Free Double Strike (A Davis Way Crime Caper Book 3) by Gretchen Archer Page B

and when she went to “ Extend! Extend! Extend! ” she extended halfway across the room. She smacked the girls in front of and behind her a dozen times. “Sorry, honey. My bad.”
    I was Amy Medina, Social Media Virtual Assistant. My hair was sprayed Chocolate Covered Bing Cherry and my colored contact lenses were amethyst. “I’ve never met anyone with, like, purple eyes.” Elspeth’s ponytail bobbed. “Mind if I Instagram you?”
    When she adjusted to the odd combination of my black/red hair and violet eyes—I really need to slow down and invest a little more time in my disguises these days—and I adjusted to her thirteen-year-old speech patterns, I stuck my neck out and questioned the wisdom of the grueling workouts. For one, everyone in the room already had abs of steel, and for two, working out every day this week couldn’t possibly have much impact on next week.
    “Oh, we’ve been at it for, like, five weeks already,” Hashtag said. “Except for, like, the two new ones. Who just landed in my lap.” Her lap held fictional personnel files on the two new ones. Right then, one of the new ones, the Baylor new one, busted his ass when he fell out of a rond de jambe and slid across the floor. The other new one, the one who kept kicking everyone else, doubled over laughing.
    “So you didn’t ask for two more waiters?”
    “Not at all,” she said. “It came down from the president’s office that there wasn’t enough diversity on the waitstaff.”
    Hashtag cared nothing about personal space. She was so, like, in my face.
    “I would have never thought to hire a man to serve cocktails at a casino,” she said. “He’s, like, clunky.” Hashtag slurped her pink lumpy breakfast from a big plastic bucket. “Cute,” she said, “but a clunk.”
    Clunk stripped off his shirt, tossed it, and, like, hit me in the head with it. Clunk had abs of steel, too, which didn’t escape the short waitresses.
    “And she’s black.” Hashtag tapped Fantasy’s fake folder. “So we’re diverse.”
    Fourteen Barbie dolls, six-foot dark-skinned Fantasy, and a clunky man child. Yes. Diverse.
    “These workouts are more about, like, media than fitness,” Hashtag said. “The waitstaff is the face of Strike, and if they didn’t, like, look fab, they wouldn’t be here in the first place.” Hashtag Elspeth and I were on short stools in a corner of the room. As her virtual assistant, I would be running her electronic errands for the next two weeks, because she was going to be, like, very busy (doing what?) and, like, she was training me. “They’ll have more overall media coverage than anyone else,” she said. “Having them here this early keeps them in shape and in line. Hey,” she placed a camera, no larger or thicker than a credit card, on my thigh. “We need to shout out.”
    She wanted me to scream?
    “Tweet a pic,” she said. “Shout out to the Strike team.”
    She picked up the camera, tapped it several times, then passed it back to me. I looked through the small screen and found Fantasy, who had a leg wrapped around the back of her head, teeth bared, and a childbirth expression on her face. I thought she made an excellent shouting subject. Shoot. Shout. Send.
    When it was over, Baylor spread eagle on the floor and threatening to throw up, Hashtag Elspie sent me on a shoe mission to New Orleans, since Baylor wouldn’t look good in gold stilettoes.
    “I don’t know,” I said. “Have you had him try any on?”
    Baylor raised one finger off the floor.
    Hashtag Elspie punched me in the arm and laughed. We agreed to meet again at seven that evening for Waitress Dress Rehearsal at Strike, which gave me the rest of the day. Baylor could find his own shoes.
    “Amy, before you go,” Hashtag said, “stop by Strike. The gaming installation is underway. Check out the chairs. Take a peek at the game and take a ton of pictures. You’ll need them.”
      
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    To see the future of gaming and