Life as We Know It (Love Not Included) (Volume 4) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Other Books

  Life As We Know It

  Copyright © 2016 by J.D. Hollyfield

  Life As We Know It is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Life As We Know It is a registered trademark of J.D. Hollyfield.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author/publisher.

  Editor: Vanessa Bridges, PREMA

  Cover Designer: Nicole Blanchard, IndieSage

  Formatting: Champagne Formats

  To Sarah

  Thanks for the crazy.

  You are and always will be the Thelma to my Louise.

  TODAY HAS NOT BEEN the best day, therefore, I’m going to refer to it as one of those days that does not go as planned. But let’s be honest, my whole life seems that way. Nothing ever goes as planned.

  It all started first thing this morning when, of course, I woke up late for work. Get to know me more and you’ll figure out that I wasn’t built with the genes for being on time. I can’t even tell you what being on time means. I know what it means, but in my life, I just don’t do punctuality.

  If it weren’t for my annoying neighbor and his annoying dog, I wouldn’t have spent the first thirty minutes of my day chasing after my poor cat, Chelsea. My brainless neighbor thinks it is okay to let his dog run free within our apartment complex, which then led to my poor cat thinking it was okay to jump out the fire escape window and take off when she heard that damn dog bark. The end result? I got to mark exercising off my morning routine today. I seriously burned some killer calories running after that damn dog and chasing my poor, poor cat.

  I’m now late to work, but no one’s shocked. Like I said, stick with me and you won’t be either. I also hate my job, of course, but who doesn’t? Because let’s be honest, being bossed around all day in any fashion just isn’t cool. As the saying goes, the lower on the totem pole you are, the worse your job sucks. I’m currently testing out my expertise as an account executive at West and Mills. It’s an investment firm that deals with a whole bunch of…who cares. I mean, I crunch numbers, and that can’t get any more boring.

  I race into work like a crazy person, because, like every low-totem-poled employee, my boss is a huge jerk. I could probably be early and still get yelled at. I jump into the already over packed elevator because I can’t spare the additional two minutes it would take to wait for the next one and reach for the button for the tenth floor. The problem with working in a prestigious building is that they’re also filled with egotistical prestigious suits, which means when I attempt to squeeze my hand through the sweaty crowd, no one feels the need to concede and move. I’m sure the other reason is that I’m a whopping 5’4”, little mouse of a thing, and people tend to look right over me. Before I go any further, let’s get acquainted. My name is Penelope Summers, but you can call me Penny. Penelope is reserved for the elite—a.k.a my rude boss and my parents.

  Riding up in the overstuffed elevator, surrounded by bitter society, I slap my fake morning smile on my face. I’d like to say that I do my best to be kind and considerate of others in this world, but let’s be honest, people generally suck. People out in that mean world feel it’s their duty to yell, point, scream and blame all of their problems on other people. Take my job for example, I sit in an office cubicle all day long listening to angry investment clients tell me I took their stock and crashed it. Or how I was the one who isn’t letting up on their bad investment. If I had access to clients’ bank accounts, trust me, I wouldn’t be crashing them. I would be stocking my Tory Burch and Coach collections.

  Seriously, people need to learn who to take their anger out on.

  I step into the office and sideswipe Marianne, the receptionist. She must have gotten lucky, or maybe we both did, because two inches to the left and we both would have been soaked in scalding hot coffee, which I assume is heading toward the conference room I’m supposed to be in. I give Marianne my most sincere apologies and duck into my cube. I drop my things and barely make it across the hall before the door opens and Charles, my boss, walks out.

  “Well, look who decided to join us this morning. Ms. Summers, thank you so kindly for being a part of our meeting.” You’re welcome, you pompous—

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Wellington, there was an accident, and the whole roadway was completely jammed up—”

  “And I am just dying to hear your sob story. Until then, get into that room, Ms. Summers. There are very important people in there wanting to hear the breakdown of their quarterly account numbers.”

  He pivots and walks back into the conference room with me on his heels. He barely pauses, in a show of holding the door open for me, before allowing it to swing back and, thankfully, just miss me as it’s slammed in my face. I mean, seriously!? This guy is married and has three girls! Where are his manners? And how does his wife not think about taking a cast-iron skillet to his head every night when he goes to bed!?

  I take a deep breath and walk into the conference room. Once inside, I adjust my sliding skirt and throw my wild auburn hair behind my shoulders. I’m greeted by a bunch of grumpy business men. All of whom have serious looks displayed across their money-hungry faces. They’re here to know if their investments made them rich or not. I’m here to give them the facts.

  Numbers schnumbers.

  I don’t even know how I got into this profession. Growing up, I wanted to do nothing but party and marry a rock star. I went to college swearing that it was just a part-time gig until I met the band mate of my dreams, then I was out. Four years and a degree in accounting later—I’m still not sure how that happened—and now I’m working my way up the corporate ladder. Don’t let my fancy title fool you, though. I’m still everybody’s bitch around this place. West and Mills is an investment firm that works with high-profile clients. Some celebrities, some trust fund babies. But mainly your average rich crowd. People who have so much money that
they have no idea what to do with, so they hand it over and tell us to take the wheel. They are so stinking rich, they just don’t care. Today, though? This office of clients? Based upon the looks on their faces? They care.

  Today’s meeting is for what we would call the middle-class clients. In the investment world, middle class to our firm is different from the normal middle class. We’re not referring to the blue-collar folk who make an honest living with a normal sized income. At West and Mills, being middle class means that you are only a millionaire. Middle class. Billionaire is upper-class. And lower-class? Well you just simply don’t do business here then. Snobs. If I haven’t said it before.

  I take a seat in an empty chair across the boardroom and set my files in front of me. I attempt to remain cool and collected but with all those beady eyes staring at me, I’m on edge. These people look at me like I’m the one personally juggling their money. The fact that I show up with the numbers automatically means I’m the one spending, or losing, it. I’ve been reprimanded on more than one occasion about making eye contact when I speak to the clients, but truth be told, it’s easier to stand in a ring and prepare to fight a bull. My job in these meetings goes something like this, Yes Mr. Gibson, I did just say that compared to your last quarter numbers, your latest investment in blah blah stock did not go well and you lost half your shit in profit.

  If I didn’t think that our client, Mr. Gibson, would jump over the table at me, I might have told him he should reconsider investing in Internet businesses. I mean, it’s a dead market. Hello!

  Mr. Wellington clears his throat and begins the meeting. He goes over the quarterly proceedings of blah blah and blah. I would go into detail, but let’s be honest, that’s all I hear. I’m not one to expend too much time learning anything about who I work for. I do what I do and then beat it. I might be nearing twenty-five, but I’m still holding out for that dreamy band member to sing to me at his next show. Then I can finally tell Mr. Wellington where to shove it while on my way to stardom, hanging off the arm of my sexy ne—

  “Ms. Summers, I will ask you again, are you ready to go over the quarterly numbers with us?”

  Oh, fuckity fuck. “Yes, yes, I’m sorry.”

  I brush my hands on my skirt and adjust my already neat stack of papers. This is it. Go time. The moment where I make half the room happy and half the room mad.

  “The quarterly report for Bridgestone and Co. shows that stocks increased twenty-four percent since our last meeting. The economic forecast states that due to the increase in purchase via Ledger stock manufactures this will also increase the stock in granite and stone production…”

  I go on and on until, seriously, I’m not even sure what I’m talking about. It’s all mumbo-jumbo. All about how people blow their money on stuff that has no meaning and people who choose to decide when and where to buy stock. You are big into Amazon right now? Buy stock in it. You wear deodorant? Buy stock in it. It’s up to my company to decide if their spending is wise. People who have so much money that they will never live long enough to spend it, want to invest to make more. I always wonder why these rich folks never think to invest in organizations. Instead of blowing your money on stocks, donate it to a good cause. It’s not like they don’t have enough of it. I know, one of life’s many mysteries, right?

  Two hours and a bunch of boring babble later, the meeting breaks. I’m released from the hounds and sent on my way. I make it back to my desk to see my voicemail light blinking. I pick it up and see the number is attached to my boyfriend, Henry. Two years into our relationship and I’m still debating that investment. We met when I first started at West and Mills. He came in as a client while I was an intern and blew me away. Well his looks blew me away. He was a typical suit. Super intelligent, high-profile attorney, but he had a smile that said he liked to have a good time and only had eyes for me. At that time, I was a hot mess all the way around. I’d just broken free from my college ways. Which meant, to impress Henry, I pretended I was no longer a kegger girl who smoked on the weekends and occasionally streaked across my apartment complex in return for a Hostess pack. Oh, don’t judge me. It was that time they went out of business. Were you even around when the stores were ransacked to get the last Twinkie before they went bankrupt? Put yourself in my shoes. You would have done the same.

  Anyway, back on track.

  I tried to take it slow in the beginning with Henry at first because I didn’t want to mix business with pleasure. I really needed the job because I really needed to eat, along with clothe myself, so I made sure to keep us on the down low. But Henry was so persistent that, before I knew it, I was his arm candy and he was sweeping me off my feet. Sounds fun, right? Not so much. Henry is a business man. You see, he enjoys a good business transaction and if he wins in the end, no matter what the stakes, he is happy. I’m not sure what I was for him at the time, but I’m going to assume I was a conquest. I was young, and at twenty-two I thought that being on the arm of someone important was cool. Yeah I said it. Cool. It’s a shame that what I labeled cool was a high-profile businessman, when only years before, my vision of cool and sexy was a rock star, or anyone who could pop rocket three beers within twenty-seven seconds. Either way, he won. I was his. And for the next two years, he would mold me into his perfect little arm candy. It’s quite pathetic, now that I think about it. I mean, who tells someone that they should not own a pair of Converse? Crazy people! I love my stash of stilettos, don’t get me wrong, but when I started pushing my green Converse to the back of my closet, so I had better access to my Jimmy Choos, I should have seen the red flags.

  Okay, enough of the depressing talk. I love Henry. He has been good to me. So I’ve changed a bit. Possibly a lot. Okay, so, inside, I am nowhere near that girl who just wanted to let loose and live life to its fullest. I relay numbers and smile. Ew. Just saying that actually left a bad taste in my own mouth.

  It’s okay. Onward we go. I listen to the voicemail and it’s Henry asking me to meet him for lunch. He says it’s important and to meet at our favorite café at one o’clock. He took me to Amelia’s on our first date. I refused to do anything but get coffee with him at first. He was older and super intimidating, and I was an intern. We didn’t come from the same breed, therefore I was skeptical about why he was even singling me out. Two coffees later, and I was sold. To him, of course, back to the him winning comment.

  Henry wasn’t my ideal rock star, but we work. Older and wiser by seven years, he stands just above six feet tall and your average slim built. He’s no underwear model but he’s from the higher class of society, so appearance is definitely his thing. His perfectly trimmed sandy hair is never amiss and his hazel eyes always radiate confidence. He can be labeled as your clean cut, well-defined A-lister. Proper in all the right places. You can practically see him crossing his T’s and dotting his I’s in his head as he speaks. I feel bad that I almost fell asleep while describing him.

  It’s okay. I love him. That’s all that matters.

  I send Henry a text, letting him know that I’ll meet him at Amelia’s and get trucking on all my work. It’s amazing how much this company depends on me to configure numbers and determine people’s financial well-being, yet I still get stuck doing admin work. As I said before, my job blows.

  Twelve-thirty hits, and I shut my work down to head to Amelia’s. I’m excited to see Henry. He has blown me off the past couple of days due to his busy schedule and I really want to get serious about the vacation we’ve been planning.

  I walk into the café and don’t see him. I sit at our normal table and wave at Jake, the barista. He knows our order. We stick to the same table every time. Henry has an open tab here so we can just order and take our goodies and drinks to go, no waiting in line or having to dig for cash. It’s mainly because he’s too busy to wait for others, but the bonus of it works for me.

  Finally, I see Henry walk through the door. We swap friendly smiles while he sits down. “My love, I’m sorry I’m late. My meeting ran over, an
d Cassandra and I had to reduce some figures for the Grant project.”

  I sit and smile. I care even less about his business ventures than I do my own. I pay enough attention to make sure I say the right things and that’s about it. I care even less about Cassandra, his PR manager. If she didn’t scream I want to take your place every time I saw her, maybe I would hate her a little bit less.

  I smile back at him. “No worries, you’re here now.”

  He reaches out and takes both of my hands in his. His gentle, yet sweet gesture makes me feel bad for talking smack about him earlier.

  “Love, we need to talk.”

  “Okay.” So serious, my business man.

  “You know this is going to be a big year for me, right?”

  “Yes.” And I do. Henry has been prepping himself to run for office in New York ever since we met.

  “Good. So then you understand that it is important that my image stays clean of any mishaps or scandal, right?”

  Not sure where this is going, but okay. “Yes, of course.”

  “And you know I love you right?” Not liking where this is heading.

  “Yes,” I reply, not sure if I said it as a statement or question.

  “Then you understand that what I’m about to do is because I love you.”

  This lunch is totally not going as I expected. “And what is it that you’re about to do?”

  “Penelope, love, I am not judging your past mistakes. I love you no matter what. But some of your past records have surfaced, and Cassandra does not think it is wise to have someone who has priors on my arm while I attempt to run for State Senate. You know how those Republicans are.”

  Why do I care about Republicans?

  And priors!?

  “I mean I could probably talk the press out of the protesting charges, but the public indecency and paraphernalia charges are something I just cannot stand behind as a future Senator.”

  Protesting Charges!? I was eighteen, and they were threatening to stop allowing students to use their student meal cards at the campus general store because it sold liquor. Who wouldn’t protest!? And for the record, the public indecency is not what you think. Too many beers, plus an obsession with throwing your bra on stage at a concert—then drunkenly, your shirt—means when you walk out of the venue and argue with a uniformed officer, they have the right to put you in handcuffs. I plead the fifth on that one. I really thought it was going to be that moment where I found love. I threw a very expensive bra on the stage that night.