I wait and see the blue tick appear. I stare at my phone, waiting for the bubbles to show he’s typing. Instead, he goes offline again. Maybe he can’t talk right now. I decide to do something I’ve never done and go to his house to wait for him. The back door will be open, and there’s a shelter there I can sit under. I look out the window. The sudden downpour is over, and even though the sky is still gloomy, I can make it to his house.
I have a lukewarm shower which means the heating was off again today. I wash my hair and I change into dry, warmer clothes and call for a cab. I take my new key and lock my apartment up. I take the cab to Thomas’ house. He hates being called Tom, he prefers that I call him Thomas. We’ve been together for two years but haven’t gone very far. He says he’s saving himself for marriage.
I think it’s so romantic.
The thought of seeing Thomas cheers me up a little, and as the cab pulls up to his house, I feel more settled. I see a car in the driveway, but it’s not Thomas’ car. I frown and realize he may have guests over or clients.
“Could you wait for me?” I ask the cab driver.
“Sure,” he says. “But the meter is running.”
I hurry out of the cab and around to the back gate. I normally go through the back when I come over. I hear giggling and walk around the house slowly. I stop at the end of the house and peek around the corner. Thomas is in the hot tub… with Carmen. They’re both naked,
“Oh, Tom,” Carmen laughs. “If you could have seen her face.”
“I’m sure it was priceless, baby.” I see his hands roaming every inch of her body, and anger and then a deep sadness surge through me.
Chapter 2 - Penny
I never like to confront people and a part of me wants to run back to the cab, but I can’t. First, the job, then the apartment, I can’t take it. I walk towards the table and knock over a glass of champagne. They whip around, and I glare at Tom, “My bad, Thomas.”
“Penny,” he says, but he doesn’t move. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“That’s all you’re going to say?” I ask, frowning as I feel my heart breaking into a million pieces.
“Well, what else is there to say? You know my girlfriend Carmen, I believe you work for her?” He gives me a smile, and I turn to see Carmen smirking.
“We’re celebrating my promotion. I’d invite you, but I don’t like you,” she sips her champagne. “Now, run along girl. We want to carry on our celebrations.”
I bite back the words I wish I could say. I want to raise my voice and get angry. I want to ask why and how long it’s been going on, but instead, I hurry back to the cab and give the driver Asher’s address. When we get there, he waves me off after I pay.
I knock on Asher’s bright yellow door, and she opens it while holding a glass of wine in her hand. “Penny?” Her face is instantly one of concern as I start blubbing.
She puts her free arm around me and ushers me in before closing the door behind me. She leads me to the kitchen island, and we sit down as she pours me some wine, and I explain to her about the day I had.
“First this stupid woman at the coffee shop grabs my order,” I say sadly through my tears. “She all but tips the drinks onto me and then I get to the office to find out they’re choosing Carmen for the promotion.”
“That bitch.” Asher growls. “I never did like the sound of your boss,” she adds as comfort.
“Then my apartment is robbed… Oh Asher they stole my grandmother's necklace.” I start sobbing hard and we stop talking while she rubs my back.
“I’m so sorry, Pen,” she murmurs over and over again. “I wish I could magic it back for you.”
“I don’t get how they got in through the security gate.” I wipe my eyes and sigh.
“Thomas is cheating on me.”
“That rat bastard,” she growls. “I never did like him.”
“He says Carmen is his girlfriend,” I say bitterly.
“It makes sense they know each other.” Asher tops up our wine. “Through his parents. Their fathers work together at some big law firm, I’ve seen the articles. It doesn’t make sense why he’s two-timing you though. He’s a dickhead.”
I wipe my eyes and look away. “I wish I was someone else.”
Asher looks at me with sadness in her eyes, then perks up, “Then let’s be someone else for one night. There’s this club called Afanasy that I wanted to go check out. You can borrow clothes from me, I’ll do your makeup, and you can play pretend. Just pretend you’re someone else.”
I look at her with big eyes. “I can’t pretend I’m some supermodel.”
“What have I told you about that?” Asher says, putting her hands over my own. “I’m bigger too. It’s just about confidence. Tonight, we pretend we’re the most confident ladies in the world, okay?”
“I don’t really want to spend the night being miserable…” I sniff. “Okay.”
She isn’t joking when she talks about dressing up. She makes me take another hot shower and use all her fancy cleansers to get rid of any trace of dirt or makeup on me. Once I’m dry, she puts me in one of her black leather dresses, sexy black boots, and fishnet stockings. I don’t like a lot of makeup so she does a smokey eye look. It feels like a lot of makeup but when I look in the mirror, I see it doesn’t look that bad. We then fix my hair so that it cascades down around me. While we do this, we have a few pre-game shots and another glass of wine. I’m feeling a little silly but also excited. I want to be confident. I want to be someone other than me today.
After she’s done with my hair, she comes up behind me and puts a black chocker around my neck with a heart pendant.
Then She has a hot shower and changes into a similar dress, only in dark blue. She goes for a very fancy and flashy makeup look and curls her hair into large dark curls. When we finish our last shot, she calls a cab, and before I know it, we’re in the queue outside the club. Asher and I huddle together, and slowly, we move forward with the crowd. She has to remind me to stand tall a few times, but soon enough I’m in the swing of it, and I feel a lot more confident. I don’t know if it’s the alcohol or what, but I’m ready to party. The bouncer notices us, and he waves us over. He lets the two of us in. The music is pumping as we make our way through the wall of bodies and go to the bar and order martinis.
“Should we be mixing our drinks?” I ask Asher.
“We can do whatever we want,” she responds with a rather manic laugh.
Once we have our drinks in hand, we move nearer to the dance floor and start dancing. Asher does most of the talking, or rather, yelling over the music.
“I bet you Carmen got Tom to date you so that she could get the inside and get your promotion.” She sips deeply on her drink. She’s had theories the whole night, and it comforts me a little because as Asher says, “I’m clearly a threat if she thinks she needs insider information to beat me.” It still seems a bit far-fetched though.
Thinking about it, Tom was never very romantic toward me, and we didn’t go very far. I sigh, thinking of all the times I wanted to, and he’d make an excuse. Clearly, the reason was that it was all fake.
Eventually though, Asher drops the subject, and as we drink and dance, I begin to relax a little by little.
Asher is right. I can pretend to be someone I’m not, and with the alcohol in my system, I feel more confident. I feel as though I can get away with anything, even maybe attract someone for a one-night stand. And why shouldn’t I? I may be curvy, but I’m sexy as hell, and I deserve a win.
We go to the bathroom to freshen up, and then we go to get more drinks. Asher goes to pay, and the bartender holds a hand up. “The owner of the club has covered your drinks. Don’t worry. He says if you want anything else, it’s on him.”
Asher smiles at me. “See, good things do happen.”
The bartender gives her a strange look, as though she wants to say something, but she doesn’t. I turn to her. “Can we have some shots of tequila, please? Just one each.”
The bartender nods and goes off when a large, burly man is suddenly near us. When he speaks, he speaks with a thick Russian accent.
“Madams, the owner of the club, Mr. Milov, would like to extend an invitation to the VIP section of the club. Your drinks will be brought there for you.” He motions for us to walk ahead toward the roped-off area.
I smile at Asher and nod. “Yeah?”
Asher grins. “VIP? Hell yeah!”
We walk toward the roped-off area and into the VIP section. It’s not overly crowded like the rest of the club is, and the music seems clearer on this side rather than just loud noise to move to. We look around, Asher is in her element, but I feel a bit awkward. A man walks over straight to Asher. “Hello, I am Luka.”
