Schooled

Stripped Excerpt! Chapter 2 - Ava

July, Six and a Half Months Later

I fucking hate New York.

My pulse pounded in my ears like a drum. Sweat poured down my face and my neck.

Is spontaneous combustion a real thing? Because it might happen in the next five seconds.

"What the hell do you mean you're selling our condo?" I panted into my cell. My lungs dragged in two shallow breaths.

"Honey, it's my condo. You and your roommate need to be out in a week." Our landlord's voice came down the line.

"But we just moved in! You can't—"

Dial tone.

Shit!

I was booking it across 37th Street as fast as my trendy open-toed pumps would carry me, already late.

Getting evicted wasn't the first bad thing to happen that month. Since my best friend and I had moved to New York, a pigeon had shit on my head, a local had flashed me on the street, and the R train had got me lost.

Three. Fucking. Times.

For a city that's supposed to be epic, the Big Apple hadn't bothered to put out the welcome mat.

The sleek office building finally came into view as I rounded the corner. When I pulled on the handle of the glass door by the side of the building, it refused to open. I tried again.

"Come on, you know you want to."

I gave up the crooning and tried to pry it open. My nail broke off in the door frame.

"Dammit!"

I looked around wildly, realizing too late that everyone was going through a revolving door farther down the building. The one I'd been trying said Security Only

across the top. Finally pressing inside the right door revealed a lobby filled with well-dressed professionals who, unlike me, knew where they were going. My heels clicked as I rushed over the marble floor toward the security guard in the corner.

The guard's nametag said Barry. I plastered on a smile and tried not to wheeze.

"I'm—" shallow breath of a dying woman "—I'm looking for a law office."

"Which law office?" Barry asked my boobs like they were more exciting than my words. In his defence, Barry wasn't the first man to think so.

"There's more than one law office here?" I groaned.

"Twelve in this building."

No wonder the world is going to shit. I tried to remember the name. "Umm ... something about arms ..."

"Armstrong Levitt. They're on eighteen. What's a pretty girl like you need a lawyer for?" He looked me up and down like it was the best part of his day. Barry was old enough to be my dad.

His eyes shone hopefully when I rested a forearm on the desk. "I cut a guy," I confided in a loud whisper. Then I took off toward the elevator bank without looking back for his reaction.

Eighteen floors passed in a flash. I tried to fix myself in the mirrored wall. Tucked a few strands of auburn hair back into my messy bun. Scrubbed a tiny smudge of winged eyeliner I always screwed up on my left eye. Smoothed my royal blue silk tank and tugged down my probably-too-short skirt. I did the last part carefully, to protect the feather detailing around the hem.