Just My Luck Read Online Free Page A

some friends. Women too, I hoped. But I don’t know. That’s always hard. I haven’t found any friends here yet, not at my job either. I’m sure glad I have Ally. And I’m sorry.” She brought herself up short with a little laugh. “Why am I telling you all this?”
    He ignored the question, focused on what she’d revealed. “Because you intimidate them,” he guessed. “Because they make assumptions about the kind of person you are.”
    “How do you know so much?” she wondered. “I wouldn’t think . . .”
    “That I’d care about people, because of how I look,” he finished for her with a gentle smile completely at odds with his appearance. “See how easy it is to do?”
    She laughed, feeling a whole lot more cheerful than when she’d come in here. “Guilty.”
    She slid to her feet, took off the flannel shirt with regret and handed it back to him. “And thanks. I’m going to go back out there again now, and soldier on.”

Chance Encounters
    “I need to stop going for coffee,” Ally said the following Friday afternoon. “It’s just way too tempting a habit.”
    She was sitting across from Kristen at one of the little triangular tables of Espressoholic, the explosion of funky art and color around them a perfect backdrop, she thought, for Kristen in her simple work outfit of cream silk shirt and fawn trousers. Kristen was always so accessorized, too. Belt, bag, earrings, the works, all looking like she’d just happened to throw them on and they just happened to look perfect. Whereas Ally felt like she was doing well if her socks matched. She sneaked a peek down beneath her climbing pants. Yep. Match. Score.
    “I’d be happy to pay for you next time,” Kristen assured her. “I needed some company tonight. I wish you didn’t have to work. We could have gone out. Or even,” she said with a little smile, “found another party to go to. Since the last one was so successful.”
    Ally groaned. “Skulking around in a wet sweater until Hannah realized what was up and insisted on our leaving early. I couldn’t have done a much better job of spoiling the party for all of us. Yeah, that worked. Anyway, you can’t spend money on me. You can’t afford that either.”
    Kristen had got little enough, Ally knew, after the divorce, considering her ex-husband’s wealth. Had walked away without very much more than the wardrobe her rat bastard ex had bought to show off his trophy wife. Before he’d found a new trophy.
    “And yeah, split shifts are the worst,” she said, changing the subject, knowing Kristen didn’t want to talk about money. Or the past. She took another sip of the large trim flat white that was going to get her through until nine, and then however long it took to close. “At least there’ll be an evening crowd. It’s always easier when it’s busy, although it won’t be as busy as it should be. I wish Mac’s outlook wasn’t quite so blokey. He doesn’t realize what he’s got there. A climbing gym should be a meat market on Friday night. A healthy meat market,” she added at Kristen’s startled look.
    “Maybe you could suggest some things,” her friend offered.
    “After two weeks . . . I don’t think that would go over too well,” Ally said wryly. “Probably not ever.”
    “You have such good ideas, though,” Kristen said loyally. “It’s too bad you’re not running things.”
    “Yeah,” Ally sighed. “But nobody’s clamoring to put me in charge.”
    She glanced over as a young man leaned across from the next table. She’d noticed him as soon as she and Kristen had sat down. Dark, straight hair in a carelessly tousled style that had probably taken some effort to achieve, a startlingly handsome face over an open-necked white shirt and stylish slim-cut gray suit, he was the male equivalent of Kristen. Now, he spoke to them for the first time.
    “Sorry,” he said. “Horribly rude of me to eavesdrop, I know. But do you work at Mac’s climbing gym, by any