Managed by Chance Read online

  Managed by Chance

  By: Amy DeMeritt

  Managed by Chance

  Copyright © 2020 Amy DeMeritt

  All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN: 9798653808203

  Imprint: Independently published

  This book may not be reproduced in any form, in whole or in part, without written permission from the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events is entirely coincidental.

  Cover designed by Amy DeMeritt

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Other works by Amy DeMeritt

  Chapter One

  The very loud and annoying alarm clock across the bedroom, not even the five intermittent alarms on her cellphone, nor the personal wakeup call from her roommate could get Layla out of bed this morning. But the very odd and not very appealing combination of freshly brewed coffee, maple, and dill pickle finally caused her to emerge from the thick foggy dreamland and out of her comfortable bed. She stumbled to the kitchen, wiping sleep out of her eyes and scratching an itch that just needed to go.

  “Wash the ass off of your hand before you touch anything, please.”

  Layla waved her hand she was scratching with in front of her roommate’s face, earning her a well-placed flick on the tip of her short, round nose.

  As she turned to the sink to wash her hands, she said, with a hoarse voice, “Good morning to you too, Mel.”

  “I already told you good morning. And you kicked me and hit me with a pillow. You really need to get to bed earlier. You’re going to be late for work again today.”

  Layla rewarded Mel for the jab by flicking water at her as she turned to dry her hands. After filling a mug with steaming dark roast coffee, she leaned over the counter with her face in the steam, inhaling deeply through her nose.

  “What the hell are you doing? Why are you rolling that pickle in deli cuts?”

  “I’m making a hoagie for my lunch.”

  While she took a gulp of coffee, she looked at the supplies spread around Mel, then while pointing at the sliced tomato, she asked, “You can slice the tomato, but you’re too lazy to cut the pickle?”

  “No, it just tastes better like this.”

  “Right.” Layla rolled her eyes and drank more coffee. “I’ve never seen you make a hoagie like that before.”

  “I just started doing it like this a few weeks ago. But you wouldn’t have noticed because you’re usually still in bed when I’m walking out the door. Seriously, you need to do something about this or…”

  “Yeah, yeah, I get it, Mom. Jeez, sing a new tune already. This one is getting old.”

  Mel cleared her throat, and with a hand on her chest, she hummed as if trying to find a certain key. Layla rolled her eyes again and reached for the hoagie Mel had just finished assembling.

  “Hey, whoa, not cool!”

  The distinct sound of a crunchy pickle being bitten into was the only response Mel received. Layla smiled around the bite and nodded while she chewed. She wiped the mustard from the corners of her mouth, and with food still in her mouth, slightly garbling her words, she said, “That’s fucking amazing. You’re not getting this back.”

  “Brat.”

  Mel said it with love and amusement in her tone, but she was irritated none the less. Unlike Layla, she didn’t like being late for anything, especially not work. She checked the time on her a watch, then began assembling another hoagie.

  After laying out a few slices of thinly sliced ham on the cutting board, she grabbed a pickle from the jar and made a cut lengthwise from tip to tip, only hallway through.

  As she placed her hand over the sink and squeezed the pickle, Layla asked, “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Draining my pickle so it doesn’t leak or squirt me in the face when I bite into it later.”

  Layla fell forward laughing hard. “Oh, my god.” Still chuckling, she added, “Never say that again.”

  “Alright, how about, squeezing the excess juice from my pickle?”

  “No!” Layla laughed again, making Mel grin. “That is just as bad. Oh, my god.”

  “You have such a dirty mind.”

  “Yeah, coming from the woman who paid her way through college as a sex call operator.”

  “Keyword – paid. No debt. That’s how good I was.”

  Layla laughed while rolling her eyes. “Keyword – was. Past tense. When are you going to start dating again?”

  Mel’s mood flattened, as she gruffly retorted, “That segue was uncalled for.”

  “Whatever. Justine broke up with you two years ago. It’s time you…”

  “Yeah, yeah, sing a new song, Mom.”

  Layla’s face scrunched in agitation from Mel turning her previous statement on her. She reached across the counter and smacked Mel hard on her shoulder, which didn’t faze Mel but stung her own hand.

  “I’m serious, Mel. I want to see your annoyingly in-love face walking around here again. I miss it. I miss how we’d bicker over what we’re watching on TV because you want to please your girlfriend, even though you’d rather watch my pick. I miss…”

  Layla paused in confusion as Mel gripped her hand, then laughed and darted backwards as Mel tried to shove the stolen hoagie into her mouth. With another laugh, she asked, “Why did you do that?”

  “To get you to shut up.” She put her freshly made hoagie in her lunch container and snapped the lid down in place. “Anyway, thanks for caring. I’m over Justine. I just don’t have any desire to put myself out there again.”

  This wasn’t the first time Layla tried to convince Mel to start dating again. And it wouldn’t be the last. But she already stole her hoagie. Layla didn’t want to push it too far, so she decided to drop it for now.

  Mel walked around the kitchen island to put the ingredients back in the fridge, then wrapped her arms around Layla. She kissed her cheek, then playfully flicked the tip of her short, round nose.

  “Have a good day at work. Don’t forget, I’m going to be late tonight. Probably around nine or so. I’m taking my team out for a round of drinks as thanks for getting a particularly grueling project done early.”

  “Okay, have fun. Thanks for the hoagie.”

  “Sure. See you later.”

  Layla watched as Mel grabbed her lunch bag off of the counter and slung her laptop bag over her shoulder. A smile spread across her plump lips as Mel paused at the octagonal shaped mirror by the door to check her short hair and needlessly fingered the smooth and perfectly swept waves near her left temple. Mel glanced back at her, giving her customary posing for the camera smile, then walked out of the apartment.

  As she refilled he
r mug for a second cup of coffee, the digital clock on the stove caught her eye.

  “Shit.”

  She set her mug down and flipped the off switch on the coffee maker. She sprinted down the hall to her bedroom, pulling her tee shirt off over her head and threw it onto her bed. After pulling her sleep shorts off, she wiggled her curvy hips into a pair of tight, too tight, slacks for work. She threw a scowl at the mirror as she slapped the couple of inches of pudge spilling over the waist of her pants, then quickly put on a bra and a loose blouse to hide the extra weight.

  In just five minutes, she finished getting ready and ran out the door with a weight-conscious frozen entrée and a few low-calorie snacks in her lunch bag.

  Traffic was horrible, and when she got to work, she was twenty-five minutes late. As she was falling breathlessly into her chair and punched the power button to turn her computer on, her supervisor popped up at the edge of her cubicle. He rested his arm on the short wall and tapped the underside of his wedding band on the metal top.

  She put on her best confident smile and looked up at him while typing her username and password to get logged into her desktop. “Good morning, boss. How’s it going? Beautiful morning, isn’t it? I thought the sun would never come out again.”

  He just stared at her while taking a very long breath through his large nose with the corner of his mouth and his left eye twitching in indecision. He lightly slapped the top of the cubicle wall, then firmly said, “Get to work. You’ll need to make up the time you missed this morning.”

  “Got it, boss!”

  He quietly grunted at the cheery sing-song way she answered and walked away. She sighed in relief and quickly put her headset on and logged into the customer service phone line so she would be available to take calls.

  Layla was very lucky that Kyle was a bit of a pushover. She was chronically late for everything, especially work. She had tried early morning shifts, afternoon shifts, evening shifts – it didn’t matter what time she was supposed to be at work. She was always late for every job she had ever had. She’d somehow been able to hold onto this job for over a year and she owed it all to Kyle’s inability to chastise or fire people.

  She was good at her job, but she was not dependable to be on time. She knew that. Her team knew that. Even her roommate knew that. If it wasn’t for Mel’s constant nagging every morning to get her out of bed, she probably would have been hours late instead of just ten to thirty minutes late every day.

  Layla and Mel were roommates in college, and although they got along and had some common interests, they couldn’t have been more opposite of each other in many other ways if they tried. Right from the start, Mel was having to get onto Layla about doing her homework, studying, getting to classes on time, buying her books on time for each semester, doing her laundry, and on and on the list went. Mel was the rock that kept her grounded and focused from the moment she left home and became an adult. If it wasn’t for Mel, she probably would have ended up homeless or in jail or maybe even dead. Mel wasn’t just her roommate. She was her very best friend and the one person she knew always had her back for anything.

  She looked around the see if Kyle was nearby, and since the coast was clear, she pulled her cellphone out of her purse and sent Mel a text.

  Layla: Hey, thanks for always being there.

  As she was about to put her phone away, it vibrated with a response. She opened the message and her eyes teared up and her lips spread into a huge smile.

  Mel: Always and forever. You’re a wreck, but you’re my wreck and I love you. You make it to work okay?

  Layla: I love you too. Yes, I’m here and Kyle was dependably passive about me being late again.

  Mel: I love that guy.

  Layla laughed and glanced around to make sure she was still safe to have her phone out, which was against company policy.

  Layla: Oh, yeah? He’s married, but I can ask if he has a brother.

  Mel: You just made me spit coffee across my desk. Thanks, now I have to print a new copy of this report. I have to go. I have a meeting in ten minutes that I need to prepare for. Have a good day.

  Layla: Good luck in your meeting. Hope you get the news you’ve been waiting for.

  Mel: Yeah, it’s about freaking time.

  She lost no time in stuffing her phone back in her purse and got back to work answering customer complaint emails. Layla worked in customer service for the local cable and internet provider. And even though Mel had a much more demanding job and higher title than her, she never made Layla feel inferior.

  Mel was a supervisor in the IT department for Zops.com, an online retailer selling literally everything under the sun – garden supplies, plants, toilet paper, electronics, movies, books, vitamins, groceries, furniture, car parts, clothes, etcetera. She worked her way up from an entry level position during college to a supervisor in six years. Her manager resigned to pursue a better option elsewhere, so Mel was left to manage her team singlehandedly for seven months. She applied for the open manager position and had three interviews to prove she was ready to take the next step in her career. Mel was really great at her job. There was just no way she wouldn’t be given the promotion.

  Layla glanced around again to see if Kyle was nearby, then pulled her cellphone back out of her purse. Keeping her phone in her lap and slightly under her desk, she brought up the website for their favorite bakery and placed an order for a Bing-cherry pie – Mel’s favorite.

  Chapter Two

  The bar smelled of booze, sweat, and stale cigarettes. There were about a dozen people lazily dancing to the country music playing through two ancient speakers that were bolted to the wooden support beams in the center of the barroom. While most of the patrons were sitting around battered wooden tables or at the bar with their faces in oversized sweating mugs of foamy beer.

  Layla found Mel laying over one of the tables with her hand gripping an empty beer mug and a puddle of drool under her slightly parted mouth. She walked to the bar to request a couple of glasses of water and some napkins, then sat down next to Mel. After she eased the glass out of Mel’s grip, she lightly patted her cheek, making Mel groan and jerk awake.

  “What…? Oh, hey.”

  “Hey.” Layla wiped her cheek and chin with a napkin, but Mel took it from her and finished the task while she swayed in her seat. “What happened to just having one drink? Where is everyone else?”

  “I left them at Oscar’s after the first round.”

  “Why did you find a new bar?” Layla looked around with her nose scrunched. “Especially this one?”

  “I just did. Thanks for coming to get me. Let’s get out of here.”

  Mel tried to stand up but stumbled and Layla had to quickly get up to catch her around the waist. “Whoa, okay, careful. How about you have some water first? How much did you drink tonight?”

  “I don’t know. A cocktail with the team and four or five mugs here. Just take me home, Layla. I want to go to bed and forget today ever happened.”

  The last time Mel was so drunk was when the wounds to her heart were still fresh when Justine, her girlfriend of four years, had unexpectedly dumped her. They hadn’t seen or heard from Justine since she left, but Mel’s condition made her wonder if Justine reached out or maybe she ran into her at Oscar’s Steak House tonight.

  Drinking to such a high level of dysfunctionality was not characteristic of Mel. In the eight years that Layla had been best friends with her, the only time Mel resorted to drinking to get through something difficult was when Justine left. She had other bad breakups, she lost loved ones, and she had major blowouts with her family and friends. But only Justine breaking her heart broke her down to a point so low that she’d rather be drunk than sober.

  While supporting her around the waist, she walked Mel out of the stinky bar and out to her small hatchback parked under the only light in the gravel parking lot. The front passenger door opened, and Mel stumbled to a stop as she squinted her blurry eyes to see who it was.


  “Give me your keys. I’ll drive your car back.”

  “Alice? Why are you here?”

  Mel’s left knee buckled, and as she tried to catch herself, her foot twisted in the gravel. Layla winced as her back strained under Mel’s unsteady weight and she yanked her back to an upright position.

  “I asked her to come help so we wouldn’t have to come back for your car in the morning. Give her your keys.”

  Mel patted her pockets, looking for the keys, and as she tried to hand them to Alice, she dropped them in the gravel. Unfazed, Alice scooped them up, then tousled Mel’s short hair.

  “See you at home.”

  “Thanks, Alice.”

  She squeezed Layla’s shoulder in response, then jogged across the parking lot to get in Mel’s car, not wanting to spend another second out in the open outside of the rough looking bar.

  Layla drove extra cautiously so she wasn’t stopping and going too jerkily or suddenly so Mel wouldn’t get sick in her car. And when she pulled into the parking lot of their apartment building, Mel was zonked out in her seat with drool dripping down her chin. Layla smiled as she reached over to wipe the drool off with her thumb.

  “Wake up, Mel. We’re home.”

  She was still unstable on her feet, so Layla had to keep her arms around her the entire trip across the parking lot, up the elevator, and down the hall to their apartment. By the time they clumsily stumbled through the already unlocked door, Layla felt like she had just spent an hour at the gym doing a high intensity workout. Alice made it back before them, and she quickly jumped up from a chair and helped Layla maneuver Mel around the furniture to get her to the couch.

  “I’ll get her some water.”

  While Alice left the room, Layla kneeled down in front of Mel and took her black wingtips off. She rubbed the tops of her socked feet and the sides of her legs while she looked up into Mel’s bloodshot, sad looking eyes.