Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 77018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
And ever since I’d met him, he had been the stealer of all my joy. Of all my hopes and dreams and the best assignments, and the sick little fantasy I’d had that maybe he could be “the one” before I’d realized what a piece of work he was. He had been really charming the first few months of work.
Margot gave my shoulder the best friend, ride-or-die, reassuring squeeze. “This will be the best worst thing you’ve ever done.”
“Best worst thing…” I nodded, reminding myself that the forecast for Paris next week was all sunshine and croissants, while Manhattan expected five days of thunderstorms and power outages. But even with that knowledge, I didn’t move.
“Jesus loves all the little children. Give it to me.” Margot snatched the slightly crinkled paper from my grasp. “Just so you know, I expect a T-shirt or a keyring out of this.” She yanked a piece of tape from his dispenser and used it to adhere the message to his phone. “And a voicemail with a muffled, huh-huh-huh, tittee tittee cwasant.”
“Stop with the accent, Margot.”
I stared at the note she’d taped to his phone, the full-color picture of Paul in front of the Alamo at the bottom center. That photograph was absolutely not work-appropriate, and if the seventy-year-old receptionist shuffled by and saw it, I was afraid she’d have a coronary. I could not have death and blackmail on my conscience.
Shaking my head, I grabbed a Post-it note from Vance’s tidy desk and used it to cover the dick pic.
“Good move, Blake.” Margot patted my back. “Now it’s like an adult version of a lift-the-flap book. But instead of opening the barn door to see a cow go moo, you get a dick in front of the Alamoo.”
She had not just said the Alamoo… We were halfway around the cubicles when the door at the front of the office banged open. We both froze. Margot’s wide gaze met mine when the fluorescent lights flickered to life and a loud clang echoed through the workspace.
“Stop, drop, and roll,” she whisper-shouted, ducking to the floor.
Margot army crawled through the maze of desks while I shuffled after her like a cross between the Hunchback of Notre Dame and Igor. I caught sight of the janitor wheeling the bulky utility cart through the door as I darted to the emergency exit behind Margot.
“And now we go to Sticky Creme Donuts and wait…”
We gorged ourselves on donuts and coffee, making sure we didn’t show up at the office until we were ten minutes late, as usual, to keep down suspicions.
Margot dropped the bag of extra donuts on her desk, then pushed up onto her tiptoes, straining her neck to see over the divider. Her brows crinkled. “He’s not here?” she whispered. “And the ‘you know what’ is still there.”
Vance was always at work before we arrived. I tried my best to peek over, but I couldn’t see over the top of the cubicle. “I swear, if he calls in sick.”
“If he calls in sick, we go to plan B.”
“Plan B?” I said. As far as I’d known, there was no plan B.
“Show up at his apartment.”
Glaring at her, I dropped back to my feet. “And do what, break in?”
“Of course not. First, we’ll knock like civilized people.”
“We’re not going to his apartment. If he—”
“I can’t wait to see what you come up with, Vance.” Amanda’s voice floated down the hallway. “And don’t forget to turn in your travel documents today.”
“I’ve already got them ready to go,” he said, his heavy footsteps padding through the maze of cubicles.
The springs on his chair creaked. Papers rustled, then came the thwriiiip of his ripping that note from his phone, followed by a hushed, “What the actual fuck…”
By a quarter to eleven, I’d accomplished absolutely nothing work-wise. Although, how much preparation did I need to do for a trip to the Lunchbox Museum? Much less a trip I wouldn’t be taking if this whole blackmail thing worked in my favor.
I clicked from my email back to the homepage of the museum. Ten dollars to browse a room that looked like nothing more than a screened-in back porch.
The higher-ups had thought this assignment had my name written all over it? If that were the case, it was probably time to look for a new job.
My phone buzzed on the desk. A text banner from Margot flashed across the screen. Margot: I snapped this when I went to the restroom earlier.
Another string of messages came through. The first was a photo of Vance at his desk, followed by a split-screen collage of a photo from My Dick Travels and the same one of Vance working. A red circle was drawn around the incriminating birthmark in both photographs.
And I have about twenty other My Dick Travels screenshots saved to my phone.