Asking For A Friend

by Parker, Ali

  I nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you.”

  Still, she didn’t leave. “I’ll be here for the next few hours. I wasn’t planning on leaving too early, so just give me a call if you want to discuss it.”

  With that, she finally took her leave. Heaving out a sigh of relief, I spun my chair to my desk and straightened the file. I made sure the corners were lined up with those on my desk and that the papers inside were in a perfect pile.

  Only then could I fully relax. My fingers stopped tapping and I turned to the design. Having taken a couple of minutes away from it helped me gain perspective, and soon, I realized what was wrong with it.

  It was the roof. The edges of it were angled ever so slightly up. I would have to double check if it was what the client had requested or whether it had been a minute slip of the mouse when we were doing the three dimensional mock up.

  Adding a comment to the margin to check up on it, I sat back—finally satisfied with the design. First thing on Monday morning I could follow up and if the angle hadn’t been a specific request of the client, it was a quick fix before we sent it through for approval.

  Some people called me pedantic, but in my job, I had to be. Excessive concern for the minor details was what made my buildings perfect. A little thing like the angle of the roof didn’t seem like much on the screen, but once it was constructed incorrectly, it wouldn’t have been quick or cheap to fix.

  Even a minute detail out of place was a potential disaster once a building was constructed. Once I signed off on something, guys like Craig and his teams didn’t change or challenge it. Their jobs were to build exactly what was there.

  As if thinking about him had summoned his presence, I heard a sharp rap on the door and looked up to find Craig standing in my doorway. “Got a minute?”

  “Sure, come on in,” I said. It was a huge relief to be in the presence of someone who understood how I needed things to be done, even if I’d never flat out told him.

  “I came to check in on that project we’re starting next week. I want to start ordering materials first thing Monday morning with your guys, but I need to know what’s happening with the budget and all that. Overspending on the first day of a project is always a tough fix.”

  I nodded my agreement, glancing at the file on my desk. “Marissa just brought me the latest numbers she ran. I haven’t looked them over yet, but I’ll do it when you leave. You’ll have the final stuff before you start going to the suppliers on Monday.”

  “Good man,” Craig said, before frowning. “Who’s Marissa? Oh. The new girl. Your dad’s hire, right?

  “Yup,” I confirmed.

  “How’s that working out?” Leaning forward, he’d asked with genuine interest.

  As my closest friend, he was the only person I would talk to about this. Anyone else, I would’ve told them she was doing fine and left it at that. And she was doing fine so far.

  It wouldn’t have been a lie, not that I was above lying if circumstances warranted. It just wasn’t something I made a habit of. I honestly didn’t give enough of a shit about most things to put any effort into lying about it.

  “She’s not someone I would have hired ordinarily, I can tell you that much,” I said, thinking about the little things about her that bugged me. Everything about her was simply too different from the rest of us around here. “She’s too different. Not in a bad way, just different.”

  It wasn’t just the knocking or sitting down without being asked. The people on my staff were mostly quiet. Reserved. We said things when they needed to be said and left it at that. Compared to the rest, Marissa was downright exuberant.

  Bubbly, as I’d put it during her interview. She laughed loudly and often. It wasn’t an unpleasant sound at all, in fact it was kind of alluring. It made me want to get up and go find out what she was laughing about.

  And that was the problem. Our office was quiet with minimal interruptions. Laughter wasn’t something that fit in around here.

  We had some laughs, of course. We weren’t drips or anything. We just didn’t laugh quite so loudly or so often.

  Our offices were clean cut and didn’t have anything we didn’t need in them. I hadn’t been to her office yet, but I’d seen her carrying boxes past mine when she started. There were lots of really—bright things. Fluffy things, even.

  Even the way she dressed was different. There was no official dress code here, but everyone I’d hired tended to wear darker, more subdued colors. Gray, black, navy.

  But not Marissa. It wasn’t only the things in her office that were bright. She was bright too. With the exception of the black dress from her interview, I didn’t recall having seen her in anything black or even dark since that day.

  She wore pastels and loud, floral prints. On her first day, she arrived in a pink cardigan so bright I wondered if she were a salesperson selling roses or children’s stuffed animals before I recognized who she was.

  Though I hadn’t told Craig any of the ways in which she was different, he frowned at the statement. “If she’s that different, why not just tell her how things are done around here. I’m sure she’d shape up.”

  “Forcing her into a mold she wasn’t made for would only wind up driving her away. Besides, that’s not my style. You know that. It’s just why I wouldn’t necessarily have hired her.”

  He nodded somberly, jerking his head at the file on my desk. “You said she ran those numbers for the next project. Mind if I go ahead and look?”

  “Knock yourself out.” I told him. “To be honest, I wouldn’t have expected much but there has to be some reason Dad wanted me to hire her. I’ve decided it can’t be because she’s terrible and he was just trying to put me in a tough spot.”

  “I never spent much time with your dad,” Craig mused. “But you’re right, I doubt she’s terrible. He didn’t strike me as being that vengeful, or even spiteful for that matter.”

  Sliding the file across the desk, he opened it and spent some time reading through it. I used the opportunity to answer some emails that required my attention.

  When he was done, he lifted an eyebrow. “You said you hadn’t looked it over yet?”

  “She just brought it in a couple of minutes before you got here,” I admitted. “It’s next on my to-do list.”

  “She might be different buddy, but I hate to break it to you. If what she’s set out there is right, she’s fucking good at her job.”

  Approval and maybe even respect rang clear in his voice. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I’m not a math head, but it looks to me like she’s saved you a lot of money with those plans in there.” He said. “I know enough to know it all looks viable.”

  “It does?” I didn’t doubt Craig’s head for numbers. As he pointed out, he wasn’t a math head, which was his way of saying he wasn’t an accountant, but his own job required a solid grasp of calculations. “Pass it here.”

  He did as I asked, then waited while I poured over the file myself. When I was done, I had to admit that he was right. Albeit grudgingly, I respected what she’d pulled off. “We’ll get started on it next week.”

  “Aye-aye, Captain.” Craig left shortly after, leaving me to my thoughts about Marissa and the plans she’d drawn up for the next job. She had saved us a lot of money. She might not fit in, but at least she was smart.

  Chapter 8

  Marissa

  What I was expecting from Layton Bridges, I didn’t know. He seemed nice enough in the interview, but I was so focused on getting a new job and then relieved when he said I had it that I hadn’t given too much thought to the kind of person he was.

  When I started working there, I noticed that he seemed like the type who worked hard but was well-liked enough and respected by his staff. I hadn’t given it much more thought until earlier, when he so rudely dismissed me from his office.

  Boy, what a dick. Bosses didn’t have to be nice. I knew that and I was fine with it. But when his dickish behavior started having an e
ffect on my job though, I was not fine with it at all.

  As his accounting manager, I took my job seriously. I was new there and didn’t quite know the ropes yet, but I was damn proud of what I’d accomplished, despite my relative inexperience in his field.

  I hadn’t wanted to sit down with him to go over the numbers to get an acknowledgment or a pat on the head, I wanted to sit down with him to explain what I’d done in order to ascertain whether my gut instinct had been right.

  The project I tackled first was due to kick off next week. If I’d screwed it up somehow, I needed to know so I would have enough time to fix it.

  Layton, in all of his high and mighty dickishness, obviously hadn’t seen it that way. He couldn’t get me out of his office fast enough. I wasn’t even sure if he’d glanced at the file I had left, never mind if he bothered to go through the reports and plans I had painstakingly put together.

  What was the point of hiring me if he was going to ignore the work I did and all but chase me out of his office when I wanted to discuss it with him? It wasn’t like I went to his office for a chat about the damn weather.

  Driving home from work, I finished my mental rant just as my house came into view. I wouldn’t let that dick of a boss, no matter how hot he was, impact my state of mind when I stepped into the house for a weekend with my daughter.

  By the time I set foot in the front door, I needed to shake off all my anger and annoyance so I could focus solely on Annie. I wouldn’t ruin our weekend because of Layton B: Architect. No way.

  Later, while Annie was playing, I would probably end up venting to Denise. For now though, I had to get it together.

  Doing my utmost to forget the monumental disappointment after my first presentation to my boss, I parked, took in a few deep breaths, filling my lungs with fresh air and went inside. “Honeys! I’m home.”

  “We’re in here.” Denise called out from the living room. They were coloring on the floor, a jumbled mess of crayons, markers and pencils around them. I cleared a space for me to join them and grabbed my own coloring book from the pile lying on the pink plastic table beside us.

  Our house wasn’t big, but I liked to think it was homey. It was a two bedroom, one bath place with a tiny backyard in the safest neighborhood I could afford. The furniture was a mix of stuff we picked up on the cheap. Nothing matched, but I kind of liked it that way.

  We had one red couch and one gray one, with a battered oak coffee table I got from a yard sale. It was dinged up and scratched, but it had character. The walls were painted a sunshine yellow, which hadn’t been my doing.

  Denise and I brought it all together with yellow throws and cushions on the couches with sunflowers on them. Annie’s toys were scattered everywhere, along with paraphernalia like her table with four plastic chairs around it.

  Taking a breath, I let my home and my baby’s giggles while she and Denise argued over the true color of a unicorn soak into me. The stress of the day flowed from my veins, but apparently not before Denise had noticed it.

  “Annie, didn’t you say you wanted to have a tea party with Nikita and Rory?” Denise named Annie’s two favorite dolls. One was a gift I got her last Christmas, a blonde with blue eyes just like her. Rory, on the other hand, only had one eye and Annie had cut her hair when she was four, giving the poor doll a chunky bob, where her hair had once hung to her waist.

  They were both seated at the little table, but the tea set was in Annie’s room. Her eyes lit up at the reminder. “Oh, yeah. I forgot. Can we carry on coloring later?”

  “Sure, squirt.” I nodded.

  Annie jumped up from the floor and ran to her room, her energy levels still high despite the time of day. When she was out of the room, Denise set down the pencil she was holding, crossed her legs and her elbows on her knees, resting her chin on the bridge formed by her hands.

  “Spill, girlfriend. What happened?” I could never hide anything from her, not that I ever tried too hard. Her brow furrowed, concern in her eyes. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, nothing happened, really,” I told her. “My boss was just being a real dick today.”

  “Want to talk about it?” She asked, tilting her head.

  I didn’t want to burden Denise with my problems, but I did want to talk about it. I knew she wouldn’t mind. This was what we did. We shared every aspect of lives with each other and tried to help the other make sense of it. On the plus side, her advice was usually pretty good.

  Sighing, I nodded. “I just don’t know if I can keep this job. The people who work there, they’re not like us.”

  “Nobody’s like us,” Denise smirked. “We’re awesome.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t think they would agree.” Denise was a cup of kindness and two cups of support poured into the shape of a woman, but my reality was my reality and I was starting to wonder if I made a mistake. “I’m not sure I ever should have taken this job.”

  The remnants of her smirk dropped from her lips. “Why not?”

  “I’m just not sure if I can work for him.” The way he treated me earlier was rude and dismissive. I hadn’t taken offense to it, but if that was the kind of person he was, I didn’t know if I wanted to put up with it either. “He’s a dick, end of story.”

  “No one likes their boss, though. They’re not supposed to be your friend,” Denise said. “Maybe he is a dick, but so be it. Let it bounce off.”

  “I’m your boss and your friend,” I pointed out, smiling as I joked. My day needed a spot of humor in it. “Or are you saying I’m a dick, too?”

  She stuck her tongue out at me, giggling. “If you had one, maybe you would’ve been one. Who knows?”

  “I know,” I told her. “I would never have treated anyone that way, with or without a dick. There is no excuse.”

  “It’s not an excuse, but maybe you’re just the one exception in this world to bosses being dicks,” she said. “The woman I worked for before you, she was a massive dick. As it happened, she also had a massive dick in her bedroom. Her dildo was one of those two headed things.”

  I cracked up laughing while Denise demonstrated the size of the thing. “I swear, it was huge. I think she walked around with it up her ass most the time though, given how she treated people.”

  Both Denise and I kept checking to make sure Annie didn’t walk into the conversation, but my little girl must have gotten sidetracked in her room because I could hear her playing in there. I sighed, turning back to Denise. “Thanks for sharing, but I’m just not sure I was cut out to work for this Layton guy.”

  “Well, you mentioned he was hot,” she mused, drumming with her fingers on her cheek. “Can’t you just look past his personality and stare at his face when he’s being an ass, instead?”

  “Oh no, then I would miss it when he basically tells me to get out of his office,” I said dryly. “No, I couldn’t do that. I don’t know if I can get over how much of a dick he is, hot or not.”

  “How are your dresses doing?”

  This triggered another deep sigh. “Not well enough.”

  In my spare time, I designed and made dresses. It was a hobby and a creative outlet I used to make a little extra cash. “I still can’t afford to make more than one a month. There’s no way Annie and I would be able to live off that money.”

  “In that case, you need to keep your job.” Trust Denise to keep me pragmatic. “Your old boss got you this position. Maybe he didn’t know how bad his son was, or maybe he did. It doesn’t really matter. You needed to have job security and he made sure you had it.”

  “Yeah, I know.” As much as it absolutely, totally sucked. She was right. If I could give it all up and become a full time designer, I would have. Not because I didn’t love my job as an accounting manager, but because design was my passion. And I would be my own boss.

  Denise smiled gently. “You need to keep this job, Sissy. Annie needs you to keep this job. I know I don’t need to remind you of this, but you have to take care of her. Without this job,
you can’t do that.”

  “You’re right.” I sighed. “Taking care of her is and always has been my number one priority. I guess I’m just going to have to see this thing through.”

  “You can do it.” She insisted. “Just take it one day at a time.”

  “I’ll do that.” I told her, mentally squaring my shoulders and putting on my big girl panties. I would simply have to woman up and deal with Layton, that was all there was to it. No biggie.

  Later that night, I tucked Annie into bed. Her angelic, tired smile lit me up from the inside. “I love you, Mommy.”

  “I love you too, honey.” I brushed her blonde hair off her forehead, leaning over to press a soft kiss there. “Sleep tight. Sweet dreams.”

  “You too, Mommy,” she said sleepily, turning on her side and drifting off to sleep. I stayed with her until I knew she was well and truly asleep. Most nights, I sat with her until I knew she was properly in dreamland.

  It had started way back when and it was a routine I stuck to. A part of me wished I could still have her in her carry cot next to my bed. I was enjoying seeing the girl she was becoming, and getting to know the person she was. But she would always be my baby.

  As exhausting as it had been when she was little, since I raised her by myself from birth, I missed that tiny body. The way those big blue eyes would look up at me, and her small hand curled around my finger as she drifted off to sleep.

  Annie was my entire world, my absolute everything. For her, I would slay bulls and fight dragons with my bare hands. Putting up with Layton would be a breeze in comparison to that. Annie really was the love of my life, the only love I needed.

  Layton could be as rude and dismissive as he wanted to be. I wouldn’t let him get to me, there was nothing he could do to touch the love I carried in my heart. And that was all that mattered.

  Chapter 9

  Layton

  Craig’s breath created a mist in the cold air. He walked up to me on our new, bare job site, thrusting a cardboard cup of what was hopefully coffee at me with his gloved hand. “Here. Got you this. You’re going to need it today, what with it being cold as balls on this empty fucking site.”