“Please. We’re all girls here.” Vivian looked at the back of Jimmy’s head in the front seat as she added merrily, “Eyes on the road.”

“Of course, ma’am.” To his credit, Jimmy kept his voice devoid of all amusement.

“God,” Vivian repeated. She wiped her eyes where tears had begun to form. Then she laughed again. “Imagine if it had happened at the—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Jules’s face was on fire. She unbuckled and struggled back into her coat. It was warm in the car, but that wasn’t going to stop her from doing up the buttons. “Do you think there’s a needle and thread at the house? I want to see if I can fix the shoulder. I can’t afford to pay for this.”

“Don’t worry about it. Keep the jumpsuit and send the office my way if they chase you down.” Vivian chuckled. “It’s worth it for the laugh you gave me. I needed that.”

Then she looked over at Jules just as they passed by a streetlight that shone into the car. Her cheeks were appealingly pink, her smile was unforced and natural, and her eyes still sparkled with mirth. She almost looked…affectionate.

Jules instantly forgave her for every absurd demand she’d ever made, every snooty thing she’d ever said. Then she looked out her own window before she could be caught staring at Vivian’s mouth.

Yeah. Worst night of her life. For sure.

* * *

If she positioned the top just right, you couldn’t tell the jumpsuit’s right shoulder was messed up, and if she held her phone at the proper angle, you couldn’t tell her boobs were almost falling out of it. In her bedroom, Jules took a selfie. She wanted to commemorate herself as she was after a long night.

Looking like shit.

The camera angle preserved her modesty, but it brought out her undereye circles too. Her hair looked frizzy. She’d removed Vivian’s earrings and the lariat necklace, so no bling distracted from the exhaustion on her face.

That was fine. She didn’t have to show it to anyone else. It’d just serve as a good reminder of the night Jules lost her mind and how she looked as messy on the outside as she felt on the inside.

She should undress and crash, but her mind buzzed too much. She should try to write something, but that wasn’t going to work out either. Tired and wired, a crappy combination. Going for the compromise option, Jules opened her personal email, expecting just be a bunch of spam to delete.

There was something else.

Right there, at the top of her inbox, sat an unread message from The Cut. The subject line read: Accepted: Your submission for “I Think About This a Lot.”

Jules reread the line. She was probably hallucinating. Only one way to find out.