The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston

Author:Ashley Poston [Poston, Ashley]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf, azw3
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2023-06-27T00:00:00+00:00

23

Main Course of Action

I knew it was a bad idea, but I didn’t have another. Not if I was going to salvage this.

I hailed a taxi, told the driver to head to the Olive Branch down in SoHo, and found myself in front of the hopping restaurant not twenty minutes later. Without a plan. The doors were all pulled wide, the windows open to let in the evening summer air. The patrons at night were a world away from the ones I’d seen at lunch, all trendy young people in their new glittery fashions, snapping photos of their food while barely eating a bite—and most plates only had a bite on them. I felt more out of place than I had felt in a while, and that almost stopped me from going inside at all, but then I steeled myself, and thought about what my aunt said—

“Pretend to belong until you do.”

The hostess stopped me at the front of the house and asked for my reservation name. That was my first hurdle. I didn’t have one, obviously, and she wouldn’t let me into the restaurant if I didn’t. So I pulled back my shoulders and raised my chin, and pretended with the best of them. “I’m here to see James.”

The woman’s eyes widened. She gave me a once-over. “And you are . . . ?”

Right, a lot of people wanted to see him these days, and I doubted he’d thought twice about me. Which was odd, seeing as how I still felt the phantom touch of his mouth on mine. “I’m . . .”

No one important—a publicist from a publisher he had rejected. That certainly wouldn’t get me in to see him. So I thought quick. What would my aunt do? She’d put on countless hats over the years, pretending to belong somewhere until she did. “I’m a journalist. For—uh—for . . .” My eyes glanced off a magazine pile behind the hostess stand. “Women’s Health.”

I tried not to wince. That was a bad lie.

She frowned, giving me another once-over. “For James?”

“In an article about getting women’s hearts racing.” I was just digging myself deeper and deeper.

“It’s a bit late, isn’t it?”

“Never too late—that’s a journalist’s, uh, motto. Is he here?”

She pursed her lips, and then pressed her earpiece and said something into it. She waited a moment, and then nodded. “Sorry, you’ll have to come b—Wait a minute!”

I had stepped past her like I had a job to do. Technically I did, but not what she was thinking. “You can tell him I’m here,” I said over my shoulder, and dove into the dark and decadent restaurant I couldn’t afford. She squawked in reply, but didn’t make a move to stop me. She had too many other people to greet and seat, and she probably wasn’t paid enough, anyway.

I dipped around a server carrying a heavy tray to a large table, and slipped into the hallway that led to the kitchen and bathrooms. The metal doors to the kitchen

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