Grumpy Boss

by Hamel, B. B.

  I looked at Reed, and he only shook his head. Bills meant booze, and we all knew it.

  “After I find Desmond,” Rees said, and some part of me hoped he never paid—because with that much cash, I had a feeling Alvin would drink himself to death. “Good luck.”

  He hung up the phone and leaned back.

  We stared at each other in silence. A real number, and a real address. I typed it into my phone and found it in Chicago, like Alvin had said originally. “Looks like an apartment building,” I said, squinting down at the satellite image on Google Maps. “Could be for real, but it’s hard to say.”

  “Forget calling,” Rees said and stood up. “We’re going. We’ll finish this.”

  I chewed my cheek. “What about Alvin? If you pay him straight up, he might not live for long.”

  His eyes clouded. “I’m not sure I give a shit.’

  “Rees,” I said, glaring at him. “Come on.”

  “I know,” he said, sighing. “I’ll pay him in installments. Spread it out over a long time. Maybe that’ll help keep him alive.”

  “He won’t like that,” I said, shaking my head.

  “He can go fuck himself.” Rees grinned at me, but before he could say any more, someone knocked at the door. It sounded urgent and rapid, and I turned with surprise as Jack stepped into the room, breathing hard.

  “Sorry,” Jack said, gesturing behind him. “Tried to warn you— the phone was tied up— I wanted to stop her, but—“

  “What are you talking about?” Rees asked, but Jack stepped aside, and Lady Fluke strode into her room followed by her assistant, who remained near the doorway, tapping away on a phone.

  Lady Fluke stood in and put a hand on her hip, studying Rees with a little frown, then glanced about the office. “You now, for all the time we’ve known each other, I’ve never been here before,” she said, almost with disdain. “It’s rather nice.”

  Rees snapped out of it first. “Lady Fluke,” he said. “What are you doing here?” He moved around the desk and shook her hand gently.

  She glanced at me, frowned a bit more, then looked at Rees. “We need to talk,” she said. “Alone, if we can.” Her assistant took the hint and left right away. Jack looked like he was drowning, but sighed and followed the assistant out. I lingered near the door, but Lady Fluke spoke before I could leave. “Actually, Millie, you should stay.”

  I hesitated, and Rees gave me an uncertain nod. I shut his office door as Rees took Lady Fluke to the table at the far end of his office. They sat, and I took the chair closest to Rees, feeling incredibly uncomfortable.

  Something was wrong about this. I didn’t know what—but Lady Fluke didn’t just show up somewhere like this. She was the type of woman that made appointments, then stuck to them. She structured her days, every day, and didn’t do a single thing that wasn’t on her calendar. And yet she appeared out of thin air today, and seemed like something horrible just happened.

  Rees held it together. He was clearly shaken as well, considering his conversation with Alvin, but he did a good job of pushing that aside and giving Lady Fluke his full attention. From what I cold tell, they’d made up, though I didn’t know if that meant their friendship would resume like it always had.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure?” Rees asked, doing his best impression of a calm and charming man, even though I could tell he was anything but.

  “I’ve come to inform you that we can no longer be friends.” Her words were clipped and accented, and she sat with her back straight, in a simple black pant suit that was both formal and conservative and absurdly expensive. Her dark eyes stared at Rees, unblinking and intense, like she wanted to rip his face open and read his brain with her fingers, like braille.

  Rees grimaced, then his mouth fell open, and his shook his head, clearly at a loss. “I don’t understand,” he said.

  “I spoke with Modesto,” Lady Fluke said. “He told me about your visit. I’ll admit, Modesto is a bit gaudy for my taste. I don’t plan on being friendly with that man, but his church imports a good deal of my company’s product, and so I find it necessary to deal with him from time to time.”

  “What did he say?” Rees asked, seeming to gather himself. His tone took on a hint of anger.

  I genuinely didn’t know what Modesto would’ve told Lady Fluke that she didn’t already know—unless he had a security camera out back, and saw me sleeping with Rees. I felt ice crawl along my spine at the thought. Maybe that was why Lady Fluke wanted me in the room—so I could witness her embarrassing Rees, and feel horrible about it in the process.

  “Only that you’ve become toxic,” she said. “And if a man like Modesto thinks you’re toxic, well, I must reconsider my position.”

  “Lady Fluke,” I said, before Rees could speak, surprising him. She looked at me, eyebrows arched. “You’re making a terrible mistake. I thought we cleared this up.”

  She shook her head, almost regretfully. “Truth is, young lady, that you’ve become part of the problem. I warned you when we last spoke, did I not? I warned you not to get involved.”

  “Lady,” Rees said, an edge in his voice now. “You have no right to talk to Millie about my relationship with her.”

  “Of course not,” Lady Fluke said dismissively, as if it didn’t matter either way. “And yet I did, because I wanted to. Really, Rees, your relationship with this girl is going public anytime now. She told a reporter about what you’ve been up to.”

  He flinched, glanced at me, then glared at Lady Fluke. “And so what?” he asked, shaking his head. “We’re adults. If we want to have a relationship, who’s to say we can’t?”

  “Nobody,” she said, shrugging slightly. “In fact, even though I think it’s a bad idea, I do approve of this little mistake. The thing is, you’ll both end up hurt, and I don’t want to be around to witness it, and I certainly don’t want my name involved with yours when this inevitably blows up.”

  I gaped at her, at a total loss. I couldn’t understand how someone could be so heartless. She was supposed to be Rees’s friend, and now suddenly she learns that he’s in a healthy relationship, and she wants to end their friendship—all because she thinks it’ll look bad for her in some potentially abstract way.

  “That’s so wrong,” I said, unable to help myself. I felt a stab of anger, like Rees felt looking down at that phone. “You’re abandoning him now, when you know he’s done nothing wrong.”

  Her eyes narrowed at me. “And what do you know of my responsibilities, girl? Just because you’re dating this man, doesn’t mean you know a thing about our world.”

  “I know that you’re supposed to be friends,” I said, refusing to be intimidated, even if I felt like I was attacking the Queen herself. But I wasn’t of course—just some rich biscuit bitch. “I know he cares about you. I’d never turn my back on a friend just because of some whiff of scandal. That’s not how friendship works.”

  “Perhaps not to you,” she said, clipped and hard. “But to me, my business is everything, my good family name is everything, and I cannot be associated with Rees any longer.”

  Rees gave me a look, almost pleading, and I leaned back in my chair, crossed my arms, and shut my mouth. I wanted to berate her—how dare she pull this shit after he solved everything already? And yet here she was, dumping on him even more, and I hated her for it. He just finished talking about how he missed his friend, and how he had so few close relationships, and here was one more being taken from him, all because of this horrible, selfish woman.

  “Lady, I understand your position,” he said. “I won’t force my friendship on you if you find it so distasteful.” His voice didn’t shake. There was no anger in his eyes. There was only hurt—but a quiet hurt, one he kept at bay. I felt something stir inside of me, looking at him like that, a strange pride. It must’ve taken a true inner strength to keep himself together like that and I wished I could have some measure of that for myself.

  “Very good,” Lady Fluke said, seeming a little off
balance by his stoic acceptance. “Know that it isn’t personal, Rees. We’ve had a long and fruitful friendship, and perhaps one day—“

  “No, Lady,” Rees said, and pushed his chair back, standing. I stared at him, a little surprised, as he held out a hand. “I believe this is the end for you and I, regardless of what the future may hold. I can’t trust you anymore, knowing that you’ll walk away from me with the shift in the wind, and I can’t expect you to stay my friend if you find it so embarrassing. I wish you good luck.”

  She stared at him, and for one moment, I thought I saw a little hint of emotion—a touch of sadness, a tightening of her lips. But then she stood, shook his hand, and left the room, walking with a straight back, her eyes focused on the floor ahead of her.

  Rees sank back into the chair and leaned forward, his head in his hands. I waited until she was gone before hugging him against me, holding him tight. He leaned his weight onto my shoulder, then turned his lips and he kissed me.

  We held that kiss for a few second, the silence of the room, the pleasure of his taste, the confusion of the moment swirling around us.

  “The company might fall apart,” he whispered, staring into my eyes. He took my hands and held them. “One of my only friends decided to abandon me. And I owe a drunk and a liar one million dollars.”

  “We have Desmond’s address,” I said, almost pleading, desperate. “We can go out there and fix this.”

  He nodded, his eyes hardening, and he kissed me again, but this time his hand swirled into my hair and he pulled me tight against him, his lips tough and almost painful in their sweetness, and when that kiss broke apart I knew he wasn’t giving up—even if things looked black and he was at his worst.

  20

  Rees

  We rolled down a quiet Chicago neighborhood in a black rented sedan and Millie didn’t speak a word. The whole trip over had been heavy with tension and uncertainty, and I didn’t feel like talking about it. I knew she wanted to discuss what happened with Lady Fluke, and maybe get me to admit that it hurt me, because yes, it hurt me, and it pissed me off, and it made me think the whole world was one fucked up place that only cared about profit, and friendship could go sit and screw, but I didn’t say any of that.

  I kept it to myself, because we had work to do, and I didn’t want to upset her.

  I was always surprised by how many trees there were in Chicago. It was so different from Philadelphia: lots of green, grass and plants, all growing along the gap between street and sidewalk. Philly was an old city, a tiny city that hadn’t sprawled much, build for walking and for horses, whereas all the cities moving out west were bigger, constructed when cars were a thing, when they needed to spread out to make room for trucks. Chicago still had some of that old city feel, but not like Philly. The houses were larger too, and some of them single family units, not connected in a row, sharing walls and roofs with strangers, sharing rats and whatever else crawled along the basements.

  The address was a rundown structure with a black wrought iron fence out front. We pulled up at night, around eleven. The streets were empty. The house was probably painted light blue once, but the siding was chipped and peeling, and the windows looked like they needed to be updated. The steps leading up to the sagging front porch seemed treacherous, and I didn’t want to test them. Overall the neighborhood was nice enough, quiet and residential, lots of cars parked along the curbs, a school several blocks over, a little park not far away. It was the sort of place people raised kids, and it was quiet in the middle of the night, nobody out walking their dogs, nobody on their porches.

  I parked the car across the street and we sat there with the engine off and stared at the house, not talking for a while. I knew she wanted me to break the silence first but I wasn’t ready. Inside, Desmond waited—although I wasn’t sure he was aware we had his address yet. If I had to guess, Alvin would hold off on telling him for as long as humanly possible, and maybe even disappear once my check cleared.

  Wasn’t my problem though. I had other worries.

  I leaned back in my seat. It was strange to imagine Desmond living here. He was always a lavish man, used to creature comforts, and in the years right after we parted ways, he was always posting pictures on social media of his new cars, and bragging about girlfriends. I wondered where the girls and the cars were now, and knew they were gone, with everything else.

  All he had was a grudge and maybe some cash stored away. Enough to keep himself going, and to keep a drunk like Alvin on the hook.

  “I know this isn’t what you signed up for,” I said, shifting slightly to face Millie.

  She smiled at me, and the soft glow of the street light reflected off her eyes. I wanted to touch her, to run my hands through her hair—but something felt like it held me back, and I wasn’t sure what.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s amazing how far we’ve come, you know. And how long’s it been since we started?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Feels like forever.”

  “Three weeks, I think. But yeah, it does feel like forever.” She tilted her head, studying me, and I looked away toward Desmond’s place. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.

  “No,” I said. I knew what she meant: Lady Fluke. I didn’t want to talk about that at all.

  “Okay, we don’t have to, but we can when you’re ready.”

  “Thanks.” I leaned my head back on the seat and wished I could explain how I felt about everything, how it hurt, but also didn’t hurt—because I wasn’t surprised. I knew one day Lady Fluke would find some reason to stop being my friend, like everyone else in my life found a reason to walk away.

  Maybe it was my own fault. I was the common factor in all those relationships falling apart. But still, I couldn’t believe it was all on me, or at least not entirely on me. I was driven, and I was difficult, and, hell, I was a real bastard sometimes, but I meant well. I was loyal to my friends, and I was successful in most of what I did. I made sure my employees were taken care of and I gave a big chunk of my income to charity every year. I did all the right things—and yet everyone still assumed I was some kind of monster.

  Maybe they were right. I didn’t know anymore. It didn’t matter, either. I had one goal, and that was to take this SPAC public, and make a fuck ton of money for Millie. I didn’t give a damn about myself anymore or any of my other investors, though if Millie made money, they’d make money, too. I wanted to make sure she was taken care of, her and her grandmother, because she was the only decent thing in my life anymore, as pathetic as that was.

  “Do you think he’s in there?” she asked, peering through the window. “The lights are all off.”

  “Could be in bed,” I said, checking my watch. “It’s nearly midnight.”

  “Good point. Does he have a job? What does he even do anymore?”

  “He runs his own company,” I said. “Sells enterprise software solutions. I don’t even know what the fuck he does, honestly. I think he mostly lives off his investments. I doubt he has many clients.”

  “Lives off his investments, and spends all his time obsessing about a grudge over ten years old,” she said softly, and laughed a little bit. “It’s hard to believe, you know?”

  “Trust me, I know. I thought he disappeared a long time ago. When they go, they don’t normally come back.” I clenched my jaw, and regretted saying that. Millie looked at me again and reached out suddenly, her hand on my knee. I stared down at it, and wondered why she stuck around—it had to be the money, but maybe it was something else, something hard to pin down or describe. I looked up, into her eyes, and she gave me a tired smile.

  “You really want to hear about it, don’t you?” I asked.

  “I want you to admit you’re hurting,” she said. “Because maybe then it’ll stop.”

  “I’m not sure it works that way,” I said, and leaned toward her. She met me half way, and I kissed her, lingering there in dark, across the street from the man that wanted to destroy me, and had d
one a pretty damn good job of it so far.

  “Come on,” she said, touching my face. “Tell me how you feel.”

  I ran my fingers down her cheek, toward her collar bone, then reached to the side of my seat and grabbed the adjustment lever. I pushed with my legs, making room, sliding away from the steering wheel, then pulled her to me, made her straddle me on the seat. I touched her lips with my thumb and kissed her, grabbing her hips as she moved back down against me, wearing a pair of tight black yoga pants and a long sleeve scoop-neck shirt that showed a hint of her firm, smooth breasts.

  “You really want to know?” I asked, taking her hand and guiding it down to my cock. She sucked in a little breath and slowly stroked me. “That’s how I feel whenever you’re around.”

  “Come on,” she said, smiling a little, her eyes beautiful in the near dark gloom. “You’re not just hard constantly. Only when I’m in your lap.”

  I bit her bottom lip and she whimpered. “And when you look at me, touch me, or are within ten feet of me.”

  “Must be difficult then, walking around with this.” She gripped my cock on the edge of too hard and I grunted before grabbing her hips.

  “Not too bad,” I said. “Worth it, when I get you.” I kissed her again, fist in her hair, and slid my other hand up the front of her top. I pushed up her sports bra and rolled a thumb along her hard, pink nipple, palming her breasts as she wiggled her hips and stroked my cock.

  I moved my hands down and tugged at her yoga pants. It was an awkward dance, getting them down, but we managed. Her panties were black and cotton with a bit of lace on the edges, and they pushed aside so easily, her soaking clit and lips on my fingers. I teased her as she arched her back, s till straddling me, and I kissed her harder, biting down.

  “You still haven’t told me how you feel,” she said, panting, face flush and beautiful.

  “Come on,” I said, smirking as I slid two fingers inside of her. She moaned, eyes closed. “You really want to talk right now? I think you’d rather ride me.”