Girls Who Travel Read Online Free Page A

so—”
    â€œBut you’ll have to do something for me,” she interrupted.

5
    I PUT THE phone down and fell back into my chair with a relieved moan.
    Bae consented to meet with Holland herself to go over the itinerary for the conference. She agreed to tell him that Richie Rich had something suddenly come up.
    In exchange, I would need to run an errand for Bae since she was giving up her lunch break to meet with Holland and she’d be in Dubai next week because she was just sooo busy and important and cool.
    But nothing to panic over. A few little errands bartered for job security? Done. Holland had another meeting this afternoon, so I could leave now and return during his second appointment, and he wouldn’t know how long I’d been gone. My job was safe.
    While waiting for instructions from Bae, I started preppingmyself for the outdoors. I left my blazer and work shoes behind and slipped on my (in)famous Dr. Martens boots, which I brought along to change into after work so I could be comfy at Madison’s house. (Okay, fine, so it sort of was like a playdate.)
    By the time I got downstairs and outside the office, Bae had texted me her order: “Pick up six Cronuts from Dominique Ansel Bakery. Anything else is unacceptable.”
    I thought to myself:
Enough with the damn Cronuts!
The croissant-doughnut dessert hybrid was still stupidly popular with tourists, and the bakery would be overrun this time of day with a line around the block. Not to mention that there was no way I’d snag
six
Cronuts without trading my immortal soul.
    This task was obviously just designed to piss me off; since meeting Bae Yoon, I had never seen her put so much as a martini olive in her mouth.
    Still, what Bae Bae wants, Bae Bae gets. I bundled up my coat and darted rabbitlike into the dank 34th Street Subway heading for Soho.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    â€œY OU HAVE GOT to be shitting me,” I said aloud as another text from Bae came through.
    Some tourist in line for the bakery scowled at me and made her hands into earmuffs for her child’s precious ears.
    I had just waited in line for forty-five minutes to get the Cronuts and now
this
.
    â€œOne more thing,” texted Bae directly after I let her know that I got her Cronuts—I was only able to snag three without resorting to sexual favors or the black market. Her next request was just plain cruel.
    â€œGo to Orifice Depot and pick up . . .”—actually I stopped reading right there and
prayed
that she had made a very unfortunate typo.
    She cannot be asking me to go to a sex shop for her
, I silently contested. But when I read the rest of the text, my fears were confirmed. I texted her back: “You must be joking. Please, please be joking?”
    Her response was instantaneous: “No.”
    In a follow-up text, she added: “And when you’re done, make sure you leave the bags with the doorman of my apartment.”
    I said the word “fuck” aloud a few times, because it was
clearly
in order, and I begrudgingly made my way to the unbearably named store.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    I THRUST ( BAD choice of word) the phone up to the poor sales associate’s face so I could be spared the embarrassment of reading Bae’s list aloud.
    â€œPlease fetch me these things as quickly as possible, mm’k?” I piped, mashing the words together. But of course, it wasn’t going to be that straightforward. Why did the sales associate have to be so damn thorough?
    â€œAnother question for you,” he chirped (his third). “So this one comes in three sizes and colors. There’s vanilla, then there’s caramel, or the biggest one is called chocolate. Which one were you interested in?”
    I threw up in my mouth when I saw what he was holding, and I inadvertently pictured Bae.
    â€œUm, whichever. Really. I do not care,” I squealed all too shrilly.
    The