by B. B. Hamel
Aaron just shrugs. “You heard her,” he says.
“I’m trying to figure out why you’re so fucking stupid,” I repeat. “Clearly you’re a moron, or else I wouldn’t have to explain all this stuff in simplistic terms for you.”
“You can’t talk to me that way in my own damn house,” the guy says, half standing.
“Maybe you’re just all looks and no brains,” I continue. “Just a pretty little doll, huh? Don’t worry, sweet cheeks. We’ll take care of this for you. Hon.”
He gets control of himself, standing up and glaring at me. “Don’t be such a fucking prissy bitch,” he says. “I was just being nice.”
“Being nice?” I ask him. “That wasn’t nice, not in the middle of a meeting, you dumb shit. That was just you proving how stupid you are.”
He growls and takes a step toward me, but before I can even react, Aaron’s up and out of his seat. He comes between the two of us, radiating anger, head tipped slightly forward to look down his nose at the owner as he stops about six inches away from the guy.
“Take another step,” Aaron growls. “I fucking dare you.”
The guy considers it, to his credit. Aaron’s bigger and definitely stronger, but the guy thinks about taking a swing. Instead, he shakes his head and throws open the conference room door. “Get the fuck out of my office.”
I grab the laptop and throw it into my bag. Aaron grabs his stuff in a hurry as the guy stands at the doorway, fuming the whole time, barely keeping himself in check. I follow Aaron out through the lobby, and the owner comes the whole way, escorting us to the door.
“Don’t come back,” he says.
“Gladly,” Aaron answers.
“We won’t waste our time in this little piss-hole town again, don’t worry,” I say, flipping him the bird in a really satisfactory way.
Aaron throws the door open and we stomp out. The guy yells something after us but I don’t hear him over the sound of my heart pounding in my chest. We walk fast over to the rental car when Aaron turns toward me, laughter splitting his face in two.
“Holy shit, Riley,” he says, “that was fucking awesome!”
I stop against the car, fingers curling against the warm, smooth metal. “That wasn’t awesome,” I say. “He was a sexist asshole.”
“Yeah, he really was, and you made him look like a moron.”
I shake my head, hair spilling all around me. “Fuck that guy. Fuck every guy like him.”
“Riley.” Aaron walks over, leaning up against the car beside me. “What you just did… that took balls.”
I look at him, pushing my hair back, running my fingers along my scalp. He’s grinning still, but the laughter’s gone, replaced by this serious expression I can’t quite place. It takes me a second to realize that he’s proud of me.
I don’t know how to feel about that. I like to think I’m not the kind of person that cares if others are proud of me, especially not some random guy that got me pregnant, but I get this warm sensation in my toes, spreading up through my core. I cock my head a little, biting my bottom lip too hard, and he reaches out to grab my wrist.
“Seriously, that was amazing,” he says, more softly this time. “You’re a badass, you know that?”
“I’m not a badass,” I say, but it feels good. I could be a badass. I would love to be a badass. I’d invest in leather pants and a motorcycle and start carrying around a pocket knife. Maybe I’ll even use it.
“We just lost a sale,” I point out.
“Fuck sales.” He squeezes my wrist, sliding his hand down to tangle his fingers in with mine. “Who cares about that now?”
“I’m not getting a ton of money,” I point out.
“You weren’t even if we didn’t make this sale.” He shrugs a little bit. “I’m sorry I let you down.”
“You didn’t let me down.” I squeeze his hand on impulse, not sure why we’re holding hands in this freaking parking lot. “Thanks for what you did back there.”
“I just made sure that creep didn’t try and touch you, is all. You did the heavy lifting.”
“What an ass,” I say, grinning at him.
“Yeah. Fuck that guy.”
I squeeze his hand and he pulls me against him. I look up as he kisses me, softly at first, but quickly turning into a deep, soul-searching kind of kiss, his tongue against mine, his lips warm and soft and perfect. I kiss him back and I know I should be disappointed, since it’s looking like I won’t be rich anytime soon, but I can’t seem to care.
He pulls away slowly, his surprisingly rough hand against my cheek. “Let’s get the fuck out of here,” he says softly.
“Yeah. Let’s go home.”
He nods and steps away. I linger there next to the car as he walks around to the driver’s side. I put my hand on the door and pull it open, but I don’t get in right away. I stare out at the field to my left, at the tilled earth and the barns in the distance, and I realize for the first time since this all started that I’m really, really not going to miss the road at all.
“So long, assholes,” I say, hop in the car, and Aaron peels out, heading back toward the highway and home.
18
Aaron
It’s almost weird to be back in the office.
We flew home on a Friday, took the weekend to decompress, and now we’re back to work on Monday. I haven’t seen or spoken to Riley since we landed except for one brief text, (“Thinking about me, hon?”) which she responded to only briefly (“Not at all, asshole”). I figure I should give her space, since she did lose out on a lot of money at the end of the day.
I hate that I couldn’t pull it off for her. I went into this so fucking confident with a bunch of solid leads thinking it would be a piece of cake, but at the end of the day, there were only maybe two sales that I felt might really happen, and we needed at least three. Most of those assholes didn’t give us a real shot, and a lot of them were downright fucking sexists.
I wish we had given more of them shit for being dick-less misogynists, but we wanted to try and make the sale. It felt good to watch Riley stand up for herself with that last guy, though. I don’t even know where it came from. She has a spark that mostly only shows up when she’s angry with me or when I’ve pushed her too far, but normally she keeps that under control. She’s kind to everyone, almost to the point of it going too far, even when she’s bored and would rather be somewhere else. But I know she has that fighter inside of her, itching to get out and unleash some hell, and I’m glad I got to see it. The look on that guy’s face was absolutely delicious, right up until I thought he was going to hurt her.
I’m not sure she noticed the change in him, but I saw it right away. He was loose and relaxed up until he stood and went closer to her, and that’s when his whole body tensed. I knew he was about to do something stupid, even if his face stayed the same. I’ve seen it before in other guys like him, bullies back at school that never bothered me because I was big and strong, but were always willing to knock around the smaller guys. I’ve seen that stupid smile turn into a punch to the nose lightning quick, and it always starts with the whole body going stiff. That guy looked like a bully about to strike, which is why I stepped in at all.
Petty little bastard. I’m glad Riley made him feel small. I bet he’s been making other people feel small his whole life, and now he knows it feels pretty fucking bad.
I lean back in my chair, savoring that moment again, when there’s a knock at my door. It cracks open and Mitch looks inside at me.
“Come on in,” I say to our CEO, standing as if he needs an invitation.
“Good to see you.” He comes in with a big smile on his face, but I can instantly sense something’s up. He looks tired, and his normally pristine suit is a little rumpled around the edges like he didn’t have time to get it dry-cleaned over the weekend. I come around my desk to shake his hand and he meets my gaze, still smiling, but there’s an edge to him now.
“Been a while,” I say, gesturing for him to
take a seat. I go back around my desk as he gets comfortable.
“I’m glad you’re back,” he says. “Office hasn’t been the same.”
I grin at him. “Oh, I’m sure. You’re just trying to butter me up.”
“You got me.” Even his smile looks tired. “How was the flight back?”
I relate the trip home to him, omitting what happened at that last dealer. He might get a call and he might not, though I suspect he won’t. Bullies usually avoid further conflict if they can, and plus, that guy knows he was being a dick. Nobody wants to admit that they were being a sexist cock and got called out for it.
“I’m glad it was uneventful,” Mitch says. “I have some good news for you, though.”
I raise an eyebrow. I wasn’t expecting good news. “What’s up?”
“We’ve been getting calls,” he says, and now his smile looks genuine.
“Calls?”
“Orders,” he clarifies. “Six so far.”
My eyes go fucking wide at that. “No shit,” I say, and he laughs.
“No shit,” he confirms. “Six real orders so far, with a few more nibbles. I don’t know what you guys were doing out there, but it seems to have worked.”
“Six,” I say softly. “Holy shit. I thought… I thought we got two. At best.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Really,” I say, laughing. I probably shouldn’t admit to this. “But this is amazing.”
“You can tell Riley that we’ll honor the deal,” he says, smiling with me. “I’m glad it worked out for you guys.”
“Yeah, me too.” I’m practically buzzing with excitement as he stands and we shake hands again. He hurries out of the office with a backwards wave, maybe getting out of there a little too fast, but I’m too excited to read into it.
We made the fucking sales. I thought we were way off and had absolutely no chance, but here we are. I sit back down in my chair, feet practically kicking like an excited toddler. I grab my phone and flip through the menus, texting Riley as fast as I can, telling her to get her pretty ass to my office immediately or else. I delete the pretty part and send it with a smirk.
I don’t have to wait any longer than thirty seconds before there’s another knock at my door, this time louder.
“Come in,” I call out, brimming with energy. I stand up, coming around the desk, as Riley bursts into the room.
“Did you hear?” she asks, and I laugh, nodding my head.
“I just heard,” I say. “It’s fucking amazing, right?”
“Amazing?” She stares at me and slams my office door. I realize that she’s not excited, not smiling, and not happy, not at all. Her hands are balled into little fists and she’s practically standing on her toes like she’s getting ready to start swinging any second.
“They changed them,” she says.
“What?”
“They changed them, Aaron.” She steps closer to me, and I’m pretty sure I’m about to get beaten up. “They changed my design.”
“Slow down,” I say. “Tell me what happened.”
“They took all my hard work, and they fucking changed it. All of it, all fucking gone.”
She slams her fist against my wall making the bland painting of a boat clatter against the sheetrock and I have no clue what to say to make this situation work.
19
Riley
“Did you know?”
I’m so angry I can barely think. Before this job, I always thought I was pretty mellow. I didn’t lose my temper often, if ever. I never yelled at people, I never cursed, I was always nice.
Now, though, I’m a raging ball of anger. That’s all I can feel anymore. I’m angry at Aaron for being such a narcissistic asshole, I’m angry at him for getting me pregnant, I’m angry at myself for believing his bullshit, and I’m totally livid with this company for taking my designs and fucking destroying them.
“What’s going on?” he says. “Honestly, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I storm over to the chairs in front of his desk and force myself to sit. I’m afraid that if I don’t, I’m going to start grabbing binders and papers and throwing it all around the room.
“I logged into the server this morning and went to check on the designs,” I say. “It’s a shared folder with all the production notes and blueprints. When we left for our trip, it was all based on my design or as close as possible. Now though, it’s all completely different. They didn’t keep anything. Not a single fucking innovation.”
He sits down behind his desk again and I watch his face closely. On my way over here, I was convinced that he knew about this. I was convinced that he orchestrated this whole trip just to get me out of the office so that they could make these changes behind my back. I was ready to yell and scream and rake my claws down his eyes, but watching his face fall and his eyes go hollow, I realize that I might have been wrong.
He didn’t know anything about this. He’s just as blindsided as I am.
“They used me,” he says softly. “That fucking cunt.”
“They went behind my back, Aaron,” I say to him, leaning over the desk, hands spread flat on the top. “They ruined all my work. Now they’re moving forward with these awful knockoffs that are nothing like what I created.”
“Mitchell knew,” he says immediately, horrified expression meeting mine. “That’s why he approved all of this. He knew they’d be changing your designs, so it didn’t matter if he gave you a percentage or not.”
I watch as his palms slide against the thighs of his pants absently, his eyes blinking rapidly. Slowly though, his abject horror slips away as he takes deep breaths and grips the edge of his deck. He pushes himself back and stands, turning to the window.
“Why were you excited when I came in?” I ask him softly.
“We made some sales,” he says, looking back over his shoulder. “Six and counting.”
I nod slowly. It’s hard to feel excited about that considering this news. “It won’t matter,” I say flatly.
“No, it won’t.” He turns back to me, crossing his arms and leaning up against the filing cabinet behind his desk. I can see the muscles bulging under his crisp dress shirt and the anger in the corners of his eyes. He’s a salesman, and his makes his living by being kind and convincing, but I’m starting to see something else in him too.
It’s a bull, itching be released.
“They used us,” he says softly.
I nod, meeting his gaze. I feel just as angry as he does, but I’m starting to see something important about myself, something that I’m not proud of. My first instincts lately have been to turn to anger, but that’s not helping me, not at all. My anger’s clouding my vision, making me say and do rash and stupid things. I’m like a Jedi and anger leads to the dark side. I have to let it go, calm myself, figure this situation out before I get myself buried even deeper.
“How much did they change?” he asks.
“Almost all of it. They kept some minor tweaks I made to the panel efficiency but they scrapped all the storage stuff. Basically, they stole some of my novel designs and chucked the rest.”
He grunts, looking away, face screwed up. He looks like a pilot calculating a difficult landing, and I’m the freaking plane he’s about to crash into the runway. My hand strays to my belly almost absently, and it startles me when I realize what I’m doing. I pull it away, but I know he noticed.
“We can’t let them fuck us,” he says softly.
“Us?” I echo. “You have nothing to do with it. It’s my design they’re ripping off and ruining.”
“They used me,” he says, nostrils flaring. “Nobody fucking uses me like that.”
I take a breath, surprised again at how strong he is. “I didn’t think you cared.”
“I care.” He sits back down again, slowly this time. “I care a lot.” He takes another breath, lets it out, like a yoga master. “I’ll talk to him.”
“What’ll that do?”
&
nbsp; “I’ll talk to him,” he repeats. “It’s what I do, okay? I talk to people.”
“Talk isn’t enough sometimes. Talk didn’t get us anywhere.”
“I’ll talk to him.” He crosses his arms, head cocked slightly. “Is there anything else, Miss Hollins?”
I snort at him. “Yeah, okay, cool.” I get up and turn to the door. “You go talk to Mitchell. Meanwhile, I’ll be burning this place to the ground.”
He winces. “Don’t do that. Just keep it under control for now, okay?”
“Why?” I ask him.
“Just trust me.”
I laugh a little bit, feeling the absurdity of this situation. “Trust you? Aaron, you got me pregnant, you took me on some wild business trip, and at the end of the day, this company’s fucking me. I’m supposed to trust you?”
“Yes,” he says softly. “I’m the only person here that gives a shit about what happens to you.”
I watch him for a second and I know it’s true. That kiss after the last meeting comes back to me, stupid and meaningless but good. I can still feel the wind along my skin and the heat of the smooth car under my fingertips.
“Fine,” I say, and I leave his office without another word, too afraid I’ll ruin it with anger or worse.
20
Aaron
She’s like a nuclear explosion, begging for more heat and fire, but that’s not going to get us anywhere right now. I know she wants to rip everyone here apart, and I can’t blame her. I want the same thing.
Except I’m going about it differently.
“When did you decide to change it?” I ask him, leaning back in my chair.
He shrugs a little. “Pretty soon after she was hired.”
“I guess you knew that when you promised her that percentage.”
“We knew.” He sighs. “I’m sorry, Aaron. I’m sorry you got dragged into this. I know you believed in her designs.”
“It’s business,” I say curtly. “I get why you did what you did. I only wish you had trusted me sooner.”