The Infamous Ellen James(26)

I leisurely set my coffee mug back on the table and clear my throat. Amy is the most impatient person I have ever met, and I find absolute joy in prolonging things just to get her worked up.

"He saw my presentation. In Nashville."

Amy's jaw drops and her eyes go wide with shock.

"What?! He was there?!" She is practically screaming, and I wouldn't be surprised if she just woke up the entire apartment complex.

"Calm down, crazy," I whisper-yell to her. "Yes. Trent Hamilton was present for one of the most embarrassing moments of my life." I give her a pointed stare.

"Fucking shit! I'm such a cunt!" Amy visibly feels terrible for her very large part in the Nashville presentation.

"Yeah, you kind of are." I chuckle a little to lighten up the mood.

Amy only gives me a tight smile in return.

"Don't worry about it, labia face. In your defense, when you emailed those slides back to me, you put in all caps, Read through these one more time."

"I know, Ellie, but I should have known you were too nervous to figure out I was secretly messing with you." She looks so remorseful right now. She's giving me her full-blown puppy-dog look, and I swear if I were a lesbian, I would just kiss her face off.

"Stop looking at me like you're going to thrust your tongue in my mouth." Amy grabs my empty coffee mug off of the table and rinses it out in the sink.

"Sorry, but you just look so pathetic with the puppy-dog eyes." Somehow this girl has a way of always knowing what I'm thinking. She is probably one of the only people in my life who really knows me. Amy knows me better than my own sister, Elizabeth. Although she can be a total pain in my ass some days, I honestly don't know what I would do without this crazy girl in my life.

Flashback to Nashville one and half months ago...



After begrudgingly agreeing to be the sole presenter for Regency Memorial Hospital, I found myself sitting alone in my hotel room the night before my big presentation. I was scheduled to present in front of several very well-known trauma surgeons along with numerous board representatives from hospitals around the nation. Hell, the god damn CEO of the Cleveland Clinic was supposed to be at this conference. Thank god I wasn't the only presenter, but still, I was nervous as hell. I found myself wired and unable to sleep, which was only worsening my anxiety towards this very nerve-racking experience. I'm not sure why my nursing manager Shirley decided that she wanted me to represent Regency. Sometimes I question her ability to rationally make decisions. I had done several presentations and educational lectures for the staff at my own hospital, but I had never been faced with anything of this magnitude. To say I was freaking out was definitely putting it mildly.

My flight from Charlotte to Nashville was a fucking nightmare. The scheduled one-hour flight took three times longer due to mechanical difficulties, and this cunt of a flight attendant rudely cut me off after four glasses of wine. Who does that? A cunt, that's who; a god damn cunt named Gina whose bleached blond stripper hair will most likely fall out from incessant amounts of peroxide and hairspray. Don't worry; I left her a kind note on my beverage napkin…



Dear Va-Gina,



Learn some fucking manners before you rudely cut someone off from alcohol on a fucking flight that was delayed for over two hours. Four glasses of wine is barely enough to give me a buzz.



Lick my asshole,



Passenger 32B





P.S. I fucked your pilot, Bill, last weekend in New York. He's ah-mazing.



No, I hadn't really screwed a pilot named Bill last weekend in New York, but I could guarantee that Va-Gina was sleeping with him. I had a good friend in college who'd become a flight attendant, and she used to tell me all the dirty details and juicy gossip. Apparently flight attendants and pilots sleep around—a lot. I was hoping my little white lie about Pilot Bill would get her all kinds of pissed.

Obviously, this conference had me on edge.

I never really had a problem speaking in front of large groups of people, but this presentation was huge for Regency Memorial Hospital. We were hoping to bring a positive spotlight to our new state-of-the-art facilities along with cultivating additional donations towards our ongoing cause in perfecting patient care in the emergency department setting.

I managed to eat half a cheeseburger and a few fries I'd ordered from room service. My nerves were really getting the best of me, and I was starting to panic about the slide presentation I'd prepared. I decided to email Amy my slides and beg her to look through them one final time. I sent her a quick text telling her to check her email, and she responded quickly with some smartass remark saying she'd get right on it.

Since the hospital was paying for everything, I decided to dive head first into the liquor bar that was so generously on hand. I ordered a horrible romantic comedy on pay-per-view, practically emptied the vending machine of candy, and continued to drink myself into a stupor. I managed to pass out sometime after midnight.