Swallow Your Pride by Sarah Blue
BASEBALL BAT DICKS
I hadto pay forty dollars to get a ride back to the office on Saturday, but there was no way in hell I was going to ask Aiden or Penny for help—I’m already embarrassed as is. I have a feeling that I said something horrific in my intoxicated state, and I’m dreading going to work today. How did I manage to make everything even more uncomfortable than it already is?
When I open the glass door to Kemper’s, I’m greeted by Penny who waves and smiles. “Hey, Jessa. Good weekend?”
“Yeah, you?”
“Spent most of Saturday sleeping, but other than that it was great.”
Sharon walks by with a cup of coffee in her hands. “Morning,” she says with a smile. Even if I made an ass out of myself, at least I made one new friend in this office.
Tabitha drops off a stack of papers to Penny’s desk. “Put in this purchase order as soon as possible,” she says before spinning around. Penny rolls her eyes but takes the stack and smiles back at me.
“Is she always so rude to you?” I ask Penny. Sharon scoffs and glares at Tabitha’s retreating back. Her hips swishing in her tight pencil skirt and her blonde ponytail bouncing with each step.
“She thinks sucking Zach’s dick gets her special treatment,” Sharon says, and Penny snickers.
“Oh, I didn’t realize.”
“Yeah, so definitely don’t expect her to invite you to any sleep overs any time soon,” Penny says, and I nod. Tabitha doesn’t seem like the kind of friend I would want anyway. I really like Penny, and Sharon is funny in her own way. It’s better than having no one in this office, or everyone treating me like I have a disease.
Huck and Ed both give me friendly head nods as I walk to my doom—my cubicle. I sit down, turn on my monitors, and do my very best to not look into Aiden’s office. Just the idea of him talking about Friday night makes my stomach hurt. He took a risk hiring me. I mean, sure I have a stake in the company, but that doesn’t mean anything other than that. I need this job and I’ve made a complete ass out of myself the first week.
After staring at my screen, working through all the lacrosse marketing, I finally glance up to look at Aiden. He looks calm as he speaks on the phone. More than calm, he looks in control, and it’s desperate and pathetic how much I’m into it. Maybe it goes beyond him being my boss that’s triggering this gut-wrenching anxiety over what I might have said on the car ride home. He looks up at me while he speaks and he holds my gaze for a moment. God, the man has the most beautiful green eyes. He rubs his chin while he looks at me before retreating his gaze. I just stared at him like a freak.
Fucking awesome.
I’m creating a branding kit for the lacrosse line when Penny comes up. “Lunch?” she asks, and I shake my head. My stomach hurts too bad to eat right now, not to mention my depleting bank account. I need to start packing lunch, at least for the next couple of weeks. I have about four hundred dollars left in my account; it should be enough to pay for my phone, food, and gas until I get paid, or at least I hope. I do have my credit card, and I’ll charge any excess to that, but I hate using it unless I absolutely need to.
“Not hungry today, maybe tomorrow?”
“Sure. Jessa, are you okay?” Penny asks, and she glances over at Aiden’s door. “Did something happen when Aiden dropped you off?”
“You could have told me he was your cousin,” I say calmly. I’m not trying to make her feel bad, but if I would have known, I would have absolutely slept in my fucking car even if I did roast alive. I can see the headline now, ‘An adult woman cooks herself inside of her car instead of facing absolute embarrassment from her boss seeing her drunk.’ Better yet, they could title it Florida Woman Dies of Stupidity.
She shrugs her shoulders. “Sorry, I forgot that you were new and didn’t know.”
“Everyone else in the office knows?”
“Oh yeah, I had a similar unfriendly welcome to the company,” Penny says. It makes me feel a little better, that the cold shoulder isn’t specifically me, this office is just a tough crowd. “But seriously, was he a dick or something?”
“No, he was kind. I’m just feeling embarrassed.”
“Don’t, seriously. Are you sure about lunch?” she asks, her bright blue eyes searching mine. She gives me a small assuring smile as she waits for my answer.
“I’m sure, thanks Penny.” She nods and walks off.
The day is completely dragging, it’s one of those days where you think an hour has passed, but when you look at the time it’s only been about twenty minutes. I would rather do just about anything than feel the tension I do today. Aiden hasn’t come out of his office once, not to ask me or anyone else for anything. Maybe it’s narcissistic to believe it has something to do with me, but I can’t squash the feeling.
I finished the lacrosse branding kit and decide to start working on baseball so I can show him both at once. I open the pdfs with the sticker files and my mouth drops when I see the first image. It’s so extremely phallic looking that I don’t even know how this image was created. What’s worse is when I look at the words in a circular font around the baseball dick. ‘Rays’ Kids’ day - sponsored by Kemper’s.’
I swallow and look at the clock, it’s nearing the end of the day. I’ve got to bring it up, right? Surely this is a mistake?
The chime of the front door alerts me to employees leaving for the day, and I know if I don’t bring it up with Aiden, I won’t be able to sleep tonight. I’ll just fixate about it all night and worry about how it will be received. I print the document out and it looks like it’s just Aiden and me left at the office—fantastic.
I swallow and try to stop the trembling of my hands when I lightly tap on the door frame of his office. “Aiden?”
He looks up and blinks twice. “What can I help you with?”
I take a deep breath and sit at the chair in front of his desk. “Did you approve all the marketing for our baseball materials?”
“Usually, why?” I slide the paper over to him. “What’s wrong with it?” I point to the cock looking sticker, and his eyes widen.
“It looks like a dick. Has this already been printed? I can make a design really quickly.”
“Kids’ day at Tropicana Field is tomorrow. I’m supposed to drop them off and go to the game.” He swallows.
“Okay, and these stickers are on what?”
“The wooden baseball bats they’re giving to the kids.”
“How many are there?”
“Five-thousand,” he says softly.
“Fuck,” I whisper.
“Fuck is right,” he says, staring at the cock baseball bat and balls.
“Where are they?” I ask.
“The warehouse.”
“Can the stickers easily be removed?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, then we can fix this.”
“What?” he asks, looking back down at the horribly designed stickers.
“Do we have a laser printer?” He nods, and I smile. “Great, okay. We need to go to Staples and get, well, a ton of labels, print them off at the office and go to the warehouse and replace them.”
“Jessa, it’s nearly five.”
“We can’t give kids a baseball bat with a dick sticker with our name on it.” He groans and scrubs his face.
“This is going to take all night.”
“I’m ready to prove you made the right decision hiring me. Can you run to staples? I’ll design something right now.”
“I’ll call the warehouse and let them know we’re coming. Are you sure?”
“I’m positive,” I say, smiling at him. I pull up Staples’ website and find the product we need, I screenshot it and send him a text. “Tell the employee this is what we need, and we need enough to do 5,000 labels.
“We could just take the labels off. It’s a loss in marketing, but we can just take them off,” he says pragmatically.
“I’m happy to do that with you too. But I think we can fix this. We can try. And we have part of the day tomorrow before you need to drop off, right? We can see how many we can fix tonight and then it can be all hands on deck at Kemper’s tomorrow.”
Aiden looks at me like I’m the smartest person he’s ever met, and he nods his head. “I’ll be right back. I’ll pick up food on the way. Any requests?” My stomach grumbles then from skipping lunch, and I shrug.
“I like just about anything.”
“I’m so happy you caught this. Seriously, amazing job.” My cheeks heat, and I give him a small smile that he returns. Aiden grabs his keys, and I head back to my desk. He makes sure to lock the door behind him, which I appreciate since I’ll be alone in the office as he heads to the supply store and I work on a new design.
It’s probably stupid, but I feel proud of myself too. I feel valuable in a way I haven’t felt in so long. I match the specs from the sheet I found online, and I’m finished when Aiden comes back to the office. He fills the printer with the labels and I set off printing the exceedingly large number of stickers. The machine whirls and prints them out.
“Everyone left from the warehouse, but Kenny told me where everything is.” I nod as I watch the labels print one by one. “I can’t believe I approved that sticker. It’s when Collin was fading out and I was on auto-pilot. What a stupid fucking mistake.”
I can’t help it as I touch his forearm. For a man so confident, he seems really hard on himself. “It’s okay. We caught it in time. Shit happens.” He smiles and doesn’t shrink away from my touch, but picks up a sheet of my labels.
“Your design is a million times better.”
I shrug my shoulders but can’t help but smile. “Maybe once this crisis is averted I can show you all my ideas. Right now Kemper’s branding is all over the place. I’ve broken it down by company branding and each sport. It’s still a huge work in progress, but it’s just an idea.”
“Yeah, I’m excited to see what else you’ve come up with.”
He fills the machine with more labels. Once they’re finished, I grab my purse and Aiden grabs the labels and our food as we get into his car and head to the warehouse.
Aiden insists we eat before we get started, and I’m thankful as I devour the chicken over rice he got me from the Halal truck. I open the peach Snapple and nearly down it in a few goes. The warehouse is pretty fucking hot, and I take off my cardigan, my arms on full display. Aiden briefly looks up at me before shaking his head and then glares at the mass of boxes we have to work on.
“How should we do this?” he says.
“Maybe we can work on taking stickers off first?” He puts an empty box between our chairs and opening a box on the table. He grabs his phone and puts on some music, which makes me smile. We work in silence for a good twenty minutes, just the sound of the music on his phone and the clanking of small bats hitting the box every few seconds.
“So,” he breaks the silence.
“So.”
He laughs and just grabs another bat, taking the sticker off and sticking it on the table. “Are you liking Florida?”
“Besides the humidity, yeah. People are definitely a little different here, but I think I like it.”
He laughs and shakes his head. “I’ve always lived here, so I don’t really know any different. Where were you living before?”
“Virginia. Seems traffic is just as bad anywhere you go.” He makes a noise in the back of his throat.
“Do you miss it?” he asks.
“No, it was just a place for me. I think I’m still trying to find somewhere to call home.” We keep de-stickering bats quietly for a few moments. “Can I ask you about Collin?” He nods and I take a deep breath. “What was he like? I mean, I met him twice, but I didn’t know him.”
Aiden clears his throat before he speaks. “He was the life of the party, he loved entertaining people, telling jokes, and being the center of attention. He had the loudest and most identifiable laugh I’d ever heard; it made you want to laugh along with it. I’m sure you already know how big of a sports fanatic he was, we have that in common, and it was the majority of what we spoke about. But there were a few times Collin confided in me, but even I didn’t know about you till the end. I think that a lot of people have a hard time remembering Collin as this larger than life loving person and also having a secret daughter.”
“What was he like with Zach?” I ask and wonder if I’m crossing a line.
“Are you sure you want to know?” Aiden asks, looking at me. His face is soft, like he knows telling me is going to hurt me, but I’m a bit of a masochist as I nod my head yes. “He was the best dad you could ask for. Gave Zach the world, went to all his sporting events, took him on vacation, told him to follow his dreams. If anything, he probably spoiled Zach too much, that’s why he’s such a prick now.”
I can’t help the laugh that escapes out of me and Aiden just smiles and shakes his head. I pick up the next bat and when I take the sticker off I wince and gasp.
“You all right?” he asks and I look down at the drop of blood.
“Splinter,” I wince and put my finger in my mouth. He stands up and taps the table for me to sit on it. I oblige almost immediately and he seems surprised but pleased. Since I’m wearing a dress, he stands to the side of my thighs, his muscular leg touching mine, and I do my best to ignore it. Which is impossible because it’s a very nice thigh. I watch his face as he takes my hand in his callused fingers. I wonder how his fingers are that rough when he works at an office. I can’t help but look at his large hands encompassing mine as he squeezes my finger, and I wince.
“Sorry,” he mumbles. “It’s in there deep. Let me get the first aid kit.”
“It’s fine,” I say, even though it does hurt.
“It’s not. Let me go get the kit.” Aiden walks off, and I try to get the little bitch out of my finger while he’s gone with no luck. He returns with the kit and digs out a pair of tweezers, disinfectant and a Band-Aid.
It takes him a good three minutes until he gets the offensive piece of wood out. “Little fucker,” he mumbles as he puts the splinter down and unconsciously brings my finger tip to his lips. “All better.” He must not even realize he does it, as he puts the disinfectant on and a plain skin-tone Band-Aid. “You’re on sticker duty. I’ll take them off, you put them on.”
“I can keep taking them off.” He gives me a stern look as I raise my hands in mock surrender. “All right, I’ll put labels on.”
“Good—” He stops himself mid-sentence and sits back down, continuing to take off labels.
I cannot start to have a crush on my boss. I look down at my bandage-covered finger and realize it’s too late. A simple kiss on my finger, and a tiny bit of praise has me done for—it makes me feel pathetic—but I can’t stop the lingering feeling growing in my chest if I tried.