The Trapped Girl (Tracy Crosswhite #4)(11)

“Fine,” I said. Why? I don’t know why. I have this aggravating need to be agreeable. I’m pretty sure there’s a medical term for it. Spinus Missingus—Of or relating to the lack of a spine.

“Good,” Brenda said, eyeballing me with distrust. “I’m going to call if I don’t see you.”

“I’ll be there,” I said.

“I’ll be looking for you,” she said. Then she smiled. “It’ll be fun. Trust me.”

I think Custer uttered those final words to his troops just before leading them into the Battle of Little Bighorn, but I was good as my word. I did attend. And I’ll be shit struck if I didn’t actually meet someone. Graham Strickland.

The gathering was in the ballroom of a luxury hotel called The Nines in downtown Portland. Since my loft was in the Pearl District, at least I didn’t have far to walk. I searched a table set up outside the room with name tags arranged in alphabetical order. Of course, I didn’t see my name, probably because I hadn’t RSVP’d. After the woman at the table asked me about a billion questions to confirm I wasn’t some freak looking to crash boring insurance parties, she grinned and said in a perky voice, “Well, I’ll just make you a name tag.”

I cringed. That meant instead of the preprinted name tags with the company logo and typewritten name everyone else was wearing, I’d be wearing a handwritten piece of paper slapped onto my sweater. “Why don’t you just brand my forehead with a big L for ‘Loser,’” I said.

I wish. I’d said that to myself.

I walked into the ballroom with my loser name tag looking like I had a big scarlet A on my forehead. The room was packed, which I also found really pathetic. Didn’t these people have anything better to do?

I didn’t see Brenda, not right away, and I didn’t really know anyone else, except in passing in the hallways, so I sort of just meandered until I found myself near the buffet. Eating would at least give the appearance I was doing something. To my surprise, it wasn’t a bad spread. Swedish meatballs, chicken skewers, fruit and cheese plates, bread rolls, and a man cutting small pieces of prime rib. I mainly subsist on tuna fish and peanut butter and jelly, so this was a major score.

I was making my way through the food line when someone said, “You were last minute too, huh?”

It was the guy behind me, though I wasn’t sure he was speaking to me. Then he smiled and made it pretty clear he had been. Love at first sight? Not on your life. First impression? I thought Graham looked like something out of that television show, Mad Men, with his hair gelled and parted low on the side of his head, his suit a size too small, his tie too narrow, and his day-old growth too forced. Trying way too hard, pal.

“Your name tag,” he said, pointing. “You must have RSVP’d late also.”

That’s when I noticed his name tag had also been hand printed. Duh. “Oh, yeah,” I said.

“Me too,” he said, like that somehow made us brothers in arms.

I looked around for a moment. I didn’t know who this guy was or who was standing within hearing distance, but I threw caution to the wind. “My boss said if I didn’t attend, she’d fire me. I think she was kidding, but I wasn’t sure. So . . .”

He chuckled at that, and it actually looked and sounded genuine. “Mine said I needed to cultivate business opportunities if I want to be considered partnership material.”

He spoke the words with an affected, authoritative tone.

“You’re a lawyer,” I said.

“I work at Begley, Smalls, Begley, and Timmins.” He leaned closer and lowered his voice. “That’s BSBT, or Bullshit Big Time.”

I laughed. “You said ‘Begley’ twice.”

“Father and son. Old fart and heir apparent.” He rolled his eyes. “If he wasn’t the founding partner’s son, he’d be serving food in a soup kitchen. Guy has the imagination of one of those drones who sits in cubicles punching numbers all day.”

That would be me! I shouted inside my head. Can you introduce me?

“I think my firm and your company do some business together,” he said.

“So you’re a lawyer,” I said, stalling, while I mentally calculated his age—four years of college and three years of law school—Graham was, at a minimum, twenty-five. Turns out he was twenty-eight, six years older than me. “Sounds like you don’t like it much.” I suddenly realized I was holding up the buffet line, grabbed a couple cubes of cheese, and slid down the table.

“I don’t mind the practice of law,” Graham said, lowering his voice. “I just really don’t like the corporate environment. I’m an entrepreneur. I like to build things from the ground up.”

“Start-ups?” I asked.

“Exactly. Get the prime rib,” he said. “It might make coming here worthwhile.”

“I’m a vegetarian,” I said. Only I wasn’t and I had no idea why I said I was.

He stuck out his free hand. “I’m a carnivore. Nice to meet you.” He pointed to his handwritten name tag. “Strickland,” he said in a British accent. “Graham Strickland.”

My first thought wasn’t James Bond. It was crackers—Graham Crackers. You know, the kind you use to make s’mores. My second thought was pretentious. My third thought, however, was talking to anyone beat standing alone looking like a big loser, and that thought won the day.