Zander's Firecracker

by Ember Flint

All of my siblings agree, looking ready for battle, and I laugh. They are impossible.

  They squeeze on the sofa to fit in the video’s frame as best as they can, and I smile at them.

  “Don’t worry, guys, I think I can handle one single spoilt rich man used to have his own way. In the end, he will see I know what I’m doing, and he will have to admit that our services and products really are the best money can buy. I’m gonna give the Markos the best damn display they’ve ever seen.”

  —*—

  “Please, come right this way, Alexa,” Mr. Markos’ PA says with a sweeping motion of one hand as she guides me into the large, sterile-looking conference room. “Mr. Markos will be with you presently.”

  “Thank you, Laurel,” I say, walking up to the long glass and stainless-steel table. I smirk to myself.

  The room hardly looks used and everything is in perfect order. I could turn it into an absolute dump in ten minutes flat, though.

  I’m not exactly what you would call a tidy person, like my brothers are fond of telling me, I’m a walking, talking tornado of messiness.

  It’s a gift.

  The PA leaves me alone and I slide my messenger back off my shoulder.

  Apparently, Mr. Bossy-Pants is not happy with the details I’ve provided up until now and wants me to give him a full presentation, like this is the first time we’re talking about the display.

  He’s one of those guys, the type that doesn’t feel like he’s really talked about something unless it’s face to face, I guess.

  Like I’m supposed to be hiding all sort of bad intentions and ulterior motives and he needs to look me in the eye to find me out.

  I shake my head.

  Maybe I shouldn’t blame him, though: the other display firm, Fire Tech, really tried to fuck them over, after all.

  Still, it irks me. I can’t help it.

  I’ve felt like a chubby little bug under a microscope since the Markos hired us.

  I take my laptop and my binder out and then I start to spread my papers over the table. I’m gonna need my notes and my sketches handy.

  He is displeased that I refused to comply with his edict of showing him a digital rendition of the display.

  It’s not like I don’t have one. I do, it’s sitting on this very laptop. I just won’t share it with him, and I have good reason: the simulation is for mine and my tech crew reference only.

  Our digital renditions are often so close to the final project that you’d see exploding in the sky, that showing them to the clients totally takes away from the ‘wow effect’ of the actual display and customers end up in a state of slightly ‘meh’ with the result because of this.

  We learned this lesson the hard way, so we don’t share the simulations anymore.

  I want to keep the magic happening in real time, up in the nightly sky where it belongs.

  Usually our clients understand my reasoning after I explain, but Mr. Bossy-Pants is proving stubborn, though all of his relatives seem more than okay with keeping the mystery alive and being a bit surprised by the final results.

  Not this Mr. Markos, though. Nope, no way, no how.

  His brain just can’t compute with being told ‘no’.

  He wants a deeper understanding of the pyro show we’re gonna put together and he won’t be satisfied by mere words even if, after all we are following Mrs. Elizabeth Markos’ —his late mother— project pretty closely.

  I don’t want the display to be simply a play-by-play of the last one their Mom put together, though, and I’ve told him as much.

  I want them to be reminded of her while the show is on, but I also want them to get closure; I want to help them achieving the fresh start they need.

  Violet, his sister-in-law, seemed really enthusiastic at my approach and so was her hubby and everything was okay until his brother decided that even if he didn’t have the time and even if he had passed the task onto them, he really —really— needed to be involved into the plan every step of the way.

  I drum my fingers over the shiny glass countertop, and I sigh, looking down at the face of my smartwatch.

  I should be with my crew starting to set up already, not stuck inside ready to be analyzed by this guy.

  Ten mils, Alexa. Ten mils.

  He can be a total domineering high-handed bull-headed asshole or like his sister-in-law put it ‘a little bit eccentric in his notions when he thinks something is important and in needs of his undivided attention’ if he wants. I can be just as stubborn.

  And where is he by the way?

  Wasn’t he the one in an all fired-up hurry to meet?

  Arrogant jerk!

  I bet he’s keeping me waiting on purpose, must be one of his techniques to make his opponents nervous or something, like this is a take-over or a merger, rather than a simple discussion over something as cute and innocuous as a firework display for a July 4th party.

  “Who are you? What are you doing here?” A deep, rough baritone asks from behind me and I jump a little as I turn toward the sound; my heart in my throat.

  By the time I’m facing the entrance, all I see his a titanic muscular back as the guy who spoke walks out again.

  “Laurel there’s a girl in my conference room that’s probably lost or something.”

  “Mr. Markos, she—”

  “Get her out, will you?” he interrupts roughly.

  Mr. Zander Markos, I presume. What a ray of sunshine!

  I immediately start to internally fume and walk out the double-doors myself just in time to catch his poor PA trying to tell him who I am.

  Again he doesn’t let her speak. “And where the hell is this damn pyro engineer anyway?”

  I huff out a breath and walk up to the giant wall of man, I tap on his lower back once —it’s more of a jab really, but I can’t help it if I’m getting pissed.

  He barely feels it while I actually freaking hurt my fingertip against his rock-solid body.

  “I’m the damn pyro engineer, so not-pleased to meet you in person, Mr. Bossy-Pants,” I tell him, the words rushing out before I can think better of it.

  Oh my God, I can’t believe I called him that aloud!

  Crap!

  I’ve been calling him ‘Mr. Bossy-Pants’ in my head since he started being an ass via email and I guess I’ve grown more used to it than I should have.

  He swivels on his heels to look my way, a flash of shock on his face, and for a moment he says nothing at all, simply staring at me like he’s looking through me and then his expression suddenly becomes even harder, like he’s really pissed off or something or like he really finds something objectionable in the way I look.

  I flush bright pink under his intense scrutiny and for once in my life I can’t muster a single word, let alone a ballsy comeback.

  My usual sassiness seems all gone, and my heart picks up his pace as he looks down at me and he really does —look down, I mean—, the guy is even bigger than Emerson, the tallest of my brothers who’s 6’-freaking-4’’ to my measly 5’2’’.

  Mr. Bossy-Pants here must be at least an inch taller and though he’s leaner in his built than any of my brothers, he has them beat in the menacing-looking department.

  His face is gorgeous, though. There’s no other word for it, but kind of scary too. He is scowling at me with a serious, unblinking stare on his face; his full lips reduced to a thin, harsh line.

  Boy, when they said he doesn’t smile, they weren’t kidding.

  Not even the added warmth of his golden-toned complexion can do anything to soften his hauteur.

  I have to crane my neck all the way up and take a step back to look him head-on and I immediately regret doing it: no one and I mean no-freaking-one should be allowed to have eyes like his and on such a handsome face to boot.

  I didn’t expect them to be so warm and, I don’t know, so… I don’t have a word: it’s like they are drawing me in.

  For one thing, I was a
ssuming they’d be cold and uninviting, and for another, I didn’t even think eyes could come in this shade.

  They are light grey and almost disconcerting in their studious brightness, they stand out against his dark skin and are framed by a pair of black, thick lashes any woman would kill for.

  I feel my hands start to shake as we stand stock-still in this weird staring match.

  If asked, I couldn’t be able to even approximate how long we have been here in the hall.

  It figures, the guy is a complete jerk and he had to go and make things worse by also being totally fucking hot.

  And he has a beard too.

  I’m such a sucker for beards!

  Dammit.

  I bite into my lower lip as my heart races again.

  It’s short and close-trimmed, but somewhat full-looking and rich in color like the short wavy raven hair on his head.

  Focus, Alexa, freaking focus.

  Don’t let his stupidly hot looks and and… bedroom eyes —yes, that’s the expression I was looking for!— turn you into a mushy idiot.

  Not right the hell now, Alexa: you’ve held on for freaking twenty-four years, you are not, I repeat, you’re not gonna damn fall on sight for this asshat.

  And why is he looking at me like this?

  I mean, I know he doesn’t like to have someone so young on the project —though why would that be when he doesn’t look a day older past thirty himself I can’t really say— and he probably doesn’t like that I’m a chick even though he hasn’t come out and said as much, but does he have to look at me like he wants to murder my lil’ ass?

  He flexes his hands and drops his arms at his sides like he has to physically restrain himself from doing something. I can’t imagine what would that be.

  Shit, look at those big hands.

  I never thought hands could be sexy before.

  Okay, what the hell is wrong with me?

  Normally, I would be biting his head off, okay: finding something to climb on, then reach his head and bite it off, but now if I think about ‘climbing’ and this hunk in the same sentence, the visions that pop in my mind are kind of different and belonging to a category I haven’t really dwelled on much in the past.

  His steely gaze narrows on me, his nostrils flaring slightly like he’s really in a bad mood or something, like he’s scanning me, and he is not even slightly happy with his findings.

  I gulp, my mouth going dry as the Nevada Desert.

  I feel a wave of disappointment hit me and I look away, breaking the strange connection that was holding our eyes on the same electric line through the buzzing air.

  Normally, I’m not self-conscious at all about my looks or about what people think of me.

  I know that curvy girls, especially those who come with a brain and a snarky mouth, aren’t to everybody’s taste and I couldn’t care less.

  I don’t like to flaunt my curves that much, growing up with four brothers and working with explosive can really do a number on a girl’s fashion sense, I guess, so I’d much rather being dressed comfortably, than being all dolled-up, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love my body.

  This guy, though…

  It feels like the mere notion of him not liking me could suddenly break my heart and it doesn’t make any sense since, hot or not, I can’t freaking stand him.

  “Let’s go back into the conference room, Alexa,” he says in a rude tone and starts to walk past me.

  I frown to myself, wanting to tell him no one gave him permission to call me by my first name, but then I think better of it: we’ve already started on the wrong foot, there’s no reason to make our work-relationship even more tense. Besides, I can’t really call him out on being informal after having used the appellation ‘Mr. Bossy-Pants’ to his face to refer to him.

  I flush in embarrassment at the thought.

  According to the tales on this guy, I’m lucky he didn’t fire me on the spot.

  Mr. Markos tilts his head to the side, his Adam's apple working in his muscular throat as he waits for me at the double-doors, one eyebrow raised, eyes hard. “You coming?” he asks, his voice low and sooty.

  I feel a shiver run through me. I just might. “Y-yes…”

  Great, now I’m stuttering like a schoolgirl. I try to locate my spunkiness in some area of my brain, and I come back with an error 404.

  This bastard’s messing with my wirings.

  My traitorous body is tingling all over and my mind is flooded with waiting-room music, ‘please stay put: broadcasting of reasonable thoughts will be back online in a minute.’

  I think about those people wanting for the floor to spring open and swallow them when in his presence and I realize with some irony that I’m pretty much on the same page, though for different reasons: I’m not scared. I’m practically eye-fucking him, while he looks like he wants to chuck me out the nearest window.

  So not good.

  I follow him back into the conference room, walking on Jell-O legs, a rave of butterflies jumping up and down from my belly to my heart and back.

  For a moment he just stands in the middle of the room, like he’s not exactly sure what he wants to do next, then he walks to the table.

  He pulls out a chair and then points at me and back at it, before taking a seat himself.

  “Shall we start?” he asks, his voice like warm chocolate rolled into gravel.

  And apparently, that’s hot for some reason or so say my ovaries. I feel the blush on my face hit my neck and start to move lower, my skin practically boiling under his unrelenting gaze, the metal in the frame of my glasses is gonna melt any minute now and give me a third-degree burn.

  And he wants me to work?

  Like this?

  Fuck me.

  Okay, okay. I can do this. I can. I’m a Tinley. I don’t let people walk all over me and be all imperious AF with me and live to tell the tale unscathed.

  For his arrogant stare alone, I should want to punch his lights out.

  He is an… ageist and a chauvinist.

  We’re like oil and water.

  So he’s hot. So what?

  He’s still a major jerk I need to put in his place.

  Pull your big-girl panties up, Alexa, and make him regret his stupid preconceived notions and please, by all that it’s holy, stop staring at him like you want to jump him.

  Just to spite him I walk past the chair he offered me and pull out one for myself.

  I see a muscle jump in his squared, bearded jaw and I smirk.

  So easily riled.

  I can win this.

  I just have to remember he’s an utter alpha-hole, a hunky, sexy one I wanna climb, yes, but still the enemy.

  He needs to go down.

  My helpful mind adds the little tag ‘on me’ to rectify my previous mental statement.

  I flush and shiver at my own thoughts.

  My mind is on a journey to the wild side it seems.

  This too is his fault: I was a perfectly rational creature up until we met in person.

  Damn his stupid smolder and that beard!

  I gather myself as best as I can and look him straight on.

  I nod once, taking a deep breath that ends up too shaky for my liking. “Sure, Mr. Markos, let’s get to work.”

  We spend the next twenty minutes going over every detail of my plan for the display, him asking me more questions than I thought could exist on this matter, until I want to walk up to him and either kiss him so he shuts up or slap him until my hand hurts, then we start go over our firm’s technology, our patents, our research and what not, until no stone is left unturned and I’m pretty sure he could walk out that door and do my own damn job in his sleep.

  This guy is scary.

  I mean, sheesh: you don’t get greener than us, we even have our own eco-foundation, CleanerWorld, and we use it to donate readymade kits to large organizations, schools, hospitals and other kind of venues that can�
�t afford to buy our stuff —our fireworks don’t come cheap— to help them lessen their carbon footprint.

  But is it enough for Mr. Bossy-Pants, here?

  Not by a long shot.

  He wants to know everything, and I mean e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g.

  I’m surprised.

  I figured his questions wouldn’t go further than the aesthetic aspect of the pyro display, but clearly I was wrong.

  Mr. Markos wants to know how exactly our smoke-free, eco-friendly products work, how they detonate, the freaking percentage of fallout particles they produce in the air when they explode, what are our exact plans for the sweep of the area of the lake after the display goes off, how we intend to clean up and reduce the effects of our impact on wildlife, soil and waterways.

  And on, and on, and on he goes.

  I swear, I didn’t have to talk this much when I discussed my thesis.

  Now he wants to know what kind of chemicals we use in our coloring agents and I don’t mean in general terms: I’m one step from freaking writing the formulas down for him.

  I shouldn’t even be sharing this type of details with him in the first place, but here I am, talking away.

  He’s not satisfied until he has made sure there are no metals, such pure copper and barium in our coloring agents and no titanium, nor antimony in our sparks and crackles.

  I explain we only have a tiny quantity of metal salts in our formulas and that ours are amongst the less polluting fireworks out there.

  For a moment I’m sure he’s done and then he starts again. “So what do you use instead of perchlorate?”

  Are you kidding me?

  I sigh. “Don’t you wanna save a question for later?” I ask, exasperated.

  I can’t believe this entitled jerk…

  He gives me one long hard look that makes my face go up in flames. “Not really, I have other plans for later.”