The Boss(hole) by Penelope Bloom
Juliette
Ihad the good fortune of starting work for Coleton Publishing on a Friday. I woke up the following Saturday morning with the full intentions of recovering from the mental whiplash I’d just gone through.
When I checked my email, I had a barrage of forwarded emails from Maxi. She’d followed through and reached out to a shocking number of businesses in the city and written a scathing account of how horrible an employee I was. I blocked her email after reading a handful, then deleted all of her messages.
If I was a spiteful person, I would’ve emailed the Better Business Bureau and lodged a storm of complaints about the various things I’d seen at her company. Would it be petty? Yes. Was I still going to do it? Hell yes.
By the time I finished, it was past lunch, and I was starving. My first paycheck wasn’t due for two weeks from Coleton, but it felt different to know the money was coming. I didn’t need to wonder how I was going to stretch my meager savings for months or years. I only had to make it last two weeks.
To celebrate, I called the only real friend I’d made since running away from my family in New York. I was going to celebrate with a little lunch that didn’t come in a box, a can, or have microwave instructions.
Anastasia met me at a place near both our apartments that sold some of the most amazing soups. We took a booth in the corner and sat down with our soups. I’d gone with broccoli and cheddar, and she got the southwest. I had a terrible habit of always wishing I’d ordered what other people ordered, and I found myself watching her soup longingly as we both blew on ours and waited for them to cool off.
I’d only met Anastasia four months ago, but she already knew me well. She grinned, and reached to swap our soups, sliding her southwest in front of me. “I had a feeling you were going to want mine,” she said.
I laughed. “You’re sure?”
She took a bite of my soup and nodded. Anastasia was a former employee at Maxi Interior Designs. She kept her hair buzzed short and soft. She dyed it a new color every few weeks and she had a rotating assortment of piercings from the several she jammed into her ears to the ones on her nostrils and eyebrows. She’d been in human resources, and I’d met her during the hiring process. We both hit it off and stayed in touch, even after she quit two months ago.
Part of me wondered if I’d been drawn to her because she was the antithesis of everything Coleton. But I didn’t like thinking of it that way. She was fun to talk to, real, and she made me laugh. I didn’t want to think it had to be some sort of manipulation. I’d even gone as far as telling her the truth about who I was once she quit, which made her the only person who knew my secret.
Anastasia wanted every detail of how me quitting had gone. But she’d stopped me as soon as I mentioned Mr. White.
“This ‘Mr. White’ guy… Is he old and crusty?”
“No? Why?”
Anastasia took a bite of her soup, then folded her arms. “So how hot is he?”
“What kind of question is that? Who says he’s hot?”
“You aren’t calling him by his first name. Either he’s really old or you’ve got the hots for him.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I said. “There could be a million reasons. Like the fact that he prefers to be called Mr. White.”
Anastasia was seeing straight through me. I could read it all over her face. “And you’re so dick whipped by him that you’re obeying his rules even off the clock?”
I cleared my throat. “Adrian is fine,” I said. I’d meant it as a general neutral descriptor. Like it was ‘fine’ if a friend needed to cancel on their plans for the night.
Anastasia snorted.
“Okay,” I said. “He’s attractive. But he’s insufferable. So it’s a moot point. I didn’t want to say anything because I had a feeling you were going to start looking at me like that,” I said, jabbing my finger at her.
“I have no judgment. If you want to play snake charmer with Mr. White’s anaconda, I’ll cheer you on.”
I pressed my palm to my forehead, trying not to fight back a smile. “The truth is I need this job. Maxi made sure of that. Even if I was into assholes, it’s not like I can afford to play around here.”
“You shouldn’t knock playing around with assholes until you try it. Just make sure your partner knows how to properly clean themselves out first, of course.”
I glared, which drew a rare grin from Anastasia. She was the queen of deadpan, and I thought she took it as a personal challenge to smile as little as possible. “You know what I meant.”
“I’m just saying you shouldn’t ever rule out anal.”
I shook my head at her. “Thanks for meeting me, by the way,” I said. “I’m sorry I haven’t asked to hang out as much. I was embarrassed to admit it, but money was really tight. And I didn’t think you wanted to squeeze into my apartment to share ramen.”
“You know you’re my dude,” Anastasia said. She pulled off a chunk of her bread and chucked it at me. “Soup or ramen. Count me in.”
I reached over the table and gave her hand a squeeze. “You have no idea how nice it is to hear that. My friends before… I guess I’m realizing now they weren’t really friends.”
Anastasia winked at me. “I’ve told you I’m bi, right? Keep holding my hand like that and we’re going to graduate from friends to pillow fights, sleepovers, and innocent experimentation.”
I grinned. “Way to make it weird.”
She took her hand back with a shrug. “You started it.”
“So,” I said a little while later once we’d finished our soups. “I kind of went behind his back and sent this email yesterday.” I explained how he’d been hoping to catch his employees with their pants down and I’d warned them.
Anastasia whistled. “Good for you.”
“Yeah. I’m just hoping I don’t regret it on Monday. What if he finds out?”
“Then you look him in the eye and tell him to deal with it. I don’t know if you realize, but this guy clearly wants a piece of your biscuit. Offering you a job on the spot like that? Especially when you were sassing him? He likes you being bad, Jules. I say keep it up.”
I laughed, but a warmth started to spread through me. Why the hell was that idea turning me on? Whatever bad ideas my body may have been cooking, I had to remind myself I needed to keep this job. If I lost it, I’d be out of money in a matter of weeks and looking at the choice between homelessness or running back to New York with my tail between my legs.
I just hoped I wasn’t going to be greeted by a pissed off Mr. White on Monday who wanted to know why I’d sent that email.