale of one to a hundred of girls they could have, I’m one hundred and one.
I’m crying so much that other drivers are looking at me in confusion while I leave a puddle in my lap.
But they would cry too if they were in my situation.
Why did I think this would be any different?
Did I want them to be my boyfriends? Oh, I’m so pathetic.
Ugh. I sob for a good two minutes nonstop.
Right, I need to woman up. I risk a glance in the mirror at the traffic light and shriek. I jump-scare myself. Now I look like a drowned rat. My eyes are red and puffy, my nose is red, and I just look terrible. Chin up, Stephens.
If I mess up this job on the first day, I’m going to be officially unemployed. The thought of being adrift with no plan doesn’t freak me out the way it should. Oh dear.
I make it to the skyscraper with a minute to spare, and I’m out of breath since, between the stairs and elevators, I had to speed-walk once I reached the top floor where the big boss’s offices are.
I try to touch up my face, but I need a bathroom and at least an hour for layering on more makeup. I don’t have an hour. I have a minute before I start my job and meet my new boss for the first time.
“Oh, Avery, thank god. You’re going to be my savior. It’s utter chaos. Walk with me. We don’t have time. Are you all right?”
Lesley Blake, the human resources manager—the woman who hired me after a series of grueling interviews—gives me a side look as she assesses me.
I know. I know. At the first chance I get, I will dash to the bathroom to salvage my face and redo my hair. The important thing is that I’m not late despite my brain having a meltdown, and I’m just here, trying to keep it together.
“Oh, I’m fine.” Once I’m thrown into the job, what I lack in appearance, I’ll make up for with skill. “Allergies,” I say. “I hope Mr. Anderson will understand. But it does not affect how I do my job.”
“Oh, you poor thing. But back to business. Anderson is the least of our problems, apparently. Obsidia is being shaken to its core. No one saw this coming. It all went down in the last hour. One minute everything is fine, the next—poof—everything has changed. Now please, I need you to work your magic so everything can sail a little more smoothly, although that might not be for a while. Ready?”
“Will I be meeting with Sonia first?”
Sonia Mathewson is the PA whose job I’m taking over. She’s retiring, her last day at the end of the week, which gives her five days to show me the ropes.
“Oh, no, Sonia just took her bag and left. She said she’s too old for this.”
“So there’s no Sonia?”
What is going on? What is Lesley talking about? It’s only then I notice the frenzy around me. People are running as if they’re on fire.
Lesley stands at the huge double doors of what can only be the boardroom.
“No, Sonia,” she says as she places her hands on the doorknobs.
Am I going to come face-to-face with my new boss?
I smooth down my skirt, as if that will help.
I just need to assure him that how I look is a one-off thing and has nothing to do with how I do my job.
I straighten my shoulders, and I nearly pass out at the sight before me.
“Mr. Wallace, Mr. Crawford, and Mr. Robertson. This is Avery Stephens. She’ll be your new PA, and I can guarantee she’ll make this transition as smooth as possible for you. You’re in good hands.”
This is the part where I confidently march up to the boss, shake his hand, and sing my own praises in the most practical manner, letting him know without saying it that his life is now my life and my life runs like a well-oiled machine, day and night. But I’m too paralyzed to speak.
The three men I’m staring at just happen to be the three Marine guys from next door, whose brains I shamelessly boinked with extreme gusto multiple times last night. There isn’t a spot on my body they haven’t touched with their hands, lips, teeth, or their cocks. Nowhere.
I must be dreaming.
And how on earth do they look the way they do when I look like this?
We had the same amount of sleep, sporadic as it was.
We participated in all the same things. Yet here I am, looking like I’m hungover, with tear-stained eyes, misbehaving hair, and a broken heart, while they’re freshly shaved, their hair meticulously groomed.
They look nothing like before and are dressed in suits that cost thousands of dollars.
They look like billionaires.