“This whole OnlyFans partnership is complicated,” I said. “Even if we aren’t… you know. We’re stillsomething. A relationship above friends, at least. I care about you, too.”
She tilted her face up to mine. “You do?”
“Of course. I don’t want to see anything happen to you.” I braced her by the arms. “Which is why I don’t want you pissing off my boss.”
Ginny snorted. “I never expected you to be her personal assistant.”
“And I never expected you to work at the NMCF,” I replied. “That’s a crazy coincidence. Totally outside our control. But what wecancontrol is the way we react. Ginny, you cannot piss off Sandra.”
“Everyone keeps telling me that,” she muttered.
“If everyone says so, then you should probably listen.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Just like how everyone says Sandra is sleeping with her boy toy personal assistant?”
“Okay, I walked into that one,” I said. “But in this case, it’s the truth. Sandra holds grudges. She lives for them. One time, she told me to ship feces to someone every week for a year.”
“I’ve heard that story, but I didn’t believe it. You mean it’s true?” She gasped. “Youwere the poop-sender?!?!”
“Well, no. Not me personally. But I gave the instructions to one of her private security guys. She has a dozen of them working for her. They’re like her own private army roaming around Fort Perth. Checking in on tenants, spying on business associates who she doesn’t trust. She’s like Littlefinger, with her web of spies. She seeseverythingin this town.”
“Who is Littlefinger?” she asked.
“From Game of Thrones.”
She shook her head. “Never seen it.”
“Wait, really?”
“We couldn’t afford HBO growing up,” she answered. “Why does everyone always act all weird when they find out I’ve never seen it?”
“Because it’s one of the best shows of the past thirty years! Even though the ending was…” I shook my head. “We’re getting off subject. I’ll do my best to smooth things out with Sandra. But you can’t talk to her like that again. It will put you on her radar, if you aren’t already.”
“Message received,” she said, and for once it seemed like shewasgetting the message. “Like I said, I emailed her to make things right. I’m surprised you weren’t the one to get the email.”
“I clocked out at five,” I said. “Figuratively, I mean. I’m never off the clock with Sandra. But I try not to answer emails after hours. I’ll make sure she sees it. And I’ll run interference if she decides that you’re her new favorite enemy.”
“Thanks.” She refilled both our wine glasses. “I think I needed someone to really make me fear her. I cannot lose this job.”
“Look on the bright side,” I said. “You’ve always got OnlyFans to fall back on! Especially with how popular your page has been lately. You have three times as many subscribers as you did when we first started working together.”
“I know!” she said enthusiastically. “Maybe I’ll do this until I retire. I’ll be a wrinkly old hag getting pounded in front of a camera for cash.”
“I can’t picture you as a wrinkly old hag,” I said.
“Aww, that’s sweet of you.”
“A wrinkly oldclassy lady,” I clarified. “But definitely not a hag.”
She glared playfully at me. “You know, I may not be your girlfriend. But I think we just had our first fight.”
“I think we did. And you know what that means?”
Ginny smirked. “Make-up sex.”
“I hear it’s the best kind,” I said.
“Shall we find out?”