“God, I must love you. I can’t believe I went to this with you.”
She hands me the picture, and I burst out laughing. I’d taken a picture of us at the same time she was dumping her soda over a guy’s head. He’d been talking about loving new freshman pussy for half the game and Paige finally cracked.
“That one’s mine.” She takes it back from me.
“Oh, I’ve got copies,” I remind her. That was the day I realized Paige wasn’t a normal student at Yale. The boy she’d dumped the soda on tried to get her expelled, but he was the one who ended up waist-deep in trouble.
Paige’s dad had money and power, but it wasn’t something we talked about much. She didn’t offer a lot on the subject, and I didn’t push. I had things of my own I didn’t care to talk about, too.
“I’m over this.” She gets up and plops down on the other sofa, throwing her feet up on the coffee table. I cringe a little. This table is probably worth more than I could make in two months, just like the rest of the furniture in here. Most everything was already here before we moved in. Paige acted like it was no big deal.
“You’ve literally unpacked one frame.”
“You need to feed me, or I’m going on strike.”
“I’m actually pretty hungry, too. You’re from here—what should we order?” I pull my phone from my pocket and look for local delivery places.
“Forget that. We’re going out. It’s Friday night, and it’s our first night in the city.”
“We have a lot to unpack and I need to study more.” I pick up one of the books off the coffee table to remind her. The internship had sent over a stack of books and folders I’ve been combing over. I’ve read them all at least three times but I still want to go over them again. Maybe make some flash cards. I don’t want to be asked a question and not know the answer immediately.
“Nope. We have all weekend. I’ve decided. Dinner and then out for a few drinks. We can unpack Saturday and Sunday, and you can do all your overthinking and analyzing about your new job then. Tonight let’s have some drinks and shake our asses.”
She grabs the book from my hand, tossing it back onto the coffee table and knocking the stack of books over as she hops up from the sofa, then holds on to me and pulls me with her.
“We haven’t unpacked our clothes or makeup or anything!” I try to reason with her as I think about what I’m going to wear. This is New York. Aren’t I supposed to meet, like, a sheikh or something? All I really have are jeans and tops. And a few business clothes I’d picked up for my new internship.
“We can do a little of both. Get some stuff unpacked while we get ready.”
“I’m not sure I have anything that will work for whatever it is you have in mind,” I tell her, following her to our rooms, dodging random boxes in the hallway.
“Simple and sexy. Wear your tight black pants, and you can wear my black boots. Then all you have to do is find a cute top.”
“That’ll work for where we’re going?” Before this I’d been to New York twice and was completely lost both times. It’s a little overwhelming for me, a step out of my comfort zone. Even after being at Yale for four years, I still sometimes feel out of place, like I don’t quite fit in.
“Mal, I’m not taking you anywhere crazy. Just getting a steak down the street and stopping in somewhere we can have a few drinks. Girls’ night.”
I know she added the last two words to sucker me in.
“Can I do your hair?” I ask, wanting to play with her long auburn locks.
“Will you eat whatever I order?” she fires back. Paige has this thing where she likes to pick up the bill, but she also likes to eat at the most expensive places. No one can rip through a steak like her. I had to stop fighting her on picking up the bill, but I try not to order anything crazy-expensive. She’s not having it tonight, it seems.
“Deal.”
“No hair spray,” she adds quickly.
“No appetizers.”
“Fine, hair spray,” she grumbles before heading into her room, making me burst into laughter. Maybe I can talk her into a little mascara.
“No makeup!” I hear her yell from her bedroom, making me laugh even harder.
Chapter Two
Mallory
* * *
“Jameson. Neat,” I shout over the music in the club.
After Paige and I finished dinner, we took a cab to the Upper East Side, closer to where our condo is. She said we’d have a couple of drinks before we headed home, and I thought she had something a little tamer in mind. I didn’t want this to be a long night. I need to be up early and at it again. I only had days before I started my new job. I should have known better when we pulled up outside a bar and there was a line out the door. Paige wiggled her eyebrows at me as she hopped out of the cab and went straight to the bouncer up front.
I jumped out of the cab behind her and barely heard what she said to the doorman as he unfastened the velvet ropes and waved the two of us in. I didn’t get to ask her how she did that before we walked through the double doors and were hit by loud music.
Seven Eight Nine is more of a club than a bar. The place is swanky, but there’s a dance floor in the middle of the place and a DJ throwing down like it’s New Year’s Eve. It’s dark around the edges of the dance floor, with big velvet couches huddled up in corners. I rest against the bar, waiting on my drink as I watch Paige talk to a guy on the other side of it.