Willa & the Extraordinary Internship

CH. 31

"Willa, can you get that?" Nate called out, poking his head out of his bedroom door. The rest of him wasn't visible, shielded by the wall. "I'm kinda naked here," he added, sheepish.

"Sure," Willa replied, getting up from his kitchen table. She had been attempting to write, but the doorbell had distracted her. Unsure of whether or not she should answer someone else's door, she was saved the indecision by Nate's timely appearance.

She looked through the peephole. A girl with straight blonde hair stood there, a purse suspended from the crook of her elbow and a slim-fit pantsuit clinging to her skinny, size-two body. "Can I help you?" Willa asked politely after she swung the door open.

The girl stared at her, taken aback. "Who are you?" Her forehead scrunched and her eyebrows came together in a frown.

"Oh," Willa said, feeling a little flummoxed. "I'm a friend of Nate's."

"I see." The girl continued standing there, her lipsticked lips pursed. "Are you going to let me in?"

"Who are you?" Willa returned, folding her arms over her chest, suddenly feeling underdressed.

"I'm Bridget." The blonde ducked her head around Willa to peer into the apartment. "Look, is Nathan here? I have a lot to do today and I don't have a lot of time to waste." She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. Her gaze seemed to accuse Willa for lounging around at home instead of doing something productive.

"Yeah," Willa said slowly. Based on the girl's professional attire, Willa figured she was someone here to talk book business with Nate. She took a step back, letting Bridget enter. "Nate!" she called out. "You have a visitor."

The girl entered like she'd been there a hundred times before, walking to the living room with brisk steps and putting her purse down on the cat's upturned sofa cushion like a throne. Bridget cast a dispassionate eye over the apartment, finally coming to rest on Willa's computer, still open to the Word Document she'd been working on.

In a self-conscious movement, Willa moved to her Macbook Pro, blocking it from Bridget's view. After she'd showered and had breakfast with Nate, she had returned to her apartment just long enough to change her clothes and pick up her laptop. Nate had asked her to spend the day with him, and there was still so much Willa wanted to work on regarding her book, so she hadn't been able to resist lugging it along with her. Who said you couldn't mix business with pleasure, right?

The name Hermès gleamed at Willa from the metallic stamp on the front of Bridget's purse, the words embossed in deep ridges and grooves into the metal. Noticing Willa's stare, Bridget smiled, somehow managing to reveal every single one of her teeth at once. "Yeah, it's a real Birkin bag," she said, primly sitting down next to her purse. "I wouldn't be caught dead in anything fake, would you?" She stroked the textured brown leather. "It's alligator skin," Bridget said, pride evident. "You can't even buy these anymore. Ethical reasons." She shrugged elegantly, like the idea that someone might find it abhorrent to slaughter innocent animals for fashion was inconceivable.

Willa fought to hide her grin. Bridget reminded her of Cyn, both so eager to impress. "Cool," she said, humoring the girl. Turning to face the bedroom door she called out again, "Nate!"

"Who is it?" he shouted back, emerging from the bedroom with a white tee shirt covering his face. His slim, tapered waist was exposed, a narrow trail of brown fuzz reaching towards his belly button. Joe Boxer was written on the waistband of his underwear, only the top of the words visible, the rest covered by his jeans. With a clumsy gesture, he yanked the shirt the rest of the way over his head and tugged the bottom of the shirt so it covered his abdomen.