Lori Sullivan stood across the desk from her dad, Kevin Sullivan. He was a tall man, he was sitting down, but it didn't make him any less intimidating. He was bald, which Lori refused to acknowledge because genetics were real and she didn't want to confront that.

"How was the drive over, darling?" Kevin asked, his eyes running up and down her body in the protective way he always did. She was his eldest child, and she knew he felt protective of her.

She shrugged, "Fine."

Kevin Sullivan, the CEO of Sullivan Productions, glared at her. Lori sighed, cocking her hip out and leaning against the desk. "What do you want to know? I got A's in all my classes, internship is starting next week, and the apartment is nice. What do you want?"

"Dolores–"

"Lori."

He stared for a minute, his eyes an icy blue and sharper than she had seen in a minute. "Dolores," the Sullivan patriarch snapped. It felt like scolding. Not that she wasn't familiar with that tone of voice. "Your internship."

What? "What about my internship? You said it was going to start next week." She crossed her arms, her leather jacket making a distinct noise as she moved. She needed this internship. Well... She wanted this internship. She wanted it badly, which is probably why Kevin was messing with it.

"Dolores."

"Will you just tell me? Just tell me how you fucked with what I thought was going to be a good thing, okay? Just tell me so I can fucking fix it and you can go back to sitting on your ass," is what Lori would have said if she had a death sentance. Instead she frowned, her heavily lined eyes narrowing as she glared at Kevin.

"Dolores, we had a deal."

She had no idea what he was talking about. His stupid blue eyes stared directly into hers and Lori wanted to jump over the desk and strangle the shit out of Kevin Sullivan.

It had been about a year since Lori had negotiated the internship with Kevin. It was likely she'd forgotten something, but she was sure the whole deal was that he got her the internship and Lori got straight A's and stopped getting her motorcycle impounded. Which she had done. Her motorcycle hadn't been towed in a full year and she got straight A's in every class since then. She worked for this. Lori deserved this.

"I kept up my side of the deal, Dad. Straight A's and the motorcycle isn't in the police impound lot and hasn't been since we made the deal–"

"What about your girlfriend?"

Lori had never thought so quickly in her life as it suddenly hit her. The third condition of the internship. That she, Lori Sullivan, notorious womanizer, had a steady girlfriend during the entire internship.

She wasn't sure why. She didn't feel like it was necessary. Lori was an adult. She knew how to not fuck her coworkers.

So she had to come up with something. Lori had to have this internship. She worked too hard to get here. She spent too much time working on shit to not have this. She needed this.

"She's good, she's good," Lori said, nodding. Well she was fucked now. She had just made up a girlfriend. She was in the beginning of one of those stupid rom coms where everything turns out wonderful. Except Lori didn't have movie magic on her side and she knew this wasn't going to turn out well. The only thing she had on her side was the ability to lie and a shit ton of money.

"Well then I'm sure you won't mind bringing her for a family dinner," Kevin said, his hands crossed softly on his desk. It was very clearly a tactic, it felt like everything Kevin did was a tactic of some sort, though Lori couldn't tell what this one was supposed to make her feel. Probably shame or fear, those were popular among businessmen.

Lori nodded, her composure as firm as possible, showing those emotions in front of Kevin was a bad idea. "Like hell, she doesn't deserve being grilled by you and Becca."

Becca, Lori's second step-mother, and the one she was closest to, was a strict-looking Swedish woman who was quick with her words and absolutely going to grill any girl Lori brought home, she always did.

"Well, unless you do I have no confirmation that you've complied with our deal," the broad man said, his voice low and rumbly as always.

Lori popped her hands on her hips, her leather jacket a familiar feeling under her hands. She wanted to say no, there was no real girl for Lori to bring to the large house she'd once called home. But she had no choice, to say no was to lose the internship and admit to lying in front of her father. Strategically, she could figure something out, find someone to show up at dinner and pretend to have been dating her. Yeah, that would work.

Her mind ran so quickly that Lori found herself verbally agreeing to dinner on Friday. She walked out of the room, head held high as she tried to figure out what exactly she just agreed to. Well, whatever it was it meant Lori had to find a fake girlfriend by Friday.

On the ride home, her bike purring underneath her, Lori thought about it, maybe her policy on focusing entirely on schoolwork and not at all on making friends was gonna bite her in the ass. She sighed as her new apartment rose up in the distance.

There was no more time to think, Lori parked her motorcycle in the parking garage of her building and dismounted. She lived in a pretty fancy building, one with an older style and incredibly cute little balcony. The place was sweet and Lori enjoyed it a lot, but, while exiting the parking garage to the building's entrance, Lori accidentally smacked directly into someone.

She paused as the other woman's purse burst open, her stuff pouring all over the ground.

"Oh shit, I'm so sorry," Lori said, bending down to start picking up some of the things that had gone sprawling on the pavement.

The woman bent down to grab her things, inspecting the hole in her purse as she did so, "Oh, it's not your fault, that hole was absolutely there earlier."

"No, I really should have been watching–" Lori paused as she looked up, making direct eye contact with the woman. She was beautiful, someone that, if Lori had the chance, she would absolutely annihilate. "Hi, sorry, I'm Lori."

"Yasmin," The woman said, her brown eyes piercing Lori's similarly brown eyes. There was something about her that had Lori paying attention to every part of her, her brown overalls and flowery button down shirt were offset by the thin gold chain resting on her clavicle. The clothes were well worn, nothing like any of Lori's clothing, besides her motorcycle gear.

Lori handed her the items she'd picked up. "I'm so sorry about your bag. It was really cute," she said, noticing the cute little hand-embroidered patches of various vegetables on the jean fabric. "Did you make it yourself?"

Yasmin nodded, shoveling her items into her pockets. "Yeah, it was a project for school. I'll have to fix it when I get home." She stood, and Lori quickly followed. She suddenly realized how much shorter Yasmin was—almost half a foot shorter. Her head ended just as Lori's started.

"Sorry if this is weird but–" Lori brushed her hand through her hair, unsure whether or not it would be accepted but barreling through the sentence anyway. She wasn't one to look unsure. "Could I get your number?"

"No, that's definitely weird," Yasmin said, her eyes taking on a sort of hardened look and Lori realised that she wasn't walking away from this looking like a great person. "But yes, you can get my number. Just don't be a freak about it."

Lori blinked, she held out her phone, the contacts pulled up for Yasmin. She hadn't thought it would work. It pretty much never did, but apparently Yasmin was different. Lori smiled, her teeth almost bared as she took her phone back from Yasmin. The contact named Yasmin (jean purse) stared back at her. "I'll text you."

"You'd better," Yasmin said, her smile almost as sharp as Lori's. "It's gonna take at least 20 bucks of fabric to fix this purse and I wasn't the one who broke it so..." She walked past Lori, her fluffy brown hair puffing behind her as she almost flounced away in the opposite direction Lori was heading.

What? Lori blinked yet again, her confusion almost palpable in the air. As she headed into her building and up the elevator, Lori had no idea what had just happened. Did she owe the girl that 20 bucks? Did Yasmin want that 20 bucks? Lori pulled out her phone and quickly found the contact that Yasmin had just placed there.

Lori: hey yasmin (jean purse) it's lori

Lori sent $50

Lori: i hope that bag gets fixed it's cute