Hard Code: A Laugh-Out-Loud Workplace Romantic Comedy

by Misha Bell

  There’s only one thing to do.

  I must poop out the squirrel.

  Having a clear-cut goal feels good, so I cautiously stand up.

  Still no abdominal pain, so that’s good. Unfortunately, the squirrel doesn’t start moving down with the pull of gravity—on some level, I was hoping it might.

  Fine.

  I shuffle to the bathroom with a stiff gait. So this is why they call this style of locomotion “having something stuck up the butt.”

  I get on the toilet and wait.

  Nothing happens.

  I strain.

  Nada.

  After a few minutes of pointless waiting, I recall Ava talking about fiber. Getting up, I stiffly shuffle into the kitchen and grab an apple.

  Crunching it, I return to my white throne.

  Nope.

  Oh, who am I kidding? I know fiber needs more than minutes to do its thing.

  Getting up, I try pacing the apartment.

  Doesn’t help.

  I roll out my yoga mat and do a Standing Forward Bend.

  Not even a little stomach cramp.

  Doing other poses doesn’t work either—neither the Downward-Facing Dog, nor the Triangle, nor the Seated and Supine Twists.

  Monkey watches me do all this with an unreadable expression.

  “Don’t judge,” I tell her and prepare for the big guns: the Wind-Removing Pose, where you’re on your back and your knees touch your chest.

  Even this mighty yoga weapon doesn’t work.

  Okay. I need to be ready for the eventuality of seeing the Impaler—and I’m a mess in ways beyond foreign objects in my rear end.

  I quickly change my drab casual dress for a prettier one, grab my makeup kit and a mirror, and perch on the toilet (hope springs eternal) to make myself look semi-human.

  Lipstick is easy. Lashes too. But no matter how hard I work on the missing eyebrow, I fail to make it look like the sister of the other—barely a second cousin is the best I can do.

  Maybe I should get rid of the remaining one right now? Problem is, I don’t own a razor, and I don’t dare play with the hair removal cream under the current circumstances. The last thing I want is to end up with bald spots on my head or hair removal cream in my butt. Or worse.

  The eyebrow situation adds to my frustration.

  Who does he think he is, coming here like this?

  Well, I guess he thinks he’s my boss squared. Probably realizes that having the power to fire me allows him to do what he wants. Probably doesn’t like the sound of the lawsuit my parents would file if I somehow died because of the squirrel. Still—

  The doorbell rings, sending my pulse through the stratosphere.

  He’s here!

  Even the prospect of the upcoming humiliation doesn’t loosen anything up—so much for stories of people soiling themselves out of fear. Then again, there’s also a conflicting “anus clenching in fear”—so maybe that’s what’s happening here?

  My work phone rings. Then Precious joins in.

  Feeling like I’m about to die, I answer.

  “How are you feeling?” the Impaler asks.

  I gulp. Is that genuine concern in his voice? “Never better. You didn’t need to come. I got this—”

  “We’re going to the ER.” The statement is a command with no room for negotiation. “Do you need help coming out?”

  Am I hearing a threat in that question? Will he break my door down if I answer the wrong thing?

  Nah. His kind need to be officially invited to enter someone’s home.

  I rub my burning cheeks. “I can walk.”

  “See you soon then.” He hangs up.

  I text Ava an update, grab both phones, shuffle over to the door, and put on a pair of sneakers.

  Here goes nothing.

  I open the door.

  He’s here, in all his mouthwatering glory.

  He meets my gaze, and something—probably shame—makes my knees go weak.

  His strong hand grasps my elbow.

  Electricity shoots up my arm from his touch, and I nearly stumble.

  His expression changes, a scowl appearing on his face. He yells something in Russian, and a burly middle-aged dude is suddenly holding my other elbow with sausage-like fingers that are hairier than those of a sasquatch.

  He came with a minion?

  “Step carefully,” the Impaler instructs.

  When I put one foot in front of the other without faceplanting, he grunts approvingly.

  Reluctantly accepting their help, I let them lead me to a limo that’s waiting at the curb.

  They open the door and deposit me inside. The Impaler climbs in to sit next to me. I catch a faint whiff of his yummy bergamot and citrus scent, and my breathing turns fast and shallow.

  I hope I don’t faint. Who knows what could come out of me if I do?

  The minion gets behind the wheel and slams the door behind himself.

  I clear my suddenly dry throat. “So, you have a chauffeur?”

  The Impaler leans over and secures me with a seatbelt—nearly causing my brain to melt in the process. “Ivan is more what you’d call a personal assistant.”

  Really? Ivan looks more like a bodyguard, or that mobster guy who wanted to chop the yellow M&M into little bits and sprinkle them on ice cream in that Super Bowl ad.

  Ivan’s expression is grim as he turns the key in the ignition.

  Could he be the Ivan, as in The Terrible? I can picture it now: The Impaler was feeling lonely, found a man with a name almost as grandiose as his own, turned him, and began a beautiful friendship.

  With a squeal of tires, the car torpedoes forward.

  “We’re going to Presbyterian, right?” I ask when I swallow my heart back into my chest.

  The Impaler closes the partition, separating us from Ivan. “Your friend sounded like she knew what she was talking about.”

  As I recall the conversation he’s referring to, a wave of tingling heat hits my face.

  Without paying much attention to me, he picks up a laptop from the neighboring seat and pops it open to a page filled with stylish lines of code.

  His eyes narrow on the screen, and those lickable fingers dance over the keyboard with the grace of a pianist.

  “Give me the phone that’s in Giver mode,” he says without looking up.

  As I hand him my work phone, I get an inkling of what he’s doing, and fleetingly debate jumping out of the car.

  After a few minutes of typing, he attaches the phone to his laptop’s USB and drums his fingers on the trackpad as he waits for something—my guess is for the app to update.

  “Say something if you feel anything,” he says and clicks a button on the screen, confirming my suspicion.

  Somewhere inside me, the squirrel comes to life.

  “Something!” I redden to boiled lobster levels.

  He nods approvingly and clicks something else, putting the squirrel back to sleep.

  “You fixed the bug I found,” I say, voicing my earlier theory.

  “It was a good find.” He looks right at me as he says this. “Great job.”

  My heart flutters pleasantly in my chest. If I were always complimented on my testing like this, I might not want to switch to the development department.

  Reddening more, I reach for the phone in his hand. “Let’s stop at the nearest bathroom, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

  “No.” He yanks the device out of my reach. “I’ve done some research. You need an X-ray and a doctor’s supervision.”

  He did research on things to do when your employee has an object stuck in her fanny?

  Someone shoot me. It would be a mercy killing.

  The car comes to a jerky stop.

  “We’re here,” he says, leaning in to unbuckle my seatbelt.

  My hormones go into overdrive.

  Stop it. He’s your boss squared.

  But he smells so yummy.

  Now you sound like a cannibal. Get a grip. He—<
br />
  “Are you okay?” he asks.

  “Peachy.” Was that concern again? More importantly, how long was I talking to myself?

  “Let’s go.” He guides me out. Then he and his personal assistant grab an elbow each and lead me into the ER entrance like an invalid.

  Hey, it could’ve been worse. He could’ve wheeled over a wheelchair. Or a gurney.

  Leaving me in the waiting room, my boss squared sends Ivan back to the car and goes to get forms from the check-in desk—which gives me a moment to shoot a text to Ava to let her know that I’m here.

  I’ll come see you, she replies. Wait there.

  Sure. I was so going to prance away before, but now I’ll wait.

  Coming back with the forms, the Impaler helps me fill them out—as though my fingers are damaged. Midway, we have an argument: Instead of letting me use insurance, the very same one his company provides me with, he wants to pay for everything himself.

  “I made you come here,” he says over my objections. “It’s the least I can do.”

  Fine. He did drag me here. Let him pay—and I’m sure the bill will be huge enough to teach him a lesson about people’s free will.

  “Fanny!” Ava is wearing her scrubs and grinning like a loon. Her eyes dart between me and my boss squared.

  “I’m going to hand in the forms,” the Impaler says after I introduce them.

  Ava waits until he’s (hopefully) out of earshot before she jumps up and down and claps her hands like a preschooler. “You didn’t tell me the Impaler looked like that. And he brought you here? Did the two of you—”

  “Is there a private room where you can hide me?” I glance over to see how far away the Impaler is—and it’s a good thing I do, because he’s coming back.

  “Not officially, but yeah,” Ava says. “First, I’ll take you for an X-ray.”

  Catching the end of that sentence, the Impaler nods approvingly.

  Ava quirks an eyebrow. “Mr. Chortsky, would you like to wait here, go to Fanny’s room, or come with us for the X-ray?”

  I glare at her. I don’t want him anywhere near my room. Or my X-ray.

  He grabs my elbow again—sending another wave of tingles through me. “I’m going with.”

  Ava winks at me before she helps him lead me to the service elevator, which she opens with her hospital ID.

  A corridor later, she ushers me into the room where a technician awaits. I cast a worried glance at her and the Impaler, who hang back together in the hallway.

  I have a bad feeling about this, and not just because it makes me jealous. Ava doesn’t have much of a filter when she speaks, so who knows what damage she might do?

  Since I don’t have a choice, I do my best to make the X-ray process as fast as possible, and when I sprint out of the room, Ava and the Impaler stop mid-word.

  Does she look guilty?

  Before I can confront anyone, I’m led to a nearby nurse’s station where Ava turns a screen our way.

  On the screen is an X-ray that shows what one would expect: an image of a classically beautiful pelvis with a ghostly outline of the squirrel toy below a nicely shaped coccyx bone.

  No wonder my parents always said I’m beautiful on the inside.

  I catch the Impaler peering at the image with a deep frown, and I’m not sure how I should feel. On the one hand, he’s seeing inside me—which is another level of embarrassing. On the other hand, there’s definitely concern on his face, and even if it’s due to fear of liability, it’s still a sign that he kind of cares.

  Still, I do wish he’d bought me a few dinners before I showed him my sacrum like this.

  What are you saying? He can’t get you dinners. Boss squared, remember?

  “In light of this, your plan should work,” Ava says to the Impaler.

  I glare at her. “What plan?”

  “The app.” He waves the phone. “I can guide the—”

  My glare moves to him. “You’re not doing anything. If anyone’s using that app, it’s me.”

  Face unreadable, he hands me the phone. Our fingers brush again, and I feel a jolt of sensation that goes straight down to my core, reminding me of the orgasms I experienced just a short while ago.

  Ava clears her throat. “Let’s take you to your room.”

  I grumble as they lead me there, but nobody listens to me. When we arrive, Ava tells me to go in first so I can put on a robe.

  I lock eyes with the Impaler. “You’re staying out here—and that’s final.”

  He inclines his head. “As you wish.”

  With an eye roll, I go inside and change.

  Ava comes in a few seconds later and gestures for me to lie down on the bed.

  When I’m horizontal, she hands me a bedpan. “Good call asking him to wait outside,” she says, grinning hugely.

  Muttering unintelligible curses, I put the bedpan under my rear end.

  With a wink, Ava nods at the nearby defibrillator. “You think you’re going to make it?”

  Ignoring her, I click the out button on the app and hold my breath.

  The squirrel comes to life once more and slowly, almost anticlimactically, begins to back out of its hiding spot.

  It doesn’t hurt at all, and if it weren’t for the indignity of it all, I might even find the associated sensations a little interesting.

  There’s a moment of discomfort as the squirrel clears my opening, followed by a loud clang as the darn thing lands in the bedpan.

  Giggling, Ava puts on a pair of latex gloves, snatches the bedpan, and dumps its contents into a biohazard bag.

  “Seriously?” I ask.

  She ceremoniously extends the bag to me. “When we remove bullets, we let people keep those too.”

  I jump off the bed and take a few steps.

  “Feeling spry?” she asks.

  I grab the bag, toss it into a garbage disposal labeled “Biohazard,” and begin to change in sullen silence.

  Ava refuses to leave it alone. “Do you want me to at least email you the X-ray? Or send it to him perhaps?”

  I round on her. “Do that, and I’ll smother you in your sleep.”

  Her eyes gleam with mischief. “So you like him a lot.”

  “Hush!” I hiss, cutting my eyes toward the door. “What if he’s eavesdropping?”

  She dramatically fans herself. “What a scandal.”

  I finish dressing and come toward her. Leaning in, I whisper, “Did he say anything about me when I was getting that X-ray?”

  “Depends what you mean. He basically outlined the app solution and asked if that’s safer than what a doctor would’ve done. No declarations of undying love, though.”

  “Well, good,” I say, hiding my disappointment. “Let’s go.”

  I stride out of the room, Ava on my heels.

  The Impaler’s deep blue eyes zero in on my face. “Did it work?”

  The redness that had managed to leave my cheeks during the squirrel removal procedure returns with a vengeance. “All good. The hardware is toast, though. I hope the Belka people can provide another.”

  “Don’t worry about any of that.” He adjusts his horn-rimmed glasses—a theoretically unsexy gesture that his fingers somehow turn erotic. “How do you feel?”

  “Like getting Exit Only tattooed on my left butt cheek,” I blurt, then redden painfully.

  His expression is unreadable, his demeanor as aloof as ever. Ava, however, looks positively gleeful. “Make that a tramp stamp.”

  I glare at her.

  “Actually, that might not work as intended,” the Impaler says, his tone utterly serious. “Some may take it as a challenge.”

  Oh. My. God. Does he realize what he just said?

  Ava makes a choking sound as I hustle to the elevator, determined to hide my flaming face.

  We ride down in silence, and as I stare at the Impaler’s implacable face, a new worry invades my mind.

  What happens now that the squirrel is out of me, and the emergency is over?
<
br />   Am I about to lose my job?

  Chapter Eight

  I try to parse that indecipherable expression of his.

  Is he angry about what happened? Is that why he told me not to worry about any of it? Are my days of testing toys—or anything—over?

  It’s possible. I doubt any other employee has interrupted his day like this, and made him drive them to the hospital.

  Then again, my snafu did help locate a possible bug in his code, so that’s something. Unless he’s like Britney—touchy about the flaws in his app.

  Oh, well. Even if he does want to fire me, I bet he wouldn’t do that right after I’ve been rushed to a hospital—it wouldn’t look so good if I decided to sue.

  Which I wouldn’t, but he doesn’t know that.

  The elevator doors slide open.

  “See you,” Ava says to me when we exit. Turning to the Impaler, she adds, “Thanks for taking care of her. Nice to have met you.”

  He inclines his head, and she sprints away.

  We check out of the hospital and leave the building.

  Ivan is waiting inside the car.

  The Impaler opens a door for me in a gentlemanly fashion, and I climb in, making sure to plop on the seat opposite to where his laptop is. I don’t think it’s wise for me to sit next to him after all of this.

  I might expire from blushing.

  Before he decides to buckle me in again, I do that myself—same reason.

  He takes a seat next to his laptop, as I hoped he would, but for some reason, I feel a pang of disappointment.

  Ivan floors the gas pedal.

  The Impaler raises the partition between us and his minion, and glances at his laptop before pinning me with an intent stare.

  Crap. I’m probably interrupting him from something important.

  “So…” I shift in my seat uncomfortably. “What now?”

  He cocks his head. “We’re taking you home, of course.”

  Since it’s been whole minutes since I last blushed, I do so now. “I meant, testing-wise.” Or put another way, do I still have a job?

  “You need to rest.”

  He’s really good at making statements that sound like military orders. At least I don’t salute or yes-sir him this time.

  “How about after I rest?” I dare to ask.