"Assholes are good at making people feel like that."
"He said I wasn't ‘fulfilling my potential.' ‘Stagnating,' he called it. He thinks I should be writing for some upmarket New York magazine instead of here. Like I'm hiding out at this fluff job because I'm secretly afraid I'm not good enough to go someplace better."
"That's bullshit," I say as I watch the floor numbers go down. "Your stuff is fantastic. That review you did on the last Christopher West movie? It's the best fucking movie review I've ever read."
I see Margo's eyes glint with surprise at me behind her glasses. "You liked it?"
"I fucking loved it. And the piece about the Los Angeles aqueduct. You're an amazing writer. I could feel your passion on the page."
Margo shuffles a little, looking away so I can't see how uncomfortable she is with being praised. "I'm surprised anybody actually read that."
"Hey, I told you I loved it at the time."
"I thought you were just being polite."
"I'm rarely polite."
Margo laughs a little, but it falls away quickly, replaced by that tense, concerned expression that's been her default since the phone call.
"Anyway, the thing is … he's right," Margo says, as the doors open and we step through. "I am underachieving. I do want to write stuff that's more important than … a movie review, or some preview for an art show."
I wrap my arm comfortingly around her shoulder and she leans her head against my shoulder as I lead her into the studio, my eyes going a little hard, daring the crew setting things up to ask if we should actually be here uninvited. It's the second time I've touched her today, and I'm starting to realize how nice it feels. And how dangerous.
"Listen." I pull back and turn her to face me, silently reminding myself that we've stayed in the friend zone all these years for lots of good reasons, that I'd be a terrible person to even fantasize about taking advantage of her while she's on the rebound. "I don't like this ‘you,'" I say, mock-sternly. "Vulnerable, self-conscious, uncertain. Leave all that for the girls without awesome hair. The Margo I know is a feisty bitch with a smart mouth and even smarter articles. You could write a piece about pin cushions and have me quoting it for weeks."
Margo laughs, and I have to hold myself back from moving on to how tight her ass is and how fuckable her lips are.
"This flattery is doing wonders for my ego," she says. "But let's investigate that bar quick before someone tells us we're not allowed to be here."
That's the Margo I know.
So far there's no one else in sight besides the people we saw setting up, so I take advantage of the fact that we're early for whatever the hell this is and pull a few of the already-poured shots off the bar, handing one to Margo. She downs it quickly, barely wincing, still lost in her own thoughts.
"We had this plan," she says, picking up some thread I thought we'd dropped half a conversation ago, a little more fire in her voice now, grabbing another shot, "well, Carl had this plan. See, he's a director-or wants to be, anyway. He hasn't done anything since his film school thesis made it into Cannes a few years ago, but nothing ever came of it." She downs the shot with ease, slamming the empty glass down. "I was supposed to get this amazing job in New York-he was obsessed with New York City, ugh-and find some cool loft apartment where he could stay and work on his ‘art,'" Margo puts over-elaborate air-quotes on the word before sticking her tongue out.
"Sounds like he was just looking for a free ride," I say, about to take my own first shot as a crowd starts to trickle into the studio and form around the bar.
"Right? Oh, I'll take that," Margo says, grabbing the little glass right out of my hand.
"Is that your third already? Maybe you should slow it down a li-"
Ignoring me, Margo downs the tequila and continues, "I mean, do you know how many people would kill to write for those New York magazines? It's not like you can just walk into their offices and say "hey, I'm awesome, give me the features page." She slams the empty glass onto the bar, gasping deeply before casting those now-fierce eyes at me again, finger pressing every point of hers home. "It's not like TrendBlend is some dark corner of the internet. If anything we get way more readers than all those pretentious, hi-falutin', stuck-up-their-own-asses, pseudo-intellectual sites."
"Hear, hear," a co-worker in the crowd around us says, before handing Margo another shot.
"Hold on-she's already had three," I say quickly, but Margo's already downed it before I reach the end of the sentence. I know from past experience that Margo can hold her liquor, but the problem is that I also know how crazy she can get when she's holding it.