2. Thorne

TWO

Thorne

Just hear those sleigh bells jingling / Ring-ting-tingling, too / Come on, it's lovely weather / For a sleigh ride together with you.

2:41 pm

This day was supposed to be simple. Fly to Boston, land later this afternoon, and have time to go over everything on Wednesday. Then we meeting with Thom Vicary and his team at the ValorTech office, which is within walking distance of our hotel, first thing Thursday morning.

Instead, I'm standing in the middle of a terminal that looks more like a war zone, surrounded by people who have no clue how they're getting out of here, contemplating driving through a blizzard with the biggest bitch on the planet.

I fucking hate Woodley Price. I'd almost rather be forty thousand feet in the air on a hijacked plane than in this car with her.

At least she's hot. If she could keep that condescending mouth of hers closed I might actually appreciate her tight body and round ass. As much as I can't stand her, that black skirt she is wearing is hugging her in all the right places.

She's annoyingly hot in that way.

I've been fuming for a week about having to do this shit so close to the end of the year. Knowing her, she probably requested it because she doesn't have anything better to do for the holidays. This job is her life and it's pathetic.

Most of America is at home sipping hot toddies and hosting holiday parties. But in the advertising world, when a Fortune 500 company requests a pitch, no matter what it is or where we need to go, we jump. They call the shots, even if it's a few days before Christmas.

If we get this job, it will be worth the hassle. They are a major tech company, looking to lock down their national holiday campaign for next year. Millions are on the line, and our company wants this account. We need this account.

Not to mention, my father's company has a financial stake in the ad company I'm working for. If we land this, it will be a catalyst to open all kinds of doors and increase the bottom line, hopefully leading to us going public. This one campaign holds a lot of promise for a lot people, and I feel like all of it is on my shoulders.

Dani Walters, our direct manager, has been putting the pressure on both of us for weeks. Woodley has been working on ValorTech for a year, vying for a shot at doing any ad work for them. I only got added to the team about a month ago because of my father's connection.

Shitty, I know. But I'll take a connection any day. It's what makes the world go round.

If we get this client, both Woodley and I should get promoted and make a bonus likely bigger than our entire yearly salary. Miss it, and… well, I don't even want to think about that.

I have more to gain or lose than a bonus, though. My father's investment and my own quest to prove I can play with the big boys are on the line, so I have a lot riding on this one closing, in the big scheme of things.

As for Woodley, I don't think she comes from much, so this bonus is probably everything to her. She scrapes for every penny she earns, which I would be respect if she wasn't such a pain in my ass. Her know-it-all attitude is enough to turn anyone off.

All the same, she needs to score this job as much as I do, albeit for different reasons.

I've spent hours trying to come up with a solution, including driving to nearby airports, and none of them are an answer to our immediate problem The airlines are swamped trying to reroute passengers, and they're prioritizing people who got displaced today. What a cluster-fuck.

Not to mention… I don't think Woodley's getting back on a plane. You'd think she was sitting next to the bomb she is so shaken up. I try educating her. Explaining that the chances of her dying by tripping over an acorn while walking down the sidewalk are higher than her dying by plane crash. And way higher than by plane bombing. But she looks like she's going to punch me so I stop talking.

I glance at her, still pacing beside the rental car counter. She's usually calm, too calm, like nothing rattles her. But nothing could be further from our reality here. Maybe she is about to come unhinged.

I get it. After what happened back there, the black smoke engulfing the entire terminal, oxygen masks falling from the ceiling, the inflatable slide exit from the plane, it'd shake anyone up. Hell, I was rattled, and I've flown on private jets my entire life.

"We have to get to Boston," she says, more to herself than to me. "It's not all day. I Google-mapped it and it looks like with the weather conditions we will get there in fourteen hours."

As noted, I can't think of anything worse than being cooped up in a car with Woodley for fourteen hours. I fold my arms across my chest.

"You need to get over yourself, Thorne. The meeting is in two days and we have to be there. We can't afford to miss it."

"I know." I fold my arms tighter. "Goddammit."

I've coasted by on connections for most of my life. I'm the first to admit it. The Chilton name opens doors that would stay slammed shut for most people. I'm not proud of it, necessarily, but I'm not stupid either. It's how our world works.

But the best connections won't help me here. I have to go to the meeting and I have to win the client. The only way to the other side is through the thick of it, which means, if we have to drive to get there, then we have to drive.

If I screw this up, it's not just my job on the line. My father made a big investment in this company, and if this pitch doesn't get us this ad campaign, it's going to reflect badly on him and the family, too.

That's the unspoken agreement: I don't get fired, not because I'm great at what I do, but because there's too much riding on the Chilton name for me to fail publicly.

I let out a long breath, staring at the chaos in the terminal. The thing is, it would be so easy to just…walk away. Let it all crumble. I don't need this job, not like Woodley does. I could pack up, leave this mess behind, slip into my tartan plaid pants and party with the rest of them for the holiday.

But that's the trap, isn't it? I don't want to be the guy who needs his father to clean up every mess. I want to prove that I can see something through, even if it means driving from Tennessee to Massachusetts four days before Christmas with the world's biggest bitch.

I look over at Woodley who is still glaring at the rental counter, looking as tense as ever. She doesn't have the luxury of toying with the idea of just saying, "to hell with it." Her drive, her willingness to stop at nothing, is admirable. I've heard people talk about her around the office, about how she works late into the night, how she's never satisfied until everything is perfect.

We couldn't be more different.

It's also why we'll never get along. She sees me as a fraud. And maybe I am one. But that doesn't mean I'm going to let her walk all over me. She shouldn't look down on me just because of the life I was born into. Just as I will do my level best not to do the same to her.

I glance at my watch again. "We should be halfway to Boston by now, somewhere over Pennsylvania. Instead, we haven't even left the fucking state of Tennessee."

"Thanks, Captain Obvious. You're amazing at really getting to the heart of the matter."

God, she's such a bitch. I give my best "I hate you" smirk and bite my tongue. This is going to be an enormous exercise in self-restraint.

"Ready?" Woodley's voice are like nails on a chalkboard. She's staring at me, arms crossed, tapping her foot impatiently.

I nod as I grab my roller-bag. "Let's get this show on the road."

I-75 North, Heading Toward Boston

3:12 pm

"Continue on I-75 North for two hundred and eight miles."

The tinny GPS voice fills the car, cutting through the thick silence. Of course, another female telling me what to do.

I glance at the screen, watching the estimated arrival time flicker in front of me. Sixteen hours. Woodley so confidently said fourteen hours. Sixteen fucking, god forsaken hours of driving, with no stops. We won't even get to Boston until tomorrow morning if we drive straight through.

I tighten my grip on the steering wheel, staring at the road ahead. It's already after three in the afternoon. Deplaning, waiting for buses, then standing in line for hours while everyone panicked—it all ate up more time than I realized.

I glance over at Woodley. Shes staring out the window, her arms crossed, eyes seemingly locked on the blur of trees passing by. If she's feeling any of the pressure, she's not showing it, but I know better.

Who wouldn't be feeling the pressure right now?

We were just in the airport when some kind of explosion happened, it's the holidays and now we are driving through the night several states over for a meeting that will make or break our careers.

My phone rings, breaking the silence. I glance at the screen and see that it is my dad. Great. Just what I need.

"Hey," I say into the phone, wishing we had turned the radio up a little louder so I didn't feel so intrusive with my voice.

"Thorne." My father's voice comes through, sharp and clipped. "I heard about the bomb at the airport. Your mother told me. What in the world? Are you guys going to still get to Boston in time? Are you okay?"

I know that the last question is just a formality, an afterthought. It would have been nice if he had led with that, but at least it occurred to him.

"Yeah, I'm fine. It was crazy, we were on the plane about to take off. The whole terminal was shut down, so we had to be bussed to another one to reschedule our flights."

"Your mom told me you couldn't get one to get you there before the meeting. Please tell me you didn't cancel the meeting. You need to knock this out."

"Right, so we're driving to Boston now, Dad." Christ. "I bought a one-way flight out of there on Thursday afternoon, a little later than the last one. Since our flight was canceled, they won't honor our original flight back."

Silence stretches momentarily on the other end, and I brace myself.

"Driving? That's going to take too long," he says, his voice tight with disapproval. "You can't afford to miss this, Thorne. I know you know that."

"I know, Dad. We'll get there in time. That's why we have to drive. There were no flights that would get us there in time. We even looked into driving to other airports and the timing wouldn't work out."

"You'd better. You know I have a lot riding on you getting this account."

I grip the wheel a little tighter, my jaw clenching. "I understand that." I try to keep my voice calm so Woodley doesn't think my Daddy is scolding me about work.

"I made a sizable investment in this company for you to get this job. Don't make me regret that. You need to keep it not only for the sake of having a job, but I don't want to lose my money."

There it is. The unspoken reminder. I'm not here because of my qualifications or my brilliance. I'm here because he pulled the strings. I can practically hear him looking down his nose at me through the phone.

"I got it," I mutter, the words bitter in my mouth. "I'll handle it."

"You'd better. Call me when you get there." The line goes dead.

I let out a long breath, dropping my hand from the wheel. That phone call wasn't helpful, and I'm not sure he meant it to be. More like a threat. I'm already doing everything I can. Damned if I do, damned if I don't.

"Everything okay?" Woodley asks, her tone neutral. She's still staring out the window, but I know she heard every word of that conversation. My dad was practically yelling into the phone and she's not the type to miss anything.

"Fine," I mutter.

She doesn't say anything else. The silence between us feels heavier now, the weight of the hours ahead pressing down on us. Sixteen hours in this metal prison. Sixteen hours to think about how screwed I'll be if we don't get to Boston in time.

"Look," I say, more to fill the silence than anything, "I know you think I don't take this seriously, but I need to get to Boston just as much as you do."

Woodley shifts slightly, still looking out the window. "It's not about what I think, Thorne. It's about getting the job done."

I glance at her. Her voice is quieter than usual, the edge softening just a bit. Maybe I'm not the only one feeling the pressure here. But that doesn't mean she's going to cut me any slack.

The GPS chimes again, reminding us of the hours ahead, and I let out a sigh. It's going to be a long night.