Risking It All by Ambrielle Kirk

learned that the owner’s accepted Quinton’s offer the next morning, with clo sing pushed up from twenty to fifteen days. Quinton was ecstatic and felt a little better that the first property he would buy in Atlanta would require little renovations and repair, while at the same time generating income for him while he settled down.
    After a staff meeting at the office, Julissa checked her voicemail and confirmed that Michael , Quinton, and Shanice were in her missed calls in her cell phone. The only one that left a message was Shanice requesting a call back .
    “Hello?” Shanice always answered the phone fairly quickly whenever she called.
    “It’s Julissa, you called?”
    “Yeah? What’s up?”
    “Nothing. Heading home. J ust finished up at the office.”
    “I heard you helped Quinton find that property that he’s about to buy.”
    “Yeah. Word sure does travel, ” Julissa said, with exaggeration and all. It didn’t surprise her. After all, she did have a very close nit group of friends.
    “Oh, you know Brian tells me everything. He’s trying to get back with me, you know?”
    “How does Brian know Quinton?” The name sounded familiar to Julissa, but she couldn’t put a face to it.
    “Brian and Ed are best friends, remember? ” Shanice said, as if she were supposed to already know that.
    Quinton did tell Julissa that he and Ed had been meeting up during the lunch hour m ost every day to hang out. Maybe word had gotten around quickly because of that. “Oh.”
    “Anyway, I called to ask if you wanted to come chill out tonight. Brian and Ed are taking Quinton out for a night on the town to celebrate. Brian asked me to bring a few friends.”
    “Well…” Julissa started.
    “You know you want to. We all know that Michael is out of town on business. Come on, I promise I’ll tell Brian that you coming means no advances whatsoever from Ed.”
    The one thing that Shanice didn’t know was that Ed was the least of her worries. “Alright.”
    “Good. We’ll pick you up at nine. My friend, Olivia, is the designated driver.”
    Julissa waited until she was home and settled to call Quinton.
    “Hi, Q.”
    “Hey. I don’t know how many times I should thank you for your help.”
    “You’ve already said thank you enough. Besides, I only showed you the property, now it’s up to you to make it work for you.”
    “Well, I’ll be leaving for Florida tomorrow afternoon. I plan on being back in Atlanta well before it’s time to go to close.”
    “Well, take your time. You’ve got a lot of packing to do, don’t you?” Julissa hoped that he was still planning his move to Atlanta.
    “Not nearly as much. I live in a small condo on Miami Beach . I ’ve already found a way to make things easier . What my friends don’t raid my condo for, I’ll probably end up donating to the salvation army.”
    Julissa walked into her closet an d began pulling outfits out for tonight. “Good idea.”
    “A few of us are going out for drinks and I wanted to ask if you’d like to come along. They’re Richard and Christina’s friends. Some are the same people from the wedding party. No one would suspect — ”
    “I already know about it. My friend, Shanice, called to invite me already. And yes, I’ll be there.”
    “Well, great…that was easy.”
    “See you there?”
    “I’ll see you there.”
     
    **
     
    Julissa didn’t know what it was, but she was feeling good tonight. Maybe it was the weather and how it was the perfect night to go out. Maybe it was the fact that everything seemed to be g oing so right and the past few days had been the best worry-free days ever since she could remember.
    “I’m ready to get my paaartay on,” Shanice’s friend, Olivia, proclaimed.
    “Me, too. At least we don’t have to worry about the guys. We already got some waiting there for us,” a girl named, Renee, said from the back seat of Olivia’s Hu mmer.
    Between herself, Shanice, Olivia , and Renee, the four of them were on