Pierced (Tall, Dark, and Handsome Book 2)

by JA Huss

“Nothing. What are you talking about?”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  We kind of stare at each other for a moment. Then he says, “Let’s start again. Please, come on in. Make yourself at home.”

  “She won’t let me off the hook, man,” I tell him. “I’ve done everything I can think to do and she’s still holding it all over my head.”

  “Have you apologized?”

  “Define ‘apology.’”

  “Dude—”

  “Of course I’ve apologized! It was the first, second, fifth, eighth, and like seventeenth thing I did. In between giving her raises, promoting her, and telling her she smells nice all the time.”

  “Think that last one is actually just sexual harassment.”

  “I don’t know what she wants. I mean, I’m playing it cool. Not letting her know that it’s getting to me.”

  He raises an eyebrow at me.

  “What?” That’s moi.

  “I’m just…” He stops himself short.

  “Spit it out, man!”

  “OK. I mean, I’m sure that you are playing it cool. For you. Buuuuut…”

  “Buuuuut what? What are you saying? Are you saying I can’t play cool? I can play cool, mon ami. I am Mista motherfucking Cool!” I flop back down on the sofa to make my point. But my goddamn waistcoat bunches up again. It drives me crazy when it does that. I try to tug it down. It won’t sit right. So I stand again, straighten my jacket and vest, and lean casually on the arm of the sofa.

  To show how fucking cool I am.

  Andrew stares at me the whole time. He might blink once.

  “Mista motherfuckin’ Cool,” I reiterate. For effect.

  He comes around the side of his desk, walks over to me, and takes me by the hand.

  “What are you doing? Why are you doing that? Don’t do that. What are you doing?” I ask, as he draws me down next to him on the sofa.

  “Bro,” he says, like you talk to someone standing on the edge of a building to keep them from jumping. “Maybe you need to take some time off.”

  “Time off from what?”

  “Um… all of it. Work. It’s been a rough few months. You might be a little burned out.”

  “I don’t get burned out,” I tell him, trying to stand. But he pulls me back down. He’s really strong. That rock-climbing shit must work.

  “I know, I know,” he says, patting me. (I hate being patted.) “But you’ve had a lot on you with the whole Eden thing. And what that did to the whole Myrtle thing. Hey!” he says, with a clap. “Have you even been to Paris this year? I don’t think you have. You should go to Paris. Isn’t it always grounding for you?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because… you’ve told me it’s… always… grounding. For you.”

  I manage to pull free from his grip and stand. I look at him sitting there.

  “Gotta be honest… I came down to my best friend’s office to chat about an employee problem and shit is starting to feel like an intervention, man.”

  He nods. Sighs again. (Seriously, I’m worried about him.) And then he says, “Well, couple things. One, Myrtle is not an ‘employee.’”

  “She isn’t?”

  “I mean, she is, but she’s more than that.”

  That catches me by surprise. Because he’s right. But I have tried to keep it to myself. So I don’t know how he knows that.

  “How do you know that?” I ask. Obviously.

  “C’mon, man,” he says, standing up as well. “I saw how she looked at you. And how you looked at her. Before…”

  He doesn’t finish the sentence with, Before you falsely accused her of trying to ruin your company and publicly humiliated her, but I assume it’s implied.

  “Do you remember when you had that team-building thing?” he asks.

  I pause, remembering. “Which team-building thing?”

  He doesn’t so much sigh now as he blows out through his lips. I’m going to get him to see a pulmonologist I know.

  “At the rock-climbing gym? The one you had to try to ferret out who the Sexpert was? You gave a big speech? Any of this ringing a bell?”

  “Dude, I give lots of speeches and do lots of things.”

  “It was the day you told me you thought Myrtle was the Sexpert!”

  “Oh. Oh, the day she was wearing the leggings with the cutouts and the tube-top. I think she also had on pink climbing shoes. Her hair was pinned back with a brass hair pin. Nails were fire-engine red. That day?”

  “Yes!” he says, way too excited if you ask me, pointing his finger and kind of jumping.

  “Jesus, man. Calm down. Maybe you need the holiday.”

  “No, dumbass! Right there. That thing you just did.”

  “What did I do?”

  “You don’t bother to remember anything. About anyone. Ever.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “What’s my middle name?”

  I don’t know what this game is that we’re playing right now, but I find it intensely unfair. “Um…”

  “You’ve known me for almost thirteen years. You’re my best friend. I moved my company to the ridiculously-named TDH because you asked me to. I would lie down in traffic for you and I love you like a brother… What’s my middle name?”

  I can feel my jaw tightening. My fingers twitch. I want to chew on them. That’s weird. “Crans… fan… dimmel… berg…?”

  Fuck. I have no idea what Andrew’s middle name is. Huh.

  He shakes his head, “Andrew Cransfandimmelberg Hawthorne. That’s my name? How does that even—?” He shakes his head again. Harder. Like he’s shaking something out of his brain. “Fuck it. Look, my point is that you don’t know anything about anyone. Because you’re selfish.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Hey, everybody’s selfish to one degree or another. You’ve just elevated it to an art form, but as an artist, I have to admire that. But my point is, dude, it took you being introduced to Eden like six times to remember who she was. But you just described what Myrtle was wearing four months ago. To the letter.”

  I pause, considering this. “It might have been silver. The hairpin.”

  “Jesus, man,” he says. “That. That’s how I know that she’s more than an employee.”

  Touché, Andrew Cransfandimmelberg Hawthorne. Touché.

  “She thinks I don’t know anything about her,” I tell him. I think a little poutily.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “She said it to me. Like ten minutes ago. She said, ‘I’m going to assume you don’t know anything about me.’”

  He bows his head and looks up at me. “Is that actually what’s got you so upset? That she thinks you think of her—or don’t think of her—like everybody else?”

  I shrug. Then, “Yeah, OK,” I say. “What’s the other thing?”

  “What?”

  “When I said this was starting to sound like an intervention, you said, ‘Couple things. One. Myrtle is not an ‘employee.’ What’s the other thing?”

  “Oh. Yeah. This is an intervention.”

  I knew it.

  “And what are you intervening in?” I ask.

  “Your sanity. Your wellbeing. Your fucking lifespan, man. As in, I’m trying to help you extend it.”

  “I’m never gonna die. I don’t like the idea of it.”

  “Yeah, well… that right there is the problem.”

  I glance out the window for some reason. Something about the mountains outside catches my eye. The view from Andrew’s office is different than it is from mine even though it’s just two floors lower. I never noticed that before.

  “Sorry?” I ask.

  “I said,” he says, “that’s your problem.”

  “What is?”

  “You hold onto everything so tightly. Or you try to. You can’t control everything, man. You know what rock climbing teaches you?”

  “Oh, Jesus, please don’t with the whole ‘rock climbing is a teacher of life’ b
ullshit.”

  “Can’t help it. It is. And one of the things it teaches is that you have to be pliant.”

  “Pliant?”

  “Pliable.”

  “OK.”

  You can’t actually grip shit too tightly. It’s about communing with the rocks. Finding harmony with them. Realizing that they are more powerful than you and learning to submit. It’s about finding compromise within yourself.”

  “Right. And after you do all that shit, you tighten your knuckles around those stones and you hold on for dear life.”

  He wanders around behind his desk and sits. He looks tired. Maybe I need to get him to a cardiologist too.

  And he’s worried about me.

  “Dude,” he says, flopping into his chair, “what can I do to help? When I got to Denver you were obsessing about the whole Sexpert thing, and I thought when that got sorted out you’d mellow a little. Isn’t your dad happy with how things have turned around for the magazine?”

  “He’s thrilled.”

  “That’s great.”

  “Yeah. He’s talking to me more, becoming more involved with what I’m doing…”

  “Really? Good. That’s good, right?”

  “I’ll be honest. I don’t hate it. And it looks like we’re maybe going to turn what was looking like a nosedive around and maybe even beat our total revenue from last year.”

  “That’s amazing!”

  “Yeah… it is. Hm.” I kind of frown.

  He notices. I know he does because he asks, “So, what’s wrong?”

  “I just told Myrtle that if we don’t sell two million in ad revenue before December that we’ll all be out of a job.”

  “What? Why?” He kind of moans the second word. It’s hard to tell if it’s an actual moan because he has his hands over his face.

  “I dunno! I’m trying to, like, engage her or something. Get her to feel excited. Or connected to… something. Me. Or whatever. I don’t fuckin’ know! I run a men’s magazine, not Psychology Today!”

  He spins his chair around so that his back is to me. I look outside at the mountains again. Yep. Still there.

  He rolls the chair back around. Slowly. “You know another way you could try to engage with her?” he asks.

  “How?”

  “Engage with her. Like, I’m saying… don’t just say you’re sorry. Show her you’re sorry. I’m saying, like, swallow your fuckin’ pride, man. Prostrate yourself a little bit.”

  I have never once, in my entire life, had it suggested to me that I prostrate any part of myself to anyone or anything. I’m not even really sure I know what the word means. “Is that like… bow?”

  “No, that’s ‘genuflect.’ Which is what you expect people to do to you, your highness.”

  “I do not.”

  “Bro… there’s a throne in your office. Literally, it means to lay yourself flat. To completely abdicate the pretense of power and give over to another. I’ve done it. With Eden.”

  “I’ll bet you have. Sicko.”

  He doesn’t laugh at my joke. Fuck him. I know it was funny.

  He goes on, “When I realized that I had been unfair to her. When I held her responsible for my feelings. I had to earn her trust somehow. Had to. So I just admitted my failings and basically threw myself at her mercy. And, finally, she forgave me. Because she could see I was cowed.”

  He lets that hang in the air. Then follows up with…

  “And you know who told me to do that?”

  “… Myrtle?”

  “Myrtle? Dude, I’m terrified of Myrtle. I wouldn’t be in a room with her alone long enough for her to give me directions, much less life advice. No, man. It was you.”

  I am rarely speechless. I am now. I work out one word. “Me?”

  “Yeah. I mean not in so many words, but that was what you encouraged me to do. Just to be… repentant. And I was. And it worked. Whatever. I know you’re not in a thing with Myrtle exactly, not like I was with the Lady Presley, but she clearly means something to you, so you just have to decide how much that something is.”

  I take a moment to digest this. I just came down to blow off some steam. I wasn’t ready for my man to go full-on Dr. Phil on me.

  “But,” I say, haltingly, “I’m not you. And Myrtle isn’t Eden.”

  “Yeah, no shit,” he says—kinda harshly, if I’m being honest. Then he catches himself. “No, I know. But, still, people are people, and if you want to move past whatever this is to… whatever you want it to be… you gotta do something, mon frère.”

  It’s so cute when Andrew speaks French.

  My eyes dart around the room, taking everything in. To what end, I have no idea, but I think I’m looking for something that’s actually inside my brain.

  “OK. Thanks. I gotta go.” I start to leave.

  “I’m serious, man. Submit. Go to Paris. Stop lying to Myrtle about the magazine to… whatever you’re trying to do. Honestly, that part confuses the shit out of me, but you do you.”

  I nod. Not in acknowledgement. I actually have no idea what he just said. I wasn’t listening. But I do it as a reflex, and my hand is on the door to leave when Andrew’s developer kid—um, Declan, I think… no. That’s Scottish. The kid is Indian. Nepalese? No, I think for sure Indian.

  Anyway, he walks in. “What’s up, Pierce?” the kid says.

  “Hey… man,” I say.

  “You dunno my name, do you?” he asks.

  “I—” I don’t even feel like trying right now. “Declan?”

  “Seriously? It’s Dev.”

  “Ah! Yes! I knew it started with a ‘D.’”

  The kid rolls his eyes. He’s precocious.

  I’m just about out the door when, for some reason, I turn to ask, “Hey, Dev?” He turns to me. “Do you know Andrew’s middle name?”

  “Cransfandimmelberg,” he says. “Isn’t it, Andrew?”

  It takes me a moment before… “You guys working on a new eavesdropping app?”

  “Government contracts are government contracts,” Andrew says.

  “Andrew?” He looks at me, inscrutable. “Does it hurt?”

  “What?”

  “Prostrating yourself.”

  He pauses and then says, “Yeah, but in a good way. If you do it right.”

  And off that bit of what I assume is foreshadowing, I’m gone.

  CHAPTER THREE - MYRTLE

  Outside the TDH is bustling with people and food trucks. Eden and I stop at one to grab coffee, and then we start strolling. This part of the TDH is mostly office buildings, but a little further north there are tons of shops. All of them remind us that it’s a new season and the holidays are right around the corner.

  “So…” Eden says. “The Halloween party. Last year it was stupid. Hardly anyone dressed up. I came as Harley Quinn. God, that part was fun! I wish I was dating Andrew last year. He could’ve been Joker.”

  “I have no idea. I take Halloween off every year. Pierce knows this. And yet he came into my office thinking this would get me engaged? Just… God, he infuriates me!”

  “Come on.” Eden snorts. “Pierce doesn’t know anything. He pretty much bumbles around from minute to minute like a dog looking for squirrels.”

  “True,” I mutter, my attention now on the woman outside the TDH Community Center who is thrusting fliers at unsuspecting pedestrians. That scrapbooking class pops back into my head like a bad acid-trip flashback. I walk faster to get away from her. “But I’ve been his assistant for seven years, Eden. Which means he’s had seven chances to notice. I feel like… like it was all a waste of time.”

  “It wasn’t. And he loves you. Everyone can tell.”

  “Loves me? How could a man who thinks I’m into Halloween have any feelings for me at all? It makes no sense.”

  “Are you sure you’re not into Halloween?”

  I huff. “Positive. I hate all holidays. I don’t do Christmas, or Valentine’s Day, or St. Patrick’s Day parades.”

  “New Year’s
?” she asks.

  “No. That stupid midnight kiss. It’s all fake. And even if it wasn’t a new year, I’d despise any day that proclaimed itself dungeon master of resolutions.”

  Eden stops walking and squints at me. “Dungeon master?”

  “Never mind. Why did we stop?”

  “We’re here.”

  I look at the shop we’re standing in front of. It’s one of those pop-up seasonal stores with the Grim Reaper painted on the window. He’s holding a sign that says, ‘Party Central.’ “No,” I say.

  “Yes,” Eden says, gripping my coat sleeve and tugging me towards the door. “We need to get you into the spirit, so you’re choosing a costume. Besides, we need new decorations. And a theme. We need to pick a theme.”

  “Isn’t the theme Halloween? Like what more is there?”

  “Oh.” Eden laughs. “Just wait.” She pulls the door open and waves me inside.

  I’m just about to make a run for it when the community center lady says, “Classes start soon!” as she thrusts her flier at me.

  I go inside before that scrapbooking idea can take root.

  “All who enter will die, muah-ha-ha-ha-ha…” the mechanical Dracula spits as I clear a path through fake cobwebs.

  “We need one of those,” Eden says.

  “Dracula? No. There will be no Draculas at this party. There will be no witches, or goblins, or mummies, either. I do not do haunted houses.”

  “Myrtle,” Eden says. “That’s what Halloween is. We have to make it spooky.”

  “No,” I say again. “I don’t do spooky either.”

  “It has to be! Scaring people is the whole point!”

  “You don’t need silly monsters to scare people. Two minutes ago I didn’t realize Halloween parties had a theme, but I do now. And the only black at my party will be the tuxedoes.”

  “Tux… what? That’s not how you do Halloween.”

  “It is now. Come on,” I say. “There’s nothing here for us. We’re going to that event planner place across from the art gallery. I’ve got a corporate credit card. If we’re going to throw a party to entice advertisers, we’re going to do it up right.”

  Ten minutes later we’re standing inside “Corporate Affairs” speaking to Maggie, my new personal party planner, about what we’re looking for.