by Nikki Wild
Not even that monotone mid-western drawl in Mrs. Hemlock’s voice could put a stay on the boner I was sporting. She could have been reading the phone book and I would have stayed as solid as platinum. Whenever I got even a hint of something sexual after one of my workouts, it turned me into a desperate teenager. But seeing her, with those two-inch heels and that long hair cascading down her back, had me on the verge of going absolutely wild.
When she glanced back over her shoulder, my testosterone damn near made me get out of my chair. Her lips pouted but her eyes told a different story. She was looking at me like we were familiar to each other. It only lingered on her face for a second before she turned back and rounded the corner, but it was there. I badly needed to know what was on her mind.
Riley
Deep breaths. Be present. Slow down.
I leaned against the door as it closed behind me. I knew it was him the very second I saw those dark, probing eyes. But why was it bothering me so much? He was twice as good-looking as he was in the photo, but that didn’t explain why he practically took the breath out of my lungs.
My fingers laid against the door as straight as my spine did. I inhaled sharply and tried to hold my stomach tight. If felt good to be pressed up against it so firmly, like if I didn’t, I might float right up to the ceiling.
The sun filtered in through the slatted blinds on my window and cast a perfect column of light over the only uncrowded work space on my desk. It was like a sign for me to sit down and do something. I didn’t bother with turning on my overhead as I grabbed his file and pulled my chair out.
Troy Eason. I flipped it open and began to read over the contents more carefully this time. It almost felt wrong to have access to so much of a person’s life like this. Normally, the thought never crossed my mind, but that was because I’d only used the information for work purposes before now. This, however, was treading dangerously close to creepy. I kept reading.
According to his personal history, he’d grown up in foster care. By the look of all the different families he was connected to, it appeared that it hadn’t been a picnic, either. Most of the notes centered around him getting into fights and being difficult to handle in general. I wondered what it would have been like to grow up in such an unstable environment.
Guilt washed over me.
I slammed the file shut and spun it beneath my fingers. The muscles in my shoulders and necked knotted up something fierce as the I tried to feel my way through how I should deal with this. Troy Eason was going to be one of my clients. I was scheduled to conduct his program exit evaluation and interviews, but how could I if the mere sight of him turned me into a jabbering mess?
Someone hammered out a rhythmic beat on my office door. For a second, I contemplated pretending I wasn’t in. The light was off, so I could probably get away with it.
Knock. Knock, knock. Knock, knock, knock!
I chewed my bottom lip as my chin dropped to my chest. I really didn’t feel like talking to anyone right now.
Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock!
They weren’t going to go away easily. Two feet darkened the space beneath my door and a sinking feeling settled in my stomach. There was only one person who would be so insistent. Kyle.
“Come in,” I said, cautiously. I was all out of options and it seemed best just to get this over with. If I didn’t answer, the weirdo would probably stalk my office until I came out.
The door flew open and her ran through on happy feet. “Hey! Watcha doin’?”
“Kyle, I have a lot of work to do today, what is it?”
He was wearing his six-thousand-dollar custom suit and the same tie he had on every Friday. Kyle was the type of guy who spent a lot of time researching the perfect business attire.
“Whoa, whoa! Easy, Kitten. I just walked in.”
Kitten? Fuck you.
“I have a lot of work, is all. I don’t have much time to talk.”
“That’s fine,” he said, ignoring me and pulling up a chair at the side of my desk. “What’s on the docket today?” He glanced down at Troy’s file but I flipped it over so he couldn’t see.
“Kyle… what do you need?”
He hooked his thumbs inside of his suspenders and stretched them out. The spot he chose to sit in had me feeling trapped behind the desk. “The Board Member’s Banquet is next week. I was just stopping by to see what time you wanted me to pick you up?”
His pathetic come on attempts were so lame that I hardly even blinked anymore when he assaulted me with one of them. “Excuse me?”
“I figured we could go grab a drink before. Does seven work for you?” He smiled like a used car salesmen.
“As a matter of fact, it doesn’t. Sorry, but I already have plans to go with Casey. She’s coming over to my place and we’re leaving from there.”
He never missed a beat. “That’s okay, maybe the three of us could meet up beforehand. I’ve never had a problem entertaining two ladies.”
I didn’t know for sure if that last bit was an attempt at some kind of sexual innuendo, but it still turned my stomach. I grimaced at him and shook my head “no.”
Kyle simply nodded and looked around my office. “Bit of a mess in here, isn’t it?” It seemed like he was inspecting everything as if it would yield a clue that would allow him to topple my defenses.
“Yeah, that can happen sometimes when you’ve got a lot of work to do. Speaking of which…”
“Let me ask you something,” he said. “Why is it that you college girls always have that ‘stuck up’ thing going on?”
He’d always been crass, but never so downright rude. “Wow,” I said. “That’s kind of insolent. And, I’m getting tired of you calling me ‘college girl’. I have the same degree as you, remember?”
“Aw, I’m sorry,” he said, kicking his chair back and standing up. “It’s just that you always act like you’re too good for the rest of us.” He walked to my window and plucked the picture of my parents off the sill. “It’s like you don’t even want to be here sometimes.”
Seeing his greasy fingers leave prints on my picture frame made me feel like breaking something. I stood up too, so he couldn’t loom over me. I was sure that he’d read some book about ‘controlling a room’ and I didn’t want him to think he had a power position on me.
“I’m here to work, Kyle, not make sure everyone likes me, like we’re in high school or something.”
He seemed to ponder this, as if it were a completely foreign concept. “But that’s how you make strides in business,” he said. “Knowing all the book stuff is great… essential even, but everybody really knows that you make the most progress through the relationships you have with your co-workers.”
“Really? Because I’m not trying to make ‘strides in business’. I’m trying to make a difference in people’s lives. That’s what we do here, in case you forgot.”
Kyle scoffed so loudly that even he realized it was over the top. He backed his voice down to a whisper. “Listen, I think it’s great that you want to help people. It’s really, really cute, actually. But I’m just trying to give you some real-world advice. And the truth of it is, that people like working with people who are open and friendly. You’ll be able to get further ahead if you take that into consideration.”
My hands clenched in tight fists and it took everything I had to keep them from shaking. Sweat formed in the cracks of my palms.
Deep breaths. Be present. Slow down.
I should’ve sent him on his way. I should’ve been diplomatic… professional. But I wasn’t.
I spoke low, through gritted teeth. “Kyle, how long have you worked here with Fitting In?”
“Three years,” he said proudly, straightening his tie. “That’s why I-”
“And who have you helped in those three years?”
“Wha- what do you mean?”
“A name, Kyle. Tell me the name of someone you’ve made a positive impact on. Can you do that?”
He stumbled over his words. �
��That’s not the point. The point is-”
“It’s not? Maybe you should read our mission statement again. Let me ask you another question: how did you get this job?”
It didn’t look like he was conscious of it, but he was backing up toward the door. “I don’t see how that has anything to do with what we’re talking about.”
“It has everything to do with what we’re talking about. Let me help you out… your mother is one of the board members, isn’t that correct? She’s one of the people who will be honored at that big fancy dinner next Wednesday, right?”
“What’s your point?”
“And I’m sure she probably pulled a few strings to help you land your position, didn’t she?” I continued.
“I… I-” he was sputtering.
“So, you’re not exactly a man who takes care of things for himself, if I’m seeing this for what it is… and I think I am.”
His face contorted into an ugly scowl.
“With that in mind,” I said, “maybe you should think twice before offering up your ‘real-world advice’ because from where I stand, it seems like you don’t know shit.”
It may have been the first time in Kyle Steven’s life anyone ever talked to him that way. The months of endless harassment had finally gotten to me. We stared each other down from across the desk for a tense couple of seconds, and then his scowl disappeared.
He seemed to reset himself and get his emotions in check. “Well,” he said with half a smile, “it appears that we may have misunderstood each other.” He walked back to my desk and shrugged his shoulders. “I’m willing to let bygones be bygones if you are.”
This guy wasn’t just a spoiled narcissist. He was crazy.
He tapped his finger on my picture frame that he still had clutched to his chest. “But I’m sure this great man—he pointed to my father in the photograph—wouldn’t want his little angel to be using profanity in the workplace, or anywhere else for that matter. So, let’s work on cleaning up that dirty little mouth.”
I tried to snatch the frame from his grip but he held on tight. His eyes locked on to mine as we played tug-of-war over it. “However, if you insist on being dirty, my offer to you and that slutty little receptionist still stands. We can all get together on Wednesday night and see what happens when you get a few glasses of wine in you. I bet that might wear down some of your sharp edges.”
I yanked on the frame and he finally let it go. After he walked out of my office, I heard him call out to one of his cronies walking down the hallway. He was able to switch from predatory creep back into his smarmy office persona disturbingly easily.
I pushed the door shut behind him and locked it this time. I was done with visitors for the day. Even if Mrs. Hemlock herself came calling, I was pretty sure I’d just hide under my desk.
Sliding back into the chair, it felt like my head weighed a thousand pounds. I needed a break. Too many fourteen hour days were starting to take their toll. Just in the past hour, I’d clamed up like a nervous girl seeing her first crush, and then followed some jerk down into the muck when I would have normally handled myself so much better. Both incidents highlighted the thought that my nerves were wearing down.
Something had to change.
Troy
I kept racking my brain trying to figure out how to see that girl again. Finding out anything about her would be next to impossible. There had to be a few hundred people who worked on that floor alone, and all I had to go by was a first name: Riley.
She was probably somebody’s assistant. She looked way too young to be in charge of anything major. Still, the fact remained that I needed to get my business taken care of with Fitting In. Whoever she was, I probably shouldn’t risk ruffling any feathers down there until I got cleared. I just hoped I’d be able to keep myself from doing anything risky.
It was just past two-thirty. I had a three o’clock meeting with one of their reps to go over whatever the hell it was they wanted to talk to me about. I had to pick up an early shift at work and rearrange my training schedule just to be able to make it. Even still, I was gonna be at least a little bit late because we had a delayed truck come in to the loading dock at the last minute.
My phone buzzed in my pocket again. It was another message from Eddie—my connection to Ortiz. I ignored it like the others. Whatever he wanted, he was persistent in trying to get it. Stuffing my phone back in my jeans, I jogged to my pickup in the employee parking lot. Usually, I rode my motorcycle but it was raining like a son of a bitch and I didn’t feel like showing up to the meeting soaking wet.
I’d bought the truck from one of the guys at work just after I got the job. I knew that with winter coming, I didn’t want to have to ride my Harley in the snow. It was ugly as hell, and pretty beat up too, but it was reliable. I turned the ignition and it started up on the first crank.
Be good, Troy. Get through these meetings, and you’ll be done.
If they didn’t pick some coffee shop on the far side of town, I’d make it without a problem. But since I had to cross over in early afternoon traffic, there was no way I could make it in time. It especially pissed me off because this was something that just as easily could have been handled over the phone. Too bad it was part of their “process” to have face-to-face meetings.
Finding a parking space in front of any downtown business was like hitting the lottery, but I rolled up the second a white BMW pulled off the curb. I eased the truck into the spot and it settled on squeaky shocks.
I stood on the curb looking up at the sign that hung over the building. It read: Café Louisa in winding Old English script. It was bad enough that I was going to have to endure someone sitting across a table and judging me, but the fact that it was going to happen in the middle of some trendy-fuck coffee shop while the withered old bag doing sipped a latte burned me at my core.
My phone told me it was three-twenty. Oh, well. I steeled my nerves and pushed through the doors. The warm burst of air from the heating system hit me in the face like a blast furnace. Outside of an older couple seated at a table by the window, the place was mostly empty.
I surveyed the room looking for my tormentor. At first, I didn’t see anyone. If they had left… just the thought of trying to explain why I missed the meeting was enough to make me cringe.
Then, I saw her. Sitting at a booth in the corner was the girl from the office. She had her laptop open on the table in front of her and an empty coffee cup sat to her right. She wasn’t wearing her hair the same way, but it was definitely her. I couldn’t mistake that face if I tried.
I slyly made my way across the room but I could tell right off the bat that I wasn’t going to charm my way out of this. She was pissed.
“Hey, I’m Troy Eason,” I said as I slid into the booth. “This shouldn’t take too long, should it? I have a training session la-”
“What?!” Her designer sunglasses almost flew off her head when she said it. There was no way this was going to be pleasant. “You show up twenty minutes late to our meeting, and the first thing you ask is how long it’s going to take?”
“Hey, hey… sorry,” I said with a chuckle. “That probably sounded bad, but I didn’t mean for it to. I do have somewhere to be, but first let me explain why I was late.”
She through her hands apart and spread them on the table. “I’m listening, but before you tell me, you should know this probably isn’t going to look good no matter how you spin it. One of the reasons my organization has a relationship with the particular judge who assigned you to us is because we insist that our clients are on time. It’s a responsibility thing, and the judge likes that.”
“Jesus, okay. Just let me get this out.”
“I’m listening.”
“It was a work thing. I had to change my schedule around so I could still get my hours. You know, you guys didn’t exactly make this easy by scheduling the meeting right in the middle of my work day.”
She snapped her laptop closed and leaned over it. “Well Mr.
Eason, you could have called to tell us you were going to be late.”
“I did,” I said. And that was the truth. I had called as soon as I found out we were going to have to stay late for that last truck, but the answering service picked up. “There was no one at the office to take the call.”
Her face softened just a little. “That’s right, we had off-site training today. But you still should have made earlier arrangements. That’s on you.”
Although I didn’t think it was exactly fair, I decided to let it go.
“That’s okay,” she said. “Let’s start fresh. My name’s Riley Beckett. I’m one of the consultants with Fitting In. You and I will be meeting a total of three times to discuss your progress through the program. They’re kind of like a series of exit interviews, if you know what those are.”
“I’m familiar,” I said. “And all of these interviews… they’ll be conducted by you and who else…?”
“Only me,” she said. “I’m assigned to your case so from here until we get you signed off, I’ll be your contact with the organization. I have a packet of paper here that you’ll need to go through at your convenience; my phone number is at the bottom should you have any questions.”
The only part that remotely interested me about what she’d said was the bit about her phone number. I filed that away in the back of my mind for safekeeping.
“Alright,” I said. “I’m here now, so what do we need to accomplish?”
“Mr. Eason, I understand you have plans this afternoon, but please understand this is going to take a few minutes of your time.”
Suddenly, I didn’t mind so much. If she wanted to keep me here all night, I couldn’t imagine I would complain. “That’s fine. Whatever gets me through this damn program is what I’ll do.”
“Very good, then let’s begin.”
The top button of her blouse was undone. She could have loosened it because of the heat, but I don’t think she noticed it had come undone. She seemed far too professional to do anything that could be perceived as casual.
