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"I miss you I wish you would just move here already" I moaned into the phone Lacey and I had been friends since ere four years old We becah school and college together, joined at the hip It was only after college ended that things went awry Ian actress, and Lacey moved back home to write a book Or rather I should say the book The book was going to be a blockbuster It was going to be so fabulous that every literary agent and publisher would be dying to get their hands on it Then Lacey would become rich and famous and take care of us until we found husbands The other plan was for side Bradley Cooper and become rich and famous and take care of her So far, neither of our plans orking Her book had ten pages andcareer was non-existent, aside from the roles I played for ‘Candy Canes Birthday Grams’ Candy Canes was actually run by a man named Bob Johnson and he was about as sketchy as you would expect a fifty-five-year-oldbeard and a closet full of wife-beaters to be I’d taken the job because I’d been desperate to iven recently see the liive a lap dance to a stranger? Granted, it was a joke, but would itto do, Eliza?" Lacey asked ot the photo I sent you, right? Bob gave it to uy"

"Yes, he’s hot Super hot" Lacey laughed "You should go for it I et paid two hundred dollars toto be his new secretary, and then I have to give him a lap dance in his office Then his coworkers will burst into the room and say, ‘Surprise!’" I explained to Lacey "I just don’t know if I’ree to this job"

"Do it!" She giggled "What’s the worst thing that can happen?"

"You’re a bad influence, Lacey" I sat up and shookthat could happen It had already happened to me But then that had been the past and this was now And this was a very different situation Maybe this hat I needed to getmore relaxed

"That’s why you love ht brown eyes crinkling at the corners as she giggled

"If I take the job, will you come visit? I can use the two hundred to pay for your ticket," I said and ignored the stirring in my stomach that said that I should put the 200 in the bank

"That sounds like a deal to reed "I can’t wait"

"Neither can I," I said softly as I looked at Scott’s photo, but I wasn’t talking about her visit

"So what you going to do, Liz?" Bob’s eyebrows furrowed as he gazed atso hard to act as if he didn’t care if I said yes or no, but I knew that all he could think about was the ured he was getting 50 of whatever was being offered, which was dreadfully unfair, but what could I say or do? Not h I was pretty sure I was going to take the job I was hoping that by faking nonchalance, Bob would panic and offer me more money At least that’s what the self-help book that I’d been reading had said to do when you wanted your boss to give you a raise:to lose you (this only worked if you were a valued e to make two hundred dollars" Bob’s squinty eyes were alle as I saw the panic cross his face

"Yeah, but two hundred isn’tabout the first part Two hundred dollars was a lot toto let Bob keep 200 as well, not when I was the one pretending to be a stripper and having to shakelike a stripper for 200, not even if the guy looked like Scott Taylor

"I thought you said you needed to make every extra penny that you could?" Bob looked at me suspiciously I knew by the way his eyes narrowed that he ondering if I was lying

"I do, but I’o"

"Three hundred, then," he said with an annoyed expression

"You’ve got a deal," I said quickly, forgetting my qualms in a heartbeat Three hundred would help to buy Lacey a plane ticket to come and visit me and would pay off allto worry about if et cut off before payday I knew I always had the option of getting a proper job, a 9-5 that would pay the bills slightly better, but I knew that a 9-5 would never giveauditions, and without the auditions I’d never make it as an actress

"What about two fifty," Bob said and I shookif he’d lost brain cells in the bill cans stacked in his office

"You already offered three hundred and I accepted," I said ada it"