BigMan232: I need you naked and at my feet tonight. You’ve been a bad girl. Time to pay up.
Cora kept her phone in her lap as she surreptitiously read the message lighting the screen and tried not to roll her eyes. Ugh, get a clue, dude. She clicked Ignore and Block. She thought she’d done that the last time BigMan had contacted her in the Hayven game but apparently not.
She quickly checked her inbox to make sure she didn’t have a message from the guy she really wanted to hear from, but there was nothing there. Bummer. He’d been quiet the last few days.
“You better not be working over there, cupcake,” Grace said from across the table, her voice barely cutting through the din of voices and music at the party. She popped a stuffed mushroom into her mouth and gave Cora the cocked eyebrow of challenge.
Cora pressed the button to make the screen go black. “Not working.”
“Liar.” Grace leaned forward on her forearms, her silver bangle bracelets jangling against the table and her poker-straight blond hair turning gold under the soft lights of the winery’s gorgeous cedar and glass event space. “Well, cut that shit out. This is called a networking party for a reason. No hiding in our phones. We’re here to drink loads of local wine and to mingle.”
“The wine I can do. But mingle? Have you met me?” She held her hand out across the table. “Hello, I’m Cora Benning, your mingle-averse best friend.”
Grace ignored Cora’s outstretched hand. “Mingle-averse.”
“Yes. It’s a thing, actually—like an allergy.”
“Uh-huh,” Grace said, deadpan.
Cora gave her a grave look. “I should’ve made you aware ahead of time. I could break out in hives or something, or you know, go anaphylactic on you—throat swelling, eyes bulging. Not pretty. Really, I should be carrying an EpiPen with me just being around all these strangers who require small talk. This is why I went into IT. Medical safety.”
Grace tossed a balled-up napkin at her, missing left. “Well, you’re going to have to get over it, smartass. You’re the one who wanted to start her own company. And part of that is putting yourself out there and meeting new people. Mingling. Mixing.”
Ha. She loved that Grace framed it as Cora wanting to start her own company instead of the truth—that she’d quit her last job in an unplanned blaze of non-glory only to find out afterward that she had no decent job options that didn’t involve working overnight at a call center. Yay for expensive college degrees that apparently meant diddly without a recommendation from your previous employer.
“You need bigger jobs than setting up virus protection for Marv’s Auto Parts or helping your mother out at the police station—which, by the way, she should be paying you more for. You’ve been getting intern pay for how many years now?”
Cora shrugged. “You know I don’t do the police stuff for the money. It’s a good cause.”
Plus, she’d never admit it to her mom but she loved the challenge of working on cases. In a different world, she may have gone into the field herself, but her mom had always warned her away from it. Too dangerous. Crappy pay. Find yourself a fancy office to work in, Coraline. Capitalize on that brain of yours.
“Yeah, the good cause of keeping your mother off your back. But I promise you, if they contracted that work out to someone else, they’d be paying whoever it was a helluva lot more. Playing Good Samaritan doesn’t pay the bills. Your landlord isn’t going to care that you’re doing good deeds when you can’t make rent.”
Cora groaned and took a big sip of her wine, trying to focus on how delicious the Water’s Edge Tempranillo was and not on the cold splash of reality Grace insisted on giving her. Last thing Cora needed to think about was the dwindling number in her bank account. She’d had a decent savings when she’d left her job at Braecom, but she’d had to lean on that to get her business started. And though the part-time gig at the police station helped provide some steady income, it wasn’t enough to sustain her once her little nest egg dried up. She needed to land some bigger accounts.
However, that didn’t mean she’d suddenly developed the ability to mingle. Business meetings? Presentations? She could handle that stuff. But small talk with strangers? Ugh. She’d only been half-kidding about the hives. “I can make business contacts by email. I’m better in writing. Or on the phone.”
Where I can control things and not have to be charming.
“No, babe. That’s called spam and is the chickenshit way of going about it. You’re better than that.”
Cora rearranged the food on her tasting plate. Cubed chorizo and smoked Gouda became little Monopoly-style neighborhoods, the spicy mustard a moat in between. She resisted the urge to level the whole gourmet town with a sweep of her hand. Grace didn’t get it. The woman sparkled at these functions. She could talk to a wall and make it interested. Cora could make that same wall feel awkward and want to excuse itself to grab a drink.
When she felt Grace’s stare burning into her, she looked up and attempted a deflecting smile. “So I’m a chickenshit. Exactly when did I hire you as my business coach? Because this motivational talk is really helping. I mean, I feel like I need a poster with a dude jumping off a cliff into the open sea or something. Or maybe that one where the cat sees the lion in the mirror.” She held up her hand and curled her fingers like a claw. “Rawr.”
Grace pointed at her. “Don’t get snippy with me, Benning. I’m acting as your benevolent and helpful mentor, which means I’m not above kicking your ass. I don’t want you living on ramen by the end of the year or worse, going to back to Braecom to beg for your job back.”
“Not gonna happen.”
No fucking way. She’d sell hot dogs on the street before she returned to Braecom. When her boss had gotten wind that she’d been sleeping with Kevin, Cora had gotten a talk about how to conduct herself professionally. A week later, he’d told her that she was no longer being considered for the supervisory position she was in line for because the rest of the guys on the team wouldn’t respect her as an authority figure.
And what had Kevin gotten? Her promotion. Fucker.
“It’s not as bad as you’re making it out to be,” Cora said, trying to sound upbeat and swallow past the bitterness the memories dredged up. “I have prospects. The other day, I had a lady offer me two grand to hack into her ex-boyfriend’s Instagram. I think there’s a business opportunity there. Cora Benning—Avenging Hacker for Victims of Cheating Assholes.” She spread her hands like she was seeing the words on a sign. “Though we may have to play with the company title. That may be too much to put on a business card.”
Grace snorted. “Yeah, let’s try to focus on things that won’t land you in handcuffs. You don’t need to go to the dark side to make money.”
“But it wouldn’t really be the dark side. I mean, technically yes, but it’d be for a good reason. Only shitty people would be harmed. It’d be like Dexter or that show Cheaters, hacker style.” She gave Grace a bright grin, knowing it’d only piss her off.
“Okay, Robin Hood of Hackerville. Let’s not give your mother a reason to throw you in jail, all right? You just need to get out there and rub elbows with people who actually have cash and could use your services—the legal ones. You’re a badass, motherfucking, white-hat hacker. They need you.”
“Now that’s what should be on the business card. Badass motherfucking hacker. I’d get loads of business.”
“Not if you don’t speak to anyone ever.”
Cora deflated at that, her mood souring further. “Come on, Grace. I’m a start-up. The people here are big deals. We’re at some hoity-toity winery for God’s sake. That big-ass cowboy who was welcoming everybody when we came in? Yeah, that’s Grant Waters, the owner. He’s got so much money that he’s lost count. These people walking around? They own corporations and yachts and shit. They’ve already got a team of IT security on their payroll. They’re here to drink expensive wine and network
with other CEOs, not people like me. I appreciate you getting Jonah to snag us an invite to this, and I love you for thinking I’m at this level, but I need to start smaller. Like way smaller.”
Cora’s phone vibrated in her lap again, and she forced herself not to check it. Grace knew she was always online but assumed Cora was just a workaholic. She’d die of shock if she found out her best friend was a regular player in a kinky online game. And then Cora would promptly die of embarrassment. Yes, my sex life is now one hundred percent online. No, that’s not pathetic at all.
“You don’t know that these people don’t need you,” Grace insisted.
“But I do.” Cora glanced out at the milling crowd. There were no tuxes or sparkly cocktail dresses. From the outside looking in, these people didn’t look important with a capital I, but she knew better. In the dot-com world, the more casual someone looked, the more money they probably had. The thought of pitching to any of them made her stomach knot, especially after the trauma of the job interviews she’d had right after leaving Braecom. You could only hear “not the right fit” so many times before you started to wonder if you’d accidentally been assigned to the wrong planet. She looked back to her best friend. “Plus, let’s not pretend you finagled an invitation to this party for my benefit. You’re here to meet hot Internet moguls.”
Grace put a who-me? hand to her chest. “Is it so wrong to have a two-pronged reason for being here? That’s called being efficient. And I don’t see how that would be bad for either of us. Your on-the-rebound dry spell has gone on for way longer than is healthy.”
Cora stabbed a toothpick through the Gouda tower she’d built on her plate. Was it really being on the rebound if the relationship hadn’t actually been a relationship? “I’m not in a dry spell. I’m on hiatus by choice.”
Truth. Sort of.
“No. You’re avoiding.” Grace lifted a hand when Cora tried to protest. “Since the Kevin incident and quitting Braecom, you’ve used starting up your business as an excuse to shut down your social life. That worked for the first few months, but I’m not buying that excuse anymore.”
Cora sniffed. “Exactly when did I have this booming social life?”
“You used to at least go out after work sometimes. And you’d let me drag you to bars. And before Kevin, there was that guy you saw for a while—Nick, Nelson.”
“Neil? You’re going back that far? We went on three dates in college. He liked to talk about dorm room beer-making. And smelled like old bread.”
She flicked a hand. “Details. Now you shut me down anytime I ask for anything that involves you going out after seven. I bet if this hadn’t been work-related tonight, you would’ve canceled on me. You would’ve turned down free wine and fancy cheese.”
True. She almost had. And really, turning down free fancy cheese was probably on her personal checklist of The-Girl-Ain’t-Right signs. But she’d agreed to go because she’d wanted to see Grace, and she knew Grace wouldn’t let her get away with inviting her over just to hang out and watch movies again. “I have a lot going on.”
“I know you do. But you can’t let all that stuff shut down your whole life.” Grace gave her a pointed look. “It’s my duty as your best friend to not let you become a crazy, sexless cat lady because some asshole wronged you. It’s in the handbook.”
Cora smirked. “I’m allergic to cats. And I’ve had sex. You’re cleared of liability.”
She cocked her head in that take-no-bullshit way she’d perfected. “Had being the operative word there. Had, Cora. I get that you needed some time. But don’t let what happened with Kevin turn you into a hermit. You thought you had something with him and you didn’t. He was a jerk about it.”
“He called me a bro with a vagina, Grace.”
“Okay. Fine. More than a jerk. A complete asshole. But I don’t think this is even about him. That night we had too many margaritas at Rosa’s, you told me the sex was sufficient. Who the hell wants to have sufficient sex? You never got stars in your eyes when you talked about him. He was cute and convenient. And safe. And he saved you the trouble of being out in the dating world. That’s what you’re mourning. Not him.”
A bitter taste crossed Cora’s tongue, and she had to take another sip of wine to clear it. She wished there was some magical app where you could just wipe a certain time in your life out of your head. One click and it went into some unrecoverable trash bin. But that trash bin would be overflowing by now. Reading too much into her hookups with Kevin had just been the final dating mistake in a long list of them.
In the end, it’d been a good thing. She’d finally accepted her place in the dating pecking order. She was and had always been a tomboy and a geek, never quite comfortable in the skin she’d been given until she’d accepted that “proper girl” trappings and behaviors were not for her. But that had set her up to be the girl to hang out with, the buddy. She was the one they’d sleep with if they had no one else better lined up. Sufficient. Nothing more. Not the woman anyone lusted over. Not the girl anyone fantasized about.
And really, after accepting that, the loss of her dating life hadn’t been all that tragic. Dating had always been painful and awkward for her. The sex . . . uninspiring. These last few months, taking that off the table completely, had been a weird kind of relief. She had friends to hang out with. She had Dmitry and Hayven. She knew how to take care of her sexual needs. Not everyone needed to pair off like little plastic pegs riding in the car in The Game of Life.
“I’m not in mourning or unhappy, Gracie,” Cora said, hoping her friend could hear sincerity in her voice. “Truly. You don’t have to fix anything. I’m fine. I don’t need a guy right now. I’m a busy girl and a wizard with a vibrator. Who needs more than that?”
Grace’s lip curled, her silver nose ring catching the light. “A wizard? Does that mean your vibrator is magical?”
“Hey, they don’t call it a wand for nothing.” Cora held up her toothpick and waved it around. “I’m working on my sex Patronus. I’m thinking mine will be shaped like a naked Chris Pratt riding a T-Rex.”
That earned a laugh, but concern lingered in Grace’s eyes.
Cora sighed and dropped the toothpick onto the plate. “Look, seriously, I’m fine. Why don’t you go and circulate? Do what you came here to do. I promise I’ll finish my wine and work up some liquid courage to do the same.”
Grace’s green eyes went catlike, skeptical. “Yeah?”
“Sure. Drunk, chorizo-breath Cora will leave great impressions wherever she goes. All introverted tendencies will transform into glittering wit and brilliant sales pitches.”
“Cora.” She said it in the tone Cora’s mother used when she’d catch her playing video games instead of doing homework.
Cora shooed her with a flick of her hand. “Go. I swear I will leave this table once I’m done with my wine and will attempt to interact with fellow humans.”
Grace considered her for another second but then pushed her chair back and stood. She jabbed a purple-nailed finger Cora’s way. “I expect a fistful of business cards to be handed out, Ms. Benning.”
She saluted. “Yes, ma’am.”
Cora watched her friend go and then stared into her wine, wondering how long she could make it last. Maybe she could sneak a refill and drag this out. She took a teeny-tiny sip and let it roll around in her mouth, pretending she actually knew how to do this whole wine-tasting song and dance.
“Is this seat taken?”
Cora glanced up to find a well-dressed guy with a nice smile looking down at her. His hand was on the back of the chair Grace had vacated, and Cora was almost too surprised to speak. She swallowed the wine, half-choking. “Uh, yeah, I mean, no. It’s not taken.”
His grin went wider. “Great. Thanks.”
She took a breath, mentally preparing for a conversation with a cute stranger. She was still capable. Maybe. “So, some party, hu
h?”
Wait. That was her opening line? Maybe she had been hanging out in her house too long. Why not just ask about the weather while she was at it?
But the guy didn’t hear her anyway. Because instead of sitting down, he picked up the chair and walked away, bringing it to another table that was overflowing with laughing people.
The air whooshed out of her and heat flooded her face. Oh. Right. Of course.
She stood, her chair scraping hard against the floor, and drained the rest of her wine. Sitting alone at a table with one chair in the middle of a party was just a little too high on the pathetic scale, even for her. She left her empty wineglass and looked for a wall she could decorate with her presence.
She found a contender, one where the lighting was low and she could blend into the background. She started the excuse-me-pardon-me dance across the room. But as she made her way through the crowd, her phone buzzed. She grabbed it from the outside pocket of her purse, thankful to have something to make her look busy and not like she was escaping.
Dmitry: I’ve been thinking about you all day.
They were just little black letters on a screen, but God, did it unknot something inside her. Warm, sweet relief filtered through her. She typed back as she walked.
Lenore: Same here. Long, long day.
Dmitry: Plans tonight? Your dance card looks crowded.
She smiled. In Hayven, she never had a shortage of offers, especially since others knew she was now actively playing with the mysterious Dmitry. But she rarely watched anyone else’s scenes anymore. Since that first night with Dmitry, she’d developed a bit of an addiction for the man. He’d gone easy on her the first time, had led her through a scene where he told her exactly how to touch herself and for how long. He’d teased her for an hour before letting her come. It’d been simple. But it’d been one of the best orgasms of her life. And it’d made her forget all about being alone on Valentine’s Day.
After that, the boundaries had nudged farther out. He’d sometimes give her instructions. They’d be waiting for her on her phone when she woke up in the morning. No panties today. No touching yourself until you talk to me again. Somehow he could set her off balance with the simplest commands. There was something about having a secret that only the two of them shared that was intensely sexual. So even when she was alone during the day, she knew he was out there, pulling those invisible strings, maybe thinking about her like she was thinking of him. There was an odd sort of comfort in that. An intimate connection without the angst. Someone waiting for her to get home even though he wasn’t there physically. In a short few months, Dmitry had become a touchstone for her in her day.