1 There was nothing quite like stumbling into the office still half-drunk from the night before. Cas had chewed an entire pack of gum on the way in that morning but, as a quick breath test in the lift up to her office confirmed, last night's gin was still very much present on her breath. And coupled with the, well, artful way her eyeliner was smudged under her eyes, she looked like she'd rolled out of the sewer before dragging herself to work. In her defense, this wasn't Cas's usual commute. It was rare that she had to be in this early after a late-night event, and Cas would never have let herself drink so much if she'd known she was going to have to be here at this ungodly hour. And she especially wouldn't have drunk so much if she'd known she was going to be in a meeting with their chief marketing officer. In typical Robert fashion, though, he'd only felt the need to text her and request this god-awful eight a.m. meeting at nine last night when she was already five drinks deep. Because he was nothing if not considerate. And, all right, she shouldn't be drinking that heavily on the job, but it was the only thing that helped her pretend these dating events for Friday, the premier dating-app company she worked for, had anything to offer her these days. She could only host awkward singles mixers and talk to the same carbon-copy people about their very particular interests for so many nights in a row before she wanted to go lay down in the middle of the motorway and hope for the best. Cas leaned forward and examined her reflection in the lift doors. She'd genuinely tried to make herself look presentable this morning, had even borrowed some of her roommate Aisha's vitamin C serum in a last-ditch attempt to brighten things up, but you would never know it by looking at her now. Her skin was sallow, dry, her mascara and eyeliner had refused to come off when she'd cleansed, hence the smudging, and her eyes looked like they were trying to retreat into her skull. She'd chugged a sports drink on the tube, but she was also halfway through an iced coffee, which was probably not doing anything to help her debilitating dehydration. "Fuck," Cas muttered. She might have just been happy that she was able to show up here so early in the first place (gin stench, dry mouth, and all), but there had been something . . . suspicious about Robert's message after she agreed to the meeting. Something that told Cas she needed her wits about her this morning. 21:34 Robert: Great! If you could refrain from mentioning the meeting to anyone, I'd appreciate it. Talk tomorrow. The fact that he asked her not to let anyone know, not even her direct supervisor, had set off immediate alarm bells in Cas's head. She'd had to order herself another gin to keep from immediately texting Skye, her closest friend at work and her second roommate, to overanalyze it. The only solution, at that point, had been to hope she'd drink so much that she'd forget. A solution she was clearly regretting now. Cas scrubbed some eyeliner off with her index finger before slashing open the zipper on her crossbody bag. She unearthed her lip balm and swiped a thick coat across her lips as the lift floated to a stop on the ninth floor. The lift opened onto a small lobby, little more than a reception desk and a pair of armchairs in Friday's signature purple. They'd left the standard concrete on the floor-seemingly an aesthetic choice, although Cas couldn't imagine that Friday would have been able to afford anything other than the bare minimum in the early days-but there had been concerted efforts to warm it up since they'd moved into this space six years ago. Cas hadn't been here then, they'd moved into this building about a year before she joined and started running their live events, but she could only imagine what this place must have looked like without all the rugs and plants and soft touches their receptionist and general genius, Jana, had added. Jana smiled as Cas stepped off the lift. "Morning, Cas." Her gaze flicked quickly over Cas, probably taking in the way she was practically dragging her body behind her as she walked. "Looks like you had fun last night." Cas laughed, though it sounded more like someone had thrown gravel into a blender. "You know how much I love First Date, Speed Date night." "I need to go to one of those at some point," Jana said. The phone started ringing and she turned toward it slowly. "My single life is, like, fucking tragic." Jana paused. "Thank you for calling Friday, how may I direct your call?" "That makes two of us," Cas whispered as she unearthed her ID card and tapped it onto the reader on Jana's desk to sign in for the day. Jana turned her head away from the receiver to laugh. "Of course. Hold, please." She clicked a few buttons on the phone before dropping the receiver back onto the base. "Don't talk to me about tragic," Jana said, rolling her eyes. "You've got a new person on your arm every week." Cas attempted a smile, but the tightening around her eyes made her feel like her gesture probably looked less amused and more . . . unsafe to be around. "Well, someone's got to make sure the scrubs we recruit are worth our time." Jana barked a laugh and lifted her mug off her desk with a flourish. "You're too much." "That's what they tell me. Hey, do you know if Robert is in his office?" "Haven't seen him this morning, but let me check the system," Jana said. "Sometimes he likes to sneak in." She took a sip of her tea and started rapidly tapping her mouse with her free hand, her eyes scanning the screen for a few seconds before she clicked her tongue. "Yup. He's here-must have shown up while I was putting the kettle on." "Perfect." The sooner she got this meeting over with, the better. "Thanks, Jana." "Of course." Jana flashed a wink. "I hope the meeting goes well." "I- What do you know?" "Nothing you won't know in about ten minutes. Now go, you're going to be late." There was no sense pressing Jana for more. Cas had worked with her long enough to know that Jana said exactly as much or as little as she was ever going to. Cas half waved and walked off into the office, slinging her ID badge around her neck as she went. The office was quiet for eight in the morning-most of the events team tended to arrive around eleven or even later if they were out on location organizing some details for whatever they had going on that evening, but the day staff were numerous, about a half dozen other departments in all. It was still a little before eight, so Cas supposed most people would be rolling in over the next hour or so, but it was almost apocalyptic, how silent the office was at the moment. The few people she did see were wearing large over-ear headphones and typing quietly on their keyboards, and honestly, Cas was jealous of them, in spite of the early hour. She'd do anything to hide in her music and clack away on her keyboard every day and get paid for it. Her eardrums would certainly thank her if she started spending less time a meter away from pub speakers, and it would be nice, for once, to switch off. To work without having to plaster some big smile on her face and act like the sun shone out her arse. Where most everyone at Friday worked at long, open tables, the executive offices were private, tucked away in the corner and lined with gorgeous windows. A few years back, they'd built a partial brick wall to separate the executive suites from the main floor, and it deadened whatever sound there was as Cas walked into the assistant bay outside the offices. Robert's assistant, Colby, was sitting, as he always was, at his desk, and he smiled perfunctorily as he finished typing. "Go on through. I've let Robert know you're here." "Thanks." Cas took another long, bracing sip of her iced coffee and opened Robert's door. And promptly squinted into the too-bright sunlight shining through his windows. It felt like someone was pointing a laser directly into her retinas. "Ah, Cas." Robert was smiling, but there was no trace of warmth in his voice. "Good morning. I hope the hour isn't too early for you." "No, not at all." They both knew Cas was lying through her teeth but neither of them challenged it. "Well, good," Robert said, his eyes still on his computer screen as Cas sat down on the hard purple chair opposite his desk. "Because there are some big things I'd like to talk with you about." That couldn't be good. "Oh?" Robert turned in his chair so he was finally facing her. "I have a proposition for you." Robert tented his long fingers in front of his face, his glasses halfway down his nose so he could stare at Cas over the rims, the way he always did when he was trying to be particularly scary at their all-team marketing meetings. It was an expression that was, unfortunately, highly effective. Robert's blue eyes were famously like ice. Sharp and unfeeling and deadly, like those meter-long icicles that fell off roofs in Norway and impaled people. "Okay?" Cas had long since learned not to try to anticipate where things were going where Robert was concerned. He often had very different ideas about what was reasonable or, hell, even feasible. "You may have already heard, but the exec team has recently been talking about developing . . . closer ties with some big media properties." She had heard, funnily enough. Not a lot, just a passing comment one of the higher-up assistants made in the break room, about how much work scheduling was "now that we're trying to get TV execs on board." Cas hadn't really thought anything about it at the time; these things hardly ever mattered to events. They were much lower in the office hierarchy despite the fact that their work was what kept the lights on. "I've heard whispers," Cas admitted. Robert nodded sagely. "I figured. Though I'm sure those whispers were far from thorough, so for clarity's sake . . ." Robert grabbed a stack of papers from the corner of his desk and flipped it around with a flourish. There was a flow chart-no, an organizational chart-for some new marketing integration division and . . . holy hell. "I'm on here." Cas pointed at her name, there at the top of the page. With more than a dozen people reporting to her. "You are." Robert sounded like he might've been talking to a child, but Cas couldn't bring herself to be bothered about his tone. "We've seen the work you've been doing in events and we've been impressed. We all agreed that it's about time we give you a new challenge." In a million years, Cas would never have expected to hear these words out of Robert's mouth. She knew that she was working hard-she advertised the hell out of every single dating event she ran-but it was always thankless. Something she was expected to do, not something she was going to be celebrated for. And certainly not rewarded. All the rejected internal job applications she'd put through over the years were more than enough evidence of that. "So, I-" She felt like her brain was short-circuiting. "I would report to you?" "As CMO, yes. You'd be the direct line to the executive level from this new office along with Kaya-it's not quite reflected here, but we're merging print with digital, so Kaya will still have control of that side of things." Robert was studying her carefully, reading every micro-reaction on Cas's face. She should probably try to contain her excitement-she was certain this offer must have a thousand strings tied to it-but she was too tired. Too hungover. "We're still working on the final org chart, so if you've got feedback on that, we'd love to hear it." "Of course." Cas unzipped her bag and extracted a pen from the depths, and wrote a small note, feedback, with a tick box at the very top of the page. "Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, though, we should talk about one more thing." Cas's pen froze. "Okay." "Broadcast is an entirely new venture for us. We want to make sure that we move seamlessly into that space." Robert grabbed another packet of papers off his desk and handed it to Cas. "And we thought it would make perfect sense to start with one of the most popular properties on television." Hot Summer was scrawled across the top of the packet in big bold letters, and Cas's brows furrowed. "The dating show? Is the idea that people watch Hot Summer, get depressed with their own tragic lives, and then download our app?" She chuckled-it was absurd, surely not their plan, but- Robert laughed, the sound needles on Cas's skin. "In essence. But we thought, for this first year, we could get a little more . . . creative. See what we could do with these new broadcast partnerships." Ominous. "Meaning?" "We want to send one of the Friday staff onto the show this year," Robert said. "Test out a more organic marketing opportunity. And we think you're the perfect candidate." Cas heard Robert perfectly clearly. Technically understood the words as soon as he said them. But still, something wasn't clicking. Surely he wasn't saying what she thought he was saying. "What?" "For starters, I know you're a fan of the program. That sort of familiarity will serve you well. But more important, you've spent the last five years running a majority of our late-night dating events. You've been in more social scenes than I think most people will be in their entire lives. And I get glowing review after glowing review from clients who tell me you made their night memorable, and they're excited about their future romantic prospects." Cas might've been happy to hear the compliment if it weren't so easy to impress people on these nights out. They were drunk for one thing, giddy from spending time with people who might be interested in having sex with them for another, and even if all that failed, Cas knew she could be incredibly charming. She'd spent years cultivating the perfect persona-not-so-affectionately labeled Friday Cas among her friends-to ensure that everyone had a good time at these events. Friday Cas was bubbly, fun, always ordering drinks for the table, and the first to propose a scheme that was equal parts sexy and playful. She was seemingly open in a way that got other people to open up, to talk to one another, and she was an expert at spotting chemistry. At convincing people to give someone a shot, to see what happened, to let love take them. Excerpted from Hot Summer by Elle Everhart All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
