Work Me Up Read online

  Work Me Up

  Penny Wylder

  Copyright © 2020 Penny Wylder

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or businesses, organizations, or locales, is completely coincidental.

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  Contents

  1. Selena

  2. Selena

  3. Antonio

  4. Antonio

  5. Selena

  6. Selena

  7. Antonio

  8. Antonio

  9. Selena

  10. Antonio

  11. Antonio

  12. Selena

  13. Selena

  14. Antonio

  15. Selena

  Books By Penny Wylder

  1

  Selena

  The sound of a phone buzzing penetrates my consciousness suddenly.

  With a start, I glance up from the book I’d been buried inside of. The last thing I knew, the castle was under siege, and the gallant prince was riding up on horseback to rescue his bride—my favorite character because she’s more than just a damsel in distress—from the top of the highest tower, where she was launching a counter-attack on the evil king’s invading forces.

  The next second, I’m back smack dab in the middle of my narrow apartment living room, sprawled on the couch, my back cramping and my throat parched. I tilt back to pick up the mug of tea that had been steaming beside me, but the green liquid inside it is already cold. How long have I been sitting here?

  I squint past the mug around the living room, at the sunlight already starting to fade outside the window. Last I checked it had been early morning. Now it looks like almost sunset.

  I shiver and tug at the blanket around my feet when the buzzing comes again, from the side table where I left my cell phone plugged in to charge.

  Buzz buzz buzz. A rapid succession of texts that can only be from one person. My mother is one of those single line texters, who sends 20 messages where she could have sent a single, comprehensive one.

  Then again, all that repeated buzzing is just about the only thing that gets me to look at my phone, mostly to stop it making so much noise. So maybe there’s a method to her madness.

  With a groan, I haul myself off the couch and shuffle over to the side table, lifting my phone from where it lay face down on the surface so as not to interrupt me with any notifications.

  25 missed texts. Shit.

  I tap on the first one, and my heart sinks down into my stomach.

  Selena.

  Are you leaving the house yet?

  The party starts in 20 minutes.

  15 now.

  10.

  The most recent pair of messages, from a few seconds ago, read:

  Have to go prepare.

  You better be here soon.

  I swallow hard around a lump in my throat. Crap. Mom has been planning this party for months. She practically made me swear on a stack of bibles to attend because she knows how I am about crowds and parties and socializing in general these days. But it’s important to her. She and Dad are celebrating an important new merger of the company they run together—definitely not the kind of party I would normally care about whatsoever, but it means a lot to him and Mom. Or at least, so they’ve spent months drilling into my head. Since their company is a “family-oriented” one, they want the whole family to be there.

  Specifically, me. The one who needs to dress properly and be the sweet, polite star of the show.

  My stomach churns. I get what my parents are trying to do. Wine and dine and impress their new clients. I just don’t understand why I need to be involved. Why they can’t just keep these kinds of things to business only—why mix business and family?

  As we learned the hard way, it never ends well.

  I grimace and drop the phone back onto the table, hurrying into my bedroom. Thanks to the fact that I haven’t changed out of these pajamas for the entirety of the weekend so far, all of my clothes are clean. So it shouldn’t take me long to throw together an appropriate outfit.

  Let’s see… Something easy and all-purpose… I grab a little black dress from a hook and hurriedly tug off my pajamas to draw it over my head.

  As I toss my PJs toward my bed, however, a familiar face catches my eye from a photograph hung near my bedside window. I grimace at the young man, whose normally jovial smile looks vaguely stern right now, as if he’s scolding me. “I’m sorry,” I hiss to the picture, sotto voice. “I’ll do better. I promise.”

  It’s up to me to look after my parents, after all. I have one job. I need to focus on it more. I need to be the perfect daughter, the one they deserve. The one who attends the stupid social events of the season they’re always throwing and appreciates the life they worked so hard to build for us.

  Even if I don’t believe in it at all. Even if I’d prefer to just sink into obscurity, without any money or the attendant fame and bother that comes with it.

  That’s not my choice anymore. I have to do this for my family, because I’m their only daughter.

  Finished tugging the dress on, I study myself in the mirror. Decent. I toss on a simple gold necklace and a pair of high heels to go with, and voila. The best thing about A-line, flare-waist dresses is that you look way fancier than the effort required to slip into them.

  Grabbing a purse to match my shoes, I hurry back into the living room and unplug my phone, opening my usual rideshare app. My parents’ place is up in the Hills, usually a twenty minute ride from me on a good day—which I’m praying it will be today.

  Please no traffic, please no traffic…

  But as the app finishes loading, I stare at it, my stomach sinking. No available cars in your area…

  Damn it. That’s worse than traffic. Biting my lower lip, I glance up at the clock. The party has already started. There’s no public transit between my place and my parents’. Think, Selena, think.

  The Samsons. The idea arrives like a gasp of fresh air to a drowning woman. Of course. A couple of my parents’ oldest friends and colleagues, the Samsons, live a five minute walk down the road from me—something that made my parents feel a lot better about my choice of apartment when I told them earlier this year that I’d be moving out to live on my own, in spite of their misgivings—and a few of my own, to be honest.

  They’ll be going to the party for sure. And Mrs. Samson is notoriously slow at getting ready. I’d bet anything they haven’t left yet.

  I tap open their number on my phone as I step out of my apartment and lock the door behind me. “Come on, come on, pick up,” I whisper as it rings. And rings. And rings.

  Shit. Just when I’m about ready to hang up and try another ride share app—or maybe even biting the bullet and try to call a cab company, though god knows how long that would take to get here—someone picks up.

  “Samson residence.”

  “Mrs. Samson?” My voice goes high and breathy with relief. “It’s Selena.”

  “Selena, honey, how are you? Listen, I can’t talk just now because—”

  “You’re going to the party, right?” I interrupt. “Any chance I could bum a ride?”

  “Oh!” There’s a pause on the other end. “Oh, of course, honey, I didn’t even think of that. No problem at all. I was just about to pull out. Should I pick you up at your flat?”

  The Samsons had moved out to LA from England almost thirty years ago now, but Mrs. Samson never did stop saying flat. “That would be g
reat. Thank you so much—you’re a lifesaver!”

  We disconnect, and I hurry down my apartment staircase to meet her outside the lobby entrance. Luckily, I must have actually caught them post Mrs. Samson’s getting ready, because the car pulls up in just under two minutes, with Mrs. Samson at the wheel.

  “No Mr. Samson tonight?” I ask as I slide into the passenger seat, after a glance into the back. I pull the seat belt out and snap it into place, tugging twice to make sure it’s secure.

  Then, as subtly as I can force myself to do it, I wrap both hands around the belt, near my chest area, and cling to it like a lifeline. The car engine starts up, and my adrenaline sparks along with it. But I try my best to breathe through it. To ignore the sensation, the fear that always kicks up in my chest in these situations.

  It’s fine. You’re fine. You know Mrs. Samson. You know she’s a good driver. It will be all right.

  Still, I can’t help tensing as we pull away from the curb.

  “He’s already there,” Mrs. Samson is saying as she steers us off my smaller side road and onto one of the highways that leads out into the Hills where my parents live. “Most of the boys just drove up to your parents’ place straight after they finished in the office today. It’s just us girls dawdling behind.” Mrs. Samson glances over at me, and only just now seems to notice the way I’m white-knuckling the seat belt. “Everything all right, Selena?”

  “Fine, totally fine, absolutely,” I manage through tightly gritted teeth, even as my brain yells at my mouth to stop after one word. My explanation only sounds weaker the longer it goes on.

  As an excuse, or hopefully just a distraction, I pick up my phone and tap it open to squint at it. Another new text from Mom.

  ETA?

  “When should we be getting there?” I ask, and I’m proud that I manage to keep my voice mostly level this time.

  Mrs. Samson side-eyes me for another minute, but at least she doesn’t pry. I do notice her lips purse for a moment, however, before she responds. “Hmm, GPS is saying in about thirty minutes. Must be a little traffic up ahead.”

  “Oh. Okay. I just… my mom is texting me, that’s all.” I force a lighthearted laugh and shove my phone back into my pocket. “You know how she gets with these events, wants everything to go exactly according to the plan.”

  “Mm.” Mrs. Samson bobs her head. “Well, feel free to let her know we’re on our way.”

  “And that we’ll be as quick as we can, good idea,” I reply, as I’m pulling my phone back out to actually respond to the text. Duh.

  I always get scatterbrained when I’m nervous. And nervous is putting this mildly, comments a nasty little voice in the back of my head. One I try my hardest to ignore. I’m getting better at it these days. It’s not nearly as loud or insistent as it used to be, right after—

  Well. Right after it happened.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t want to drive yourself,” Mrs. Samson comments, as she reaches over to flick on the radio. “If your mother was hassling you so much about coming on time.”

  “Oh, I…” I bite my lower lip and glance out the side window. Mistake. The palm trees and rolling hills outside fly past far too quickly for comfort. Not to mention, in that direction, I can catch glimpses of the other cars on the road around us, which…

  I turn back to face Mrs. Samson pointedly. “I don’t have a car,” I say.

  “Really?” Mrs. Samson’s eyebrows rise. “But you…” She trails off, as if realizing her next words might be indelicate.

  I can hear what she’s thinking loud and clear anyway. But your parents are rich as hell. They could buy you three cars if they wanted to.

  They could, it’s true. Thanks to all the successes of the business in recent years, and the new acquisitions they keep making—much like the one they plan to celebrate tonight. But I wouldn’t have accepted cars as gifts from my parents, even if I had any use for wheels of my own. For the same reason that I refused to let them help me with the rent at my apartment, either. I want to do things on my own. To be independent.

  At least, as far as that’s possible given my condition.

  We lapse into a silence that, if it’s not exactly comfortable, at least feels companionable. I won’t ask about the skeletons lurking in your closet, Mrs. Samson seems to say, so long as you don’t hassle me about being late anymore.

  I keep my gaze fixed firmly on the radio, on Mrs. Samson’s narrow hands with the large wedding ring, one gripping the wheel and the other occasionally reaching over to rest on the gear shift. She has a great nail polish color. Sparkly, red.

  It only makes me more aware of how little I did to prepare for this event. I risk a glance at the side mirror just to check my face. At least I look all right without makeup. My skin tends toward tan naturally, so it helps hide any blemishes or blush patterns. Useful, because god knows I blush easily enough, at the slightest drop of a hat.

  I take a few deep breaths as we reach the final hill up toward the towering clifftop on which my parents’ property sits. My phone buzzes a handful more times, no doubt with more messages from my mother, probably berating me for arriving late, or guilting me over how my father thinks I’ve stood him up at one of the most important moments the family company will experience all year.

  I don’t know. And I won’t know until we reach their house, because we’re close now, and I can’t stand to look at anything—not my phone, not even Mrs. Samson’s delicate hands or the radio station she’s turned on in the car.

  I squeeze my eyes shut and take slow, forcibly even breaths until I feel the car slow beneath me.

  “Here we go,” Mrs. Samson is saying cheerily.

  “Thanks again!” I practically yell, and fumble to yank off my seat belt the instant I feel the car has stopped completely. I fling open the door before the engine has even shut off, my eyes still squeezed partially shut, just so I can’t see anything triggering, just so I won’t remember when—

  Crash.

  I let out a loud yelp and fall back onto the car seat, which I’d been halfway out of, leaping toward pavement and the grass beyond like I was the final passenger on a sinking ship who just reached land.

  Mrs. Samson gasps a little beside me, and my heart hammers in my chest, so hard that it takes an instant for my vision to clear, for me to realize what’s going on, what I just hit…

  Oh.

  One of my mother’s enormous potted plants had been moved to the end of the driveway, balanced carefully along each side of the path up to the house itself, which towered over the scene. Even from here, I could see guests all across the huge lawns, sipping cocktails and laughing in the setting sunlight behind them. The house itself had been festooned in streamers and lights, decked out to the nines, and music and laughter reached our ears even all the way down here at the end of the driveway.

  But closer to hand, I’d just shoved Mrs. Samson’s car door straight into one of those very potted plants, cracking the enormous white ceramic urn it was in, and sending a miniature lemon tree, heavy with fat Meyer lemons, crashing sideways into another car parked beside us in the long driveway.

  “Shit,” I breathe, as I stare wide-eyed at the damage. Not only did the plant’s upper branches crash through the passenger side window of the car, taking one of the mirrors with it, but the base of the thing, the heavy ceramic pot, looks like it dented the car door itself, and took a few heavy chunks of paint with it.

  Pretty, deep burgundy paint, on a car that looks like it costs almost as much as my parents’ house. It’s some kind of vintage model that looks like it belongs in Cuba or an old silent film from the 1950s. The kind of car you only bring out on special occasions, to go driving somewhere that you hope people will stop and stare and point and notice you.

  Fuck.

  I’m still staring when Mrs. Samson hurries around to my side of the car. I barely even noticed her slamming the driver’s side door or stepping out.

  “Well, that is a pickle,” she’s saying, cooing a
nd tutting with a heavy frown on her face as she examines the damage.

  “I… I didn’t mean to, I just didn’t see it,” I stammer. Then I glance from the damage up to the house and back again. As if in response to my thoughts, my phone buzzes in my pocket once more. “Er… why don’t I go and get my parents? My father will know what to do.”

  Mrs. Samson looks over and me, still frowning, and crosses her arms, nodding. “I think you’d better do just that, yes. You’ll need to find the owner of this car before the end of the party.”

  Heart in my throat, I slam her car door, wincing yet again when I notice a scrape of paint missing from her car door as well. Crap. That’s going to cost us.

  Not that money is much of an object for my parents, but still. It’s adding inconvenience on top of the trouble I’m already in, which I know based on the number of texts on my phone is deep.

  Just keep digging this hole, Selena, I think to myself as I start up my parents’ driveway toward the house. I make it almost all the way to the front door before a figure swathed in black nearly knocks me over, it collides with me so hard.

  “Darling, you made it!” From the scent drifting off of her, Mom used about four times her usual amount of perfume—something she tends to do whenever she’s feeling nervous or anxious about an event. Not that she’d ever admit to feeling anything like nerves or inconvenient feelings when it comes to these sorts of things. She’s always been the very picture of refined, competent elegance. Determined to come across as cool and easy, breezing through life with effortless aplomb.

  Only those of us who see her behind the scenes, like immediate family, know how secretly demanding and strict she has to be to make everything look so effortless.

  It isn’t easy being easy, as she always says.