Chase Me (Broke and Beautiful #1)(8)

“And yet still not the weirdest thing that happened to me today,” Honey muttered.

“When you say it like that, it sounds horrible.” Abby shrugged. “Okay, it’s a little horrible. But mostly, it’s a cry for help. I’m starting to talk to myself. I’m talking two-sided conversations, here. It would be nice to say ‘pass the orange juice’ to someone other than the ghost.”

Honey shifted on her feet. “I’m going to need the ghost jokes to stop here.”

Abby’s mouth tugged at the corner. “So? In or out? I’m throwing caution to the wind. I’m not going to do credit checks because, honestly, I don’t need the money bad enough to care. You both seem relatively normal in a way that tells me I won’t be fearing for my life. Move in today?”

Roxy tapped the checkbook against her thigh. A minute ago, she’d been ready to do whatever it took to live in this apartment. Now she wasn’t so sure. Abby had thrown down the one requirement Roxy didn’t feel comfortable offering. Friendship. Not that she didn’t have friends, per se, but they were mostly girls she ran into at auditions who only had five minutes for conversation before they took off on their next theatrical quest. What passed as communication with her old roommates had consisted of a palm being held out on the first of the month, looking for that elusive rent check. But this? This would be different. She’d be expected to interact. Drop character. She hadn’t done that in a while. Especially since she’d been on her own. In high school, she’d brought antisocial to a whole new level, and after facing so many setbacks in New York, she’d grown even more comfortable in her me-against-the-world cocoon.

Despite Abby’s assurances to the contrary, Roxy could see this for what it was. A rich girl looking to rebel. She wanted companionship, someone to talk to and possibly confide in. Roxy had never been anyone’s confidante save her own. Against her will, she felt a spark of sympathy for Abby. In the brief moments since entering the apartment, she’d kind of started to like her. But she wasn’t what Abby was looking for. She didn’t do girly chats. She didn’t share giant bowls of popcorn while a New Girl marathon played in the background. For two years now, she’d been on her own. Something told her that if she wrote this check—this bad check—that would change. Was she ready?

Screw it. What choice did she have? She took a pen out of her backpack, wrote a check for two hundred dollars, then handed it to Abby. “Can you, uh, wait a couple of days to cash that?”

Abby watched her closely, too closely, before nodding. “Sure.”

To her left, Honey approached with a fist full of twenties. “I’m in, too.”

“Well.” Abby shoved the cash and check into the front pocket of her blazer. “Shall I cook dinner for us tonight?”

“Don’t push it,” Roxy said, just as Honey answered, “I’ll make the salad.”

Roxy headed toward the front door, shaking her head. “Catch you girls later. Don’t wait up.”

When she closed the door behind her, she stood in the silent hallway for a beat before grabbing her cell phone from the side pocket of her backpack. Cursing once under her breath, she dialed the number on the slip of paper, just beneath the strip-o-gram rates. No other way she’d be able to bank two hundred dollars in time for Abby to cash the check. She supposed she could scramble and try to find a waitressing job, but she knew from experience that restaurants usually required at least a full shift of training without pay before they let you take home tips. She’d never been trained in bartending. No, on short notice, this was all she could come up with.

Looked like she’d be using Louis McNally the Second’s twenty-buck tip to get a cheap wax.





Chapter 4



LOUIS TAPPED THE pencil against his desk in rapid succession. He should be working. A stack of legal briefs on his desk were calling his name, taunting him, whispering about his slacker nature. Unfortunately, he only had eyes for the digital clock on his computer screen. Six minutes past ten in the morning. If he could’ve placed a bet on rabbit girl being the type to run late, he would have made it without hesitation. She seemed like the type to make a man suffer before gracing him with her presence. Applying that last stroke of lip gloss and missing the train in the process. Every minute that passed was torture. A delay of the inevitable explosion that would happen when she walked into his office dressed as Lady Liberty and realized he’d ordered her from the agency to sing “New York, New York” bright and early on a Monday morning.

In his humble defense, he’d been given no choice in the matter. The smug prick who’d answered the phone at Singaholix Anonymous had refused to pass on her contact information. Wouldn’t even tell Louis her name. Instead, his response had been, “There’s only one surefire way to see her again, isn’t there, buddy?” Realizing the move would almost completely screw his chances with rabbit girl, Louis had nonetheless found himself reciting his credit card information into the phone, giving a phony name so she wouldn’t blow him off completely. And this came on the heels of calling Zoe, his one-night stand, to get the agency’s number, earning him an affronted screech and an aching eardrum.

Yeah, he was that desperate to see rabbit girl again. Desperate enough to risk having his eyeballs clawed out before he ate the peanut butter and banana sandwich he’d brought for lunch. But the weekend had done nothing to dull the memory of her from his mind. If anything, it had grown stronger. There had been one weak moment in the shower this morning when he’d considered trying to re-create the kiss with the back of his hand. It had been a damn close call.