#Bossholes, page 2
I wave her off, taking another bite of cookie, this one smaller. It’s no big deal; I’m probably on the verge of a mental breakdown. “Just put my foot in my mouth a little bit. I’m sure it’s fine. Do you know him?”
“Put your foot in your mouth? What did you say?” Brianna’s clutching her chest as she shares a concerned look with Margo. These two are more dramatic than I thought.
“Really, it was no biggie. He asked if I ever made it to the upper floors, and I told him I liked my soul intact before I realized it sounded like all the upper floors and then I clarified the twenty-first floor. I told him your thing about the Dementors. He probably didn’t get the analogy. I doubt a guy like that has seen any of the Harry Potter movies.”
With every word that comes out of my mouth, their eyes widen and their mouths drop further.
“Do you not…?” Brianna trails off, taking a deep breath and releasing it slowly. “That was Maverick Wallace.”
I blink. And blink again. That means nothing to me.
Except—no. It can’t be the same Wallace because that would mean I pretty much told my boss’s boss how terrible he and his partners are.
Margo closes her eyes and tilts her head toward the ceiling, mumbling what I can only assume is a prayer. “He’s one of the senior partners.”
Fuck.
The blood whooshes in my ears, and my stomach twists. Shit. Shit. Fuck. I told him he was a Dementor. An emotional vampire. I said those words to his face. His stupidly handsome, I’m-the-boss-of-you face.
I’m hyperventilating.
I’m going to be fired, and I really need this job. The bills are piling up, waiting for my first paycheck. My brother is counting on me to keep a roof over our heads and groceries in the fridge.
There’s no way he’s not going to fire me. I’m fucked. I’m so fucked.
“How do you know when you’re having a stroke?” I manage to wheeze out, frantically looking around for Maverick fucking Wallace—our goddamn boss—but he’s nowhere to be found. Of course not. I just insulted the man and his partners to his motherfucking face.
“When you tell your boss he’s a Dementor,” Brianna says gravely, shaking her head. I can see it all over her face, Margo’s too. I’m done for. Finito. Fired.
I’m so fucked.
I’ve gone from dumped to fired.
There’s no way this day can get any worse.
THREE
Maverick
“Didn’t you tell Ember Lynn to keep a low profile during her very public and very messy divorce?”
I glance up from my computer as Brantley stomps into my office, closing the door behind him with a resounding thud. He slams his hands down on the other side of my desk, leaning toward me, his eyes narrowed, steam practically radiating from his body.
A normal person would be intimidated by his entire demeanor, but I’ve known Brantley and his brother Wyatt almost my whole life. He doesn’t scare me.
Not when he jumped out of his closet with a Jason mask when he was seven. Not when he challenged me to a game of chicken and plowed his bicycle straight into mine. Not when he tore his ACL playing high school football. The only time he came close was when he found Whitney, his college sweetheart and fiancée, in bed with his law school rival, but it was a different kind of scary.
The man went weeks without eating, without sleeping. He was lost. He buried himself under a mountain of work so great, we didn’t think he'd ever come out of it. It took me a good seven months to get him to crack a smile. Not even a full smile. A fucking lip twitch.
But this—this version of Brantley Ellis— doesn’t intimidate me in the slightest.
And to prove my point, I lean back in my chair, prop my feet on the edge of my desk, and wave a hand toward him. “Please, come in. Make yourself at home. Don’t worry at all about me or the work you interrupted.”
He grunts, giving me a droll look—his version of rolling his eyes—and runs his hands through his hair. Something he must’ve been doing repeatedly on his way to my office. To say his normally tame hair is wild is an understatement. “I’m not in the mood for your bullshit today, Maverick.”
Of course not.
“I’d have never guessed. You seem like your usual jovial self.” I tilt my head, a smile tugging on my lips as his frown deepens.
“Ember Lynn.” He finally lowers himself into the leather chair across from me with a heaving sigh that tells me exactly how annoyed he is. At Ember? Me? At the chair? I don’t know, but at this point, it’s probably everything. “Have you talked to her recently?”
“Nope.” And if I had my way, I’d never talk to her again. Nothing against her, but her entire personality sucks. She might be a world famous country music star, but deep down she’s nothing more than a spoiled little rich girl. And our new client. “What’s she done now?”
He gives me another look, this one expressing his sheer displeasure, and slides his phone across the desk.
Jesus fucking Christ.
She’s posted not one but two—oh, I’m sorry, four—videos of her absolutely slamming her soon-to-be ex-husband. I did, in fact, tell her to lay low and keep quiet about the divorce until it’s final, but I can clearly see my astute legal counsel has been ignored. These things can, and will, be used against her in court, of that I’m sure.
Especially, since she’s calling out his mistresses, and if the comments are anything to go by, people are bringing up her twenty-two-year-old boy toy. The one she had before the divorce was initiated. The one no one had known about until she was caught dry humping him outside her trailer on her last tour.
She’s not very good with discretion.
I slide his phone back across the desk and this time let out my own sigh. “We’re going to need Julie to set up a meeting with her ASAP.”
“She quit after lunch. Apparently, we’re too demanding or some horse shit. I don’t know. The temp agency keeps sending us duds. This one refused to look me in the eye when I talked to her. I hate that shit. And she picked her nails.”
I barely resist rolling my eyes. Barely. “How annoying.”
“I know.” He leans back with a groan. “So, not only do we need to find her replacement, but we need to figure out how to get our current biggest client to shut her fucking mouth.”
Now may not be the best time for the mouthy legal secretary with sinful curves and a healthy appetite for chocolate chunk cookies to pop into my head, but here we are. I could suggest anyone for the job. Literally anyone, including our downstairs neighbor, the one with the lazy eye and always smells like meatballs.
But nope.
I glance out of the glass wall and into the office across from mine, and her fiery red hair is the only thing I can picture.
She’d be better than no one…right?
Ember and her flair for the dramatics isn’t a problem that I can fix today, but I might be able to rectify the secretary situation. To be clear, I shouldn’t.
She called the three of us emotional vampires, soul-sucking Dementors, and thanks to my teenage niece introducing me to the wonderful world of Harry Potter, I know exactly what that means.
And then there’s her. She’s attractive, a walking temptation I don’t need to see every fucking day when I come to work, but damn if she doesn’t make me a little bit of a sadist.
Which is bad. For me.
I should forget about her and move on with my life, let her hang out with the paralegals and associate lawyers two floors down. I should avoid the lunchroom and my favorite cookies. I should definitely not suggest her for this job or any job that requires her to work with me in any capacity, but—
“There’s a new legal secretary downstairs I think would be a good fit. Miss Rhodes.”
Well, I can't take it back now. Especially not when Brantley’s eyes narrow again, and he assesses me for a good several seconds. “When were you downstairs?”
I straighten, clear my throat, and smooth a hand down my tie. “I went to the lunchroom today.”
“Ahhhh.” He nods, the corner of his lip twitching. “That explains it all. The cookies.”
“Fuck off. I don’t go down there for the cookies. I was meeting with Darren.” It’s not a total lie. Technically, he was in the lunchroom when I was down there.
“And this secretary? Was she at the meeting as well?”
“Of course not, but she comes highly recommended.”
Brantley scoffs, his brows raising as he assesses me. “Highly recommended from Darren Keller? The same Darren Keller who since the groping incident refuses to work with any female legal secretaries?”
Shit. I forgot about that. He was working late on a case, and there was coffee spilt and napkin dabbing. It was all fairly innocent. Well, except that the coffee spilt on his crotch, and Stacy tried to help before she realized what she was doing, and then Darren popped a boner.
“She didn’t work with him directly.” I try to stay casual, too casual maybe, so I quickly add, “What’s with the twenty questions? Do you want a legal secretary with experience, or would you rather I call up the temp agency and have them send over another nail picker?”
His mouth snaps shut, and he visibly shudders. “Have Mrs. Monroe prepare her paperwork and direct her to her new office first thing in the morning.”
“Consider it done. And I’ll reach out to Ember’s publicist and see if we can’t get something on the books.”
“Soon.”
“Soon.” I repeat with a nod. “You know, you’re not my boss, right? You, me, and your brother are all equal partners.”
“Oh, I’m well aware.” He quickly stands, tugging down the sleeves of his jacket, but before he can make it out the door, he glances back at me. “And if this secretary turns out to be a problem for you, you’re going to be the one who’ll have to fire her.”
I scoff again and run a hand down my face, then wrap it around the back of my neck. “There isn’t going to be a problem. She’s no different from any other employee.”
“Yeah. Keep telling yourself that.”
“Fuck off, Brantley.” But he quickly deflects my quick-witted response with a raised brow, and then he’s gone.
Fucker. It’s not like I said there was a beautiful legal secretary two floors down who would be perfect to work up here with us. Nope. I was as professional as possible. Unless this is a jab at my extracurricular activities. I may go on more dates than him and Wyatt combined, but I don’t mix business with pleasure. He knows that.
Good riddance.
I don’t need all that negativity in my life. Not when my mouth has gotten me in enough trouble. I just hope that Miss Rhodes is a top notch secretary, not some girl with an appetite for cookies.
FOUR
Kinsley
As soon as I walk into my apartment, I toss my purse on the kitchen table and help myself to a large spoonful of chocolate ice cream. Anything to help me forget the garbage that spewed out of my mouth during lunch today.
I can’t believe I said that to him.
Mr. Fucking Wallace.
Of course the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen had to be one of the three senior managing partners. And I called him an emotional vampire. Who does that?
These guys don’t fuck around. Some of the interns have a running joke about them crawling out of the pits of hell in three piece suits, ready to practice law. They’re ruthless, cutthroat, and according to Margo, there was an incident where they made an opposing counsel cry. Yep, you heard me. They made a grown man cry like a toddler in the middle of court.
There’s no way I’m not going to be fired tomorrow. In fact, I don’t know how I’m not fired already. I spent the entire afternoon mindlessly staring at my computer, ignoring the mountain of work piling up on my desk. I couldn’t concentrate; I could barely reply to an email without my attention shifting to the elevator. I knew someone was going to show up, and I didn’t want to be taken off guard.
But no one showed up. Not HR or security. And definitely not a single senior partner in sight. Not that I’d know what the other two looked like, and it wasn’t for lack of trying. Trust me, after the lunch incident, I googled the shit out of them this afternoon and nothing. I mean, there were articles about them and the practice they’ve built but not a single picture. Unless the other two look like the cryptkeeper, I’m not sure how three millionaires managed to stay off the internet.
At least all this made me forget about being dumped.
Screw the spoonful; I need the entire tub of frozen deliciousness. Then maybe I won’t care when human resources calls me into their office, tells me to pack up my desk—which really only consists of a few pens and my cactus llama—and hit the road.
Ugh.
There’s no way I’m not going to be up, thinking about this all night. I blame Brian. If he’d waited until tonight to break things off, I wouldn’t have needed to go for the cookies like they were my salvation. I wouldn’t have been caught double fisting the culinary confections, and I sure as heck wouldn’t be on Maverick Wallace’s radar.
But no, dickhead Brian couldn’t wait a measly twelve hours to get rid of me and now here I am, on the verge of losing everything.
I grab my phone, my fingers hovering over my Kindle app when a voicemail notification pops up. They wouldn’t call me to fire me, would they? Or maybe it’s Brian wanting to swing by and pick up the acoustic guitar he left here last week. My stomach sinks as I drop the spoon in the ice cream tub and play the message.
Good afternoon, Miss Rhodes. This is Cindy from Dr. Wagner’s office. It unfortunately looks like your insurance will not cover your brother’s surgery or his cochlear implants. There might be assistance programs you can look into to help with the overall cost, but our estimate to cover everything including his CT, MRI, and external speech processor will be around fifty-nine thousand dollars and then, of course, there’s his rehabilitation after the procedure. If he needs to go to the hospital, which I don’t see happening, the cost will increase significantly. I’m sending a breakdown of everything to your email for you to look over. If you decide to proceed, call me back and I will get him on the schedule, but we will require a fifty percent down payment before the day of surgery. Please let me know if you have any questions. Have a great day.
Fifty-nine thousand dollars? Are you fucking kidding me? I don’t have that kind of money sitting in my bank account or stuffed between the cushions of the lumpy couch I sleep on.
My parents certainly didn’t leave us a single goddamn cent. They spent it all on alcohol. No wonder Colin didn’t get his implants when he was a toddler. Mom told me he wasn’t a candidate, that there was nothing the doctors could do for him when he lost most of his hearing after a string of middle ear infections. It wasn’t true. The specialist I spoke to said he was a perfect candidate, that getting them early is preferred. They lied to me, to Colin, and then wrapped their car around a telephone pole, leaving me here to pick up the pieces.
How am I supposed to look at my brother and tell him that he may never be able to hear? That I might be losing my job, the apartment, all the stability I’ve worked so hard to give us.
A swell of emotion catches in my throat, making it hard to breathe, and I force it back down, blinking away the tears threatening to fall. First Brian, then my job, and now this. Panic claws at my chest, sinking its nails into me, threatening to drag me into a pit of despair, but I manage to hold on. I manage to stay in the present.
Bad news always comes in threes, and I can only hope it’ll stop here.
It’s going to be okay. I’ll figure it out. If I have to work two jobs or sell pictures of my feet, I will.
Bad day at work? Colin's hands move quickly as he signs to me, sitting down on the other side of the kitchen counter. His head tilts to the side, his brows draw together, and he studies me.
Just a long day. Nothing to worry about. I force a smile, licking the rest of the ice cream from the spoon and dropping it in the sink.
The kid has an uncanny ability to read me like a book, and I’d rather it remain closed until I figure out how I’m going to get through this. He’s only thirteen, but he worries about being a burden—another thing I blame my parents for. It’s been a constant battle between us in the four years since our parents died and I gained custody. He thinks he’s preventing me from living my life, from doing what I want. He also thinks that if he could hear like a normal kid, it would make things easier.
He couldn’t be more wrong.
A ghost of a smile spreads across his face. You’re going to ruin your dinner.
Are you momming me?
He simply shrugs and rolls his eyes. Just pointing out the obvious.
I resist the urge to roll my eyes right back, barely, but I do. How was school?
It was school. Another shrug. Homework is done. History sucks.
And that girl from class you like?
A third shrug, but this time the tips of his ears are pink, and he doesn’t quite meet my eyes. She gave me her number. It’s no big deal. Don’t make it a thing.
Oh, I’m totally going to make this a thing.
I bust out the jazz hands and dance my way around the kitchen. And by dance, I mean flap my arms around like a demented chicken while kicking my legs in the air like I’m a Rockette. The more I move my legs, the more my hands flap around, the redder Colin’s face gets. It’s the most fun I’ve had all day.
You’re ridiculous. There’s another eye roll, but this time he has a smile stretched across his face. He tosses me one last look, shaking his head, before jumping off the barstool and disappearing into his room.
As soon as he leaves, I lay across the island with a groan, fully intent on grabbing another spoon and devouring the rest of the ice cream before starting dinner when my phone chimes with another notification. I expect it to be the email from the doctor’s office, but no. The email is from the HR manager at the firm.
