Between Hello and Goodbye(3)

“Shit shit shit!”

Another text from Viv came in but I was too busy scrambling out of my bedmate’s king-sized barge of Egyptian cotton and mahogany. I was tugging on my dress that was balled on the floor when Jack-or-Jake stirred and sat up. Dirty blond hair fell over his brow in an adorable mop that I vaguely remember tugging my fingers through last night.

“Where’s the fire?” he asked with an easy smile.

“Oh, hi…?”

“Jack. Phillips.”

“Right, Jack. I…uh, I’m Faith,” I stammered, my face heating at the cringe of introducing myself to a guy I’d already slept with.

“I remember,” Jack said, smiling. “Would you like some breakfast, Faith?”

Nice smile and a gentleman, too. If only he’d been a heavier sleeper, I could’ve made a clean escape.

He started to turn back the covers.

“No, no, don’t get up,” I said, hopping on one foot to get my heels on. “I’m late for a meeting. A big one.”

“Coffee?”

“I can’t. So very late…”

I spun in a circle in search of my Marc Jacobs. Jack sat propped against his pillows, watching me, amused.

“The chair,” he said.

I grabbed my bag. “Thanks. Well, it’s been nice. Great…I think.”

“It was pretty great,” Jack said. “Can I call you?”

“Um, sure…” I mumbled, tossing my phone into my bag and shouldering it. “Looking forward to it.”

He chuckled. “I’ll need your number.”

“Right. Talk to you soon…”

I hurried out of the bedroom. Gentleman Jack—whoever he was—was loaded. His condo was almost as nice as mine, with stunning views of a brilliant Seattle morning that stabbed me in the eyeballs. I found my jacket and made my way to the front door.

A familiar song and dance. Jack’s place could have been a set in a play, one I starred in every week. Just change out a few details, switch out a few props, but the rest was the same. The same hangover, the same rush to get to work, the same walk-of-shame that I’d never actually felt shame about.

Except now.

Regret was mixing uncomfortably in my upset stomach when I’d made a vow to myself to never regret a thing. To live life to the fullest and all that crap.

But is it living life when you can’t even remember it?

I called an Uber as the posh elevator took me down. Another text from Viv popped up.

Where’d you go?

I jabbed back: Nestle meeting! I’m late!!!

Oh shit! Followed by laughing emojis. #ThatsSoFaith

Normally, I’d laugh along, and we’d trade last night’s war stories. Maybe it was the headache making me grouchy, but I irritably jammed my phone in my bag as my Uber pulled to the curb.

In the posh Queen Ann neighborhood, I took another elegant elevator up to my floor and hurried as fast as my hangover would allow. I stripped out of my coat and dumped it and my purse on the floor of my spacious condo.

My condo was a loaded phrase.

Technically, it was purchased for me two years ago by Silas Marsh, billionaire scion of the pharmaceutical giant Marsh Pharma, for services rendered—me playing fiancée to appease his bigoted father. That plan had fallen apart when he met his now-husband, Max, but I still got this plush condo out of the deal, and—even better—Silas had become my best friend next to Viv. And because my BFF could buy a whole neighborhood of Queen Ann condos, I’d felt zero guilt for asking for this one. But lately, it’d been feeling less like mine every day.

“This is stupid,” I said, my head aching. “It’s been years. Why is this bothering me now?”

My empty condo had no answer, but a little voice whispered that maybe it was because I could afford to buy my own place if I got serious about…basically everything. That annoying little voice was getting louder and louder with each passing day. Waking up in yet another stranger’s bed seemed to have given it even more volume than usual.

By the time I pulled my blond hair into an updo and dressed in my Burberry power suit in pale pink with white silk blouse, I was more than twenty minutes late. My headache didn’t show any sign of relenting, so I threw on oversized Chanel sunglasses and called another Uber.

The car let me out at the downtown high rise, where Coleman & Cross had the entire fifteenth floor. The elevator spilled me out into the ad agency’s reception. From behind the desk, Benny beamed his usual smile and made a show of checking his watch.

“It’s not even ten a.m. What brings you in so early, Ms. Benson?”

“Ha ha. Are they here?”

“Conference room.”

“Shit. How long?”

“About fifteen minutes.”

“Shit shit shit.”

The Nestle people were early. Which meant I was now thirty-five minutes late.

I rushed toward the offices, reaffixing my sunglasses against the assault coming at me on all sides from the wall-to-wall glass windows. My coworkers milled around the open-concept floor plan in suits, the place smelling of coffee and expensive colognes and perfumes. I made a beeline for my corner office.

Jess Davidson popped up from her desk as I approached. My assistant—God bless her soul—had a Starbucks in one hand and a bottle of Fiji water in the other. The woman was like a circus performer: juggling my appointments, contorting herself around my shifting schedule, and swallowing the flames of my bosses’ ire when I failed to appear at the appointed times.