Ari almost laughed. Naturally. Why would the universe see fit to let her have something nice?
In a blur, Ari collected her things and joined the DV crew gathering in a corner. Doing her best to ignore Sloane’s bored-looking existence, she stood with Yelena and waited for what was next.
“Welcome aboard everybody,” Chad said, the dimple on his chin disappearing when he smiled. “I’ll show you where you’ll be for the next two weeks and where you’ll report on Monday. Show of hands. Who drove today?”
Sloane and a stocky guy named Dave were the only ones who raised their hands.
Ugh, of course she’d pay a million dollars a day for the inconvenience of driving downtown.
“How many can you take?” Chad asked, his brown eyes fixed on Sloane, who was easily two inches taller than him in heels.
“Seven.”
“Seven?” He repeated with a chuckle. “What do you drive, a school bus?”
There was no reply from Sloane, who had gone from bored to unamused.
Why is she so freaking rude?
If Ari hadn’t been so focused on judging Sloane, she would have realized what was about to happen and moved away from the insu erable Amazon.
“Okay, Dave. You take these four.” Chad gestured to the people closest to him. “I’ll take you all,” he said, pointing to the people to his right. “The rest of you, go with Sloane.”
Looking right at Ari, he added, “Don’t worry. It’s a short ride.”
Heat blazed over Ari’s cheeks and dripped down her chest.
Shit. Was I that obvious?
Straightening, Ari tried for neutral again, but her irritation had grown so exponentially, it was all she could do not to sneer.
Outside, she walked behind the other six as they approached Sloane’s SUV. It looked unsettlingly like a spaceship.
“Damn, you drive a Tesla. Like, for real?” one of the guys asked as he raced toward the car connected to the electricity station Sloane unlocked.
Ari furrowed her brow as she watched him, waiting for the just kidding that never came.
“I rented it for the occasion,” Sloane replied dryly, earning a chuckle from some of the others.
“I thought these weren’t even available yet,” another guy said, watching in unmitigated awe as the doors opened upward like a bird getting ready to take flight.
It’s just a freaking car, not the cure for cancer.
“Who’s going in the back?” Sloane asked instead of explaining how she acquired the stupid thing early.
The group looked around at each other, then at Yelena and Ari. Neither of them was exactly short, but they were the most petite compared to the others.
“Of course,” she muttered to herself because the humiliation couldn’t possibly be close to over.
Sloane opened her front driver’s side door as Ari and Yelena eyed how to climb into the small third row seat in what should’ve been the trunk. In her periphery, Sloane’s hands moved fast but not fast enough to avoid detection. Ari hadn’t missed the blue placard hanging from her rearview mirror.
What kind of asshole uses a handicap parking tag? Ari knew Sloane was an opportunist, but that was next level villainy.
Even for her.
Crammed in the tiny bench seat with Yelena, Ari was relieved to be as far as possible from Sloane even if her perfume still clung to her like it had recoded her DNA. As
they inched along in four o’clock tra c, Ari tried to ignore the front passenger’s obsession with the car, but it was impossible to chat with Yelena if he didn’t stop droning on.