“Hopefully?” Joy answers. It’s a miracle her heart hadn’t spontaneously combusted after she finished reading the email because her brain moved at the speed of light, jumping to the only possible conclusion: her time has finally come.

A reluctant laugh bursts through Megan’s stress. “Well, I’m rooting for you, whatever it is. Come look at this, please.” She’s holding a signed contract with some questionable language around distribution and follows it up with pictures of the product itself:a line of craft beers with an explicit NSFW label.

“Huh.” Joy’s eyebrows are nearly at her hairline. The image is so realistic, she can’t tell if the model’s 3–D or not. If she’s real, despite her excellent, perky posture, she most certainly has back problems from having boobs that big and a waist that small. How she managed to hold a perfect spread-eagle side split would have been a small miracle on set.

The image slides straight past comical, bypassing artistic expression, and ends up a little too close to exploitation. Red Warren Nightclubs pushes the envelope here and there, but this kind of advertisement isn’t in line with the brand.

“You approved this?” Joy asks.

“No.” All the color drains from Megan’s horrified face. “I was there because I was filling in for Johnny. Remember when he got sick and was out for two weeks?”

“I do.”

“I remember the product they showed us. I can literally see it in my head and it’s definitely not this.”

Joy nods, keeping her cool. “I’ve always wondered if people are born with a photographic memory or if they have to develop it.”

“It’s eidetic memory, not photo— Oh, Joy, oh no.”

Joy grins, chuckling at her brilliant pun. She isn’t above doing that. Everyone teases her for laughing at her own jokes, but it isn’t her fault they don’t appreciate her humor.

The most important thing is to calm Megan down. This mistake isn’t the end of the world. Or her job. Situations like this happen all the time on the backend because Malcolm prefers working with a smaller team he knows he can trust. When one of them is out, they band together and fill in the blank even when they’re not exactly sure what they’re doing.

Red Warren Nightclubs have a somewhat infamous reputation in the local industry for being the places to be and work. They meet every code and regulation, have enough staff, supervisors, and managers, and pay them well enough to avoid burnout. Everyone who works for them is the best of the best: dancers, DJs, bartenders, and security.