Infinity.

by Layne Harper

  Here’s one of them… Rachael’s story will be available this summer. It’s a standalone book, meaning that you don’t necessarily need the Infinity Series backstory to enjoy it. You’ve only seen her through Charlie and Aiden’s eyes. I think you’ll love being inside of her head as much as I do. So as an added treat, keep reading. Here’s the prologue to her book The World: According to Rachael. It will be available Summer 2014.

  Oh! One more thing. As always, I love hearing from you. Please email me at Layne@LayneHarper.com. Find me on Facebook at Layne_Harper_Author, or Twitter at @Layne_Harper. My website is www.LayneHarper.com. Indie authors live and die by your reviews. Please leave a comment on Amazon.

  Without further ado… Here’s the prologue for The World: According to Rachael.

  Hugs,

  Layne Harper

  The World: According to Rachael

  By: Layne Harper

  Prologue

  I shouldn’t have had that last beer. Hell. If I’m honest with myself, I shouldn’t have had the last pitcher. I knew how important today was before I agreed to meet my frat brothers who invaded D.C. for a visit.

  If I had the least bit of intelligence, I’d have said, “Sorry guys. Big day at work tomorrow. Hit ya up tomorrow night.” There are probably twenty-three-year-old guys who exist in this world who’d have done that. They are the responsible ones that my dad preaches about. The men, he calls them, who know exactly what they want out of life: God, family, and a job.

  I’m not one of those men. I’m an escaped Texas refugee who fled to Virginia on a lacrosse scholarship. I love the green hills of Virginia. I love being half a continent away from my mother, father, and overbearing big sister more.

  The guys and I closed down the bar last night. It’s one of my favorite haunts here in the metropolis of Washington D.C. It’s casual, unpretentious, and full of Irishmen—just my kind of scene. The three of us kept girls off the radar last night. It was a bros night. Max didn’t discuss his almost-fiancée, Marissa. Jake and I threw away the girl’s numbers we received. No, last night, seemed like a finale of sorts. It was like we were all tiptoeing around the giant, pink elephant in the room: we’re growing up. We relived the glory days of college, told and retold our favorite stories, and discussed important world events. You know, things like Is boxing a dead sport now that MMA is so popular?

  We’d all graduated in December. Max and Marissa had moved to Atlanta, and were just starting their careers in finance. They shared a playing card-sized one-bedroom apartment, and hand-me-down furniture and kitchen gadgets. Jake was in New York, trying his hand at working at his dad’s real estate company, and looking to score with anything that had long legs and said she was a model. Me? Well, I’m using the nine months between the end of college and the beginning of law school to “experience the real world.” My dad got me this job as a campaign aid for Senator Jones, the next president of the United States of America.

  Am I a republican? Not necessarily. Personally, I’d like to keep the money I make in my checking account, but I also can’t pass a homeless guy on the street without stuffing at least a buck in his cup. I haven’t figured myself out enough to even come close to knowing if Langford Jones will make a decent President.

  My dad said my job title of Campaign Aid will look great on future resumes. I’m sure he’s right. In fact, the man is rarely wrong. Doesn’t mean that this job doesn’t suck gigantic sweaty balls.

  I’m one of the lucky few who are actually paid to staff this office hellhole. What am I paid to do? Any shit job my boss asks. Sometimes I use my double major in political science and finance to do very difficult tasks, like stapling information packets on our candidate’s talking points. Other mental exercises include making coffee, scheduling appointments, grabbing lunch from the corner deli, and answering the phone.

  Nowhere in any college brochure I read, did it say that if you graduated with an almost perfect GPA and a double major, you’d start out your career placing and picking up sandwich orders.

  Bitter? Maybe. I knew I wasn’t ready for the real world yet, so I decided to escape to even more higher education at George Washington Law. What am I going to do with a law degree? Who knows? What I am NOT going to do is stay in politics. I can guaran-damn-tee you that. What this job working in the campaign headquarters has taught me is to stay far, far away from the gory world of our country’s political system.

  “Want a donut?”

  I look up from my menial task of filing—there are no stray papers lying around, because the dragon lady is visiting today—and see Lucas leaning against one of the old, grey, dented metal filing cabinets. Lucas is one of the reasons that this job sucks so much. He’s maybe five-feet five-inches in heels, and as round as he is tall. I mention his appearance only because, well, I think of him as the slime a snail leaves behind. He’s Steve, my boss’s assistant.

  Lucas gets off on making me, who he calls “pretty boy,” do all the crap tasks in the office. I could overlook his SHORTcomings if he hadn’t of asked me on my first week, and in front of the other staffers and volunteers, if I were gay. Because apparently men who do things like wear matching clothes, brush their teeth twice a day, comb their hair and put some product in it are gay. My mouth had gaped open. First of all, it’s none of his business. Secondly, who does that? I mean have some tact—manners, for God’s sake. That’s like asking a woman what she weighs, or if the curtains match the drapes. Rudeness is the biggest turn-off for me. Call me a southern gentleman. Call me a ladies’ man. Whatever, but poor manners are the surest way to get on my bad side.

  Lucas waves a donut under my nose as if he’s taunting me with it. I shake my head. The dude has a sugar glaze that surrounds his lips with flakes of sugar dotting his poorly-groomed beard.

  My top lip rises in disgust. “No thanks.”

  “What? Pretty boy doesn’t want to ruin his perfect abs?” he says using some sophomoric voice from grade school.

  My hands ball into tight fists and I mentally count to ten before I tell him to go fuck himself. My body relaxes as I pretend to shuffle through the papers I’m supposed to be filing. “Something like that,” I reply as I attempt to hide my disdain.

  He shrugs his shoulders and says, “More for me,” as he shoves another jelly-filled bit of fried dough into his pie hole.

  I look down at my stack of paper, hoping that Lucas will move on to harassing someone else. I sort through the H file folders, looking for the name Darrius Howard. Whoever had this job before me must’ve failed Alphabetizing 101. These filing cabinets look like a frat house after an all-weekend party.

  Apparently, Lucas hadn’t left. “Don’t forget Rachael Early, the next President’s Chief of Staff, is stopping by today. We’re all supposed to be on our best behavior.” This is all said through an open mouth, revealing the mushed contents of the red jam and light-tan dough.

  I ignore Lucas, and all but let an F bomb fly at the realization that once again, these files are so out of order. Darrius Howard’s file is nowhere even remotely near the other “Ho” file folders.

  The dull headache from too much beer the night before flares into a migraine. I’m sure it’s somehow Lucas’s fault. I reach up and use my thumb to press where the pain is the most intense.

  Normal people would interpret this as me not feeling well, and leave me alone. Not Lucas. He goes full speed ahead.

  “Steve told me to tell you to order a couple of sandwich trays, that carrot and raisin salad, and…”

  I look up from what I am doing and turn to Lucas with a caustic grin on my face. “Let me guess… and a large tub of mayonnaise potato salad.” My stomach flips at just the thought. I swear to God, when this job is over I will never, and I do mean ever, eat, look at, or be in the same room as a jar of mayo. How Steve and Lucas can consume it every single day is really beyond me.

  Lucas nods and says, “Yeah. Exactly.”

  When he finally leaves, I reach into my pants’ pocket and pull out the asp
irin I was smart enough to grab this morning on my way out the door. I pop two tablets into my mouth and dry-swallow. It’s one of my many talents.

  Next, I check my watch. I’ll need to place the deli order in thirty minutes so I have enough time to pick it up and have it arranged as Steve likes it before our “war meeting” with Rachael.

  I haven’t met the infamous Rachael before. Rumor has it she’s a mega bitch. Like, she eats people that cross her for breakfast. Just her name makes Steve tremble in his wing-tipped shoes.

  I picture her looking like the female version of Attila the Hun. The facial hair is still present, and she carries a sword for chopping off the heads of campaign staffers who fail in their tasks.

  My first day on the job, I was told to avoid Rachael if I ever met her, and never look her directly in the eye. She can apparently sense weakness, and likes to make young campaign staffers cry.

  One of my coworkers likes to tell the story of Rachael bringing two well-known senators from different sides of the aisle to a Kumbaya kind of moment simply by threatening to intervene in their negotiations. Trust me, I’m about as excited for this war meeting as I am ordering mayonnaise potato salad.

  We’ve been preparing the office for this momentous occasion all week. I kid you not. Lucas handed me a bottle of spray bleach and had me scrub the wood around the bottom of the walls. I’m sure this was by far the best use of my double degree.

  Maybe I should be like Max and Jacob, and go ahead and face the real world. What am I going to do with a law degree anyway? It’s not like I want to actually practice law.

  I set my stack of papers that need to be filed to the side and make my way to my desk. Desk is really a misnomer. It’s a folding table for my personal laptop to rest on. My desk chair? It’s a metal folding thing, probably picked up at the Salvation Army. I seriously don’t wear the nice slacks, my mom insisted on buying for me, to work because I’m convinced they’ll be stained from the rust. Plus, the tags are still on them, so if I need beer money I can take them back to Brooks Brothers.

  I bring up the web page of the deli that’s bookmarked in my Internet browser and grab one of the millions of phones on the folding table. Campaign offices may not have desks, but we’ve got probably two hundred landline phones for dialing for dollars.

  “Hi, this is Graham, at future President Jones’s campaign office.” My eyes roll so far in my head, I swear I see my brain. We’ve been trained to spew that nonsense each time we speak to anyone. Something about if you say it enough times it’ll come true, or some kind of bullshit like that. “I’d like to place an order…”

  I drone on, essentially placing the same order I call in every day, except this time it’s in larger quantities. My shoulders slump forward. Another pet peeve of mine. Good posture is supremely important. Nothing says unsure-of-oneself like a rounded back. Right now, I don’t care. I’ve got twelve weeks, three days, and five more hours of this horrible job until I can quit for law school. I might have to solicit the help of my perfect, beautiful, and very intelligent four-year-old niece in making a countdown chart. This has got to be the worst job ever!

  Then, as if the universe decided to further piss on my parade, I hear a few bars of my school fight-song play, alerting me I have a text. Before I look, I know exactly who it’s from. Max and Jacob are crashing at my apartment. Begrudgingly, I extract my phone from my pocket.

  Max: Just waking up. How come there’s only one beer in the fridge? Your place sucks.

  I mumble to my phone, “How about some mayo potato salad?”

  The phone goes back in my pocket without a response because I just can’t take my friends’ snide comments at the moment.

  If there were any justice in this world, I’d be just waking up at my apartment. Max, Jacob and I would hit the local hotdog stand on the corner and head to the park to toss the football. Then, when it started getting dark, we’d go back to my place for showers. A night of sheer debauchery would follow: girls, booze, and everything red-blooded American men hold dear.

  Instead, I look around at the sparse office space future President Jones’ campaign office occupies. The walls are painted a dull, pale yellow. Yard signs are stapled along their surface. We have piles more of them in the large room we use as a storage closet. The place is damn depressing.

  I assumed my first job out of college would have mahogany-wood walls, and rich leather chairs. My secretary would be named Sylvia, and be a former model with waist-long blonde hair that she keeps up in a tight bun. Maybe some glasses? She could rock the sexy librarian vibe.

  Instead, I’m the secretary in a drab office space where I share a small room and “desk” space with twenty other staffers just like me. The only difference is Lucas has decided every shit job is mine.

  Pushing my metal chair back, I come to the conclusion that it’s better to wait for the food at the deli than sit here watching Lucas shove more donuts in his mouth while Steve barks orders at anyone who’ll listen to “clean this place up.”

  As I make my way toward the door, one of the other staffers grabs my arms, and says with a look of panic etching her otherwise very nice features, “Rachael will be here in one hour!”

  The look on her face reminds me of some bad B-movie horror flick. She could be clutching my arm and screaming, “The aliens will be here any minute to suck our brains out of our skulls,” while she brings the back of her hand up to her forehead in a dramatic faint.

  Touching her arms, I attempt to reassure her that it’ll be okay. “I’m off to get the food,” I say as if I’m talking to my niece. “It’ll be okay.”

  “Good,” she says, pushing a stray piece of auburn hair out of her eyes. “Good thinking. Maybe food will keep her from firing all of us.”

  Fireworks go off in my head. There are ringing bells, and a choir of angels sings “Hallelujah.” Fired? That doesn’t sound half bad. There’s not enough time before law school starts to get another job. I could spend the last couple of months hanging with my friends. Drinking beer. Sleeping in. SOLD. Dear God, please let us be fired.

  Before I have a chance to respond, Steve is yelling at her about some figures that need to be prepared.

  I continue my quest to escape and push open the bathroom door, slipping inside, grateful it isn’t occupied. Standing in front of the mirror, I actually look at my reflection. I’ve been avoiding this since before graduation because I know my image is not the man I want to be. I look like me. My dark brown hair is fixed in the rumbled style popular now because of Sawyer on Lost. Thank God for Visine, because my blue eyes are no longer bloodshot from one-too-many beers. I did shave this morning, and put on a pair of plain blank pants and a white dress-shirt, tucked in with a thin black belt. Of course, I didn’t forget to pin “Jones for President,” complete with the waving flag on my shirt pocket. My build is still as muscular as it was when I was playing lacrosse. Now, though, I just play on a local weekend-warrior kind of team. Most of the guys are trying to recapture their college years. Thank God I’m not part of that group.

  I stare at my reflection, pondering how in the hell I ended up so wishy-washy about my future. Mr. Most Likely to Succeed now looks more like Mr. Most Likely To Follow In His Father’s Footsteps. Why? Because what better option do I have. I’m grown up, according to society, and have no clue what I want to do with the rest of the seventy years I hopefully have on this earth. Two degrees and law school at least delays moving back to Texas and being a junior partner in my dad’s accounting firm for a couple of more years.

  I slap the marble bathroom counter and hope for the best. “Come on, Rachael. Live up to your reputation and fire us,” I speak to myself in the mirror before I make my way to the deli.

  The aspirin has done the trick. My headache is back to a dull throb, and my stomach doesn’t revolt when the smell of salty French fries floods my nose. I slip onto the barstool at the counter, and am greeted by the blonde waitress who I flirt with every day.

  “Hi Graham,” she s
ays, leaning forward on the counter to show me her more than ample cleavage. “Your order will be ready in about fifteen minutes. You guys must have something big going on. That’s a lot of food.”

  “Big boss is paying us a visit today. Steve decided to be nice and buy the office lunch.” I grab one of the discarded, grease-stained Washington Posts lying nearby. Catch the hint. I don’t want to talk to anyone today. The top story is something about the Middle East. I scan the article, but don’t really read it.

  “What DO I care about?” I ask myself instead of reading. The whole office is in a panic because they’re worried about getting fired. What’s wrong with me that I’m hoping to hear those words? A smile forms on my lips. The idea of being fired is the first time that I’ve smiled when I’ve thought about my future. Pathetic.

  Mentally, I bang my head against a wall. There’s got to be something wrong with me. I picture being destitute and living on the streets to induce the feeling of stress. I picture having to call my dad and tell him that I lost my law school opportunity because I was fired by the she-devil, Rachael.

  Nothing. I feel no sense of panic. I can’t even get my breathing to pick up speed.

  I really am an apathetic loser.

  “Peace in the Middle East. What an elusive idea,” says a lyrical voice next to me.

  “Yeah.” I half-heartedly chuckle, attempting to ignore the voice by burying my nose deeper in the newspaper. This is one of the things I liked about ditching Texas. No one strikes up random conversations here. You look forward, and mind your own damn business.

  “I’d like a Diet Coke to go please,” the voice says to the flirty blonde waitress. “Have you gotten to page four yet? There’s a great article on future President Jones.”

  I mean, I’m clearly holding the newspaper and perusing the second page. No, I haven’t gotten to page four yet, and hopefully the waitress will hurry my order up so I never have to read it. “No, I just started reading the second page.” I’m giving off the biggest don’t-talk-to-me-lady vibe I can. Just let me stew in my apathy.