Man Flu

by Shari J. Ryan

  “Ladies, ladies, ladies,” Taylor says as he blocks the opening of Brielle’s cube, cornering us into six square feet of open space. “How is all the prep work going for the event?”

  “Great,” Brielle pipes up. “Everything is just about done. We might even be able to get out of here early today.” On the contrary, I haven’t gotten a thing done in preparation for this week. I don’t have any handouts or speaker notes prepared. I should have had this done last week, but everything has gone nuts, or nut. Nut. Why?

  “Perfect. I was meaning to tell you that there is an attending vendor for a breast pump company looking for potential ad space. His name is Keith Champ. Hannah, I’m going to need you to turn up the charm with this one. Take some time and buy him a drink or two. Maybe even share your experiences about breast-pumps.”

  I don’t know when I placed my hand on the side of my face or when I fell against the wall of the cube, but Taylor has managed to shock me yet again. He has no filter, and basically no brain. I’ve reported him to Human Resources so many times that I’m sure he has dirt on Human Resources since I’ve never seen him receive so much as a slap on the wrist for the crap he’s pulled. Brett has sent him home a few times for the things he’s said, yet here we are, talking breast pumps.

  “Taylor, despite knowing what my job is this week, telling me to charm a vendor and talk about my experiences with breast pumps is highly inappropriate. You do know this, right?”

  Taylor scratches the back of his head, then pushes his black-framed glasses up his nose. His glasses are prescription-free, their sole purpose to offer him an intelligent appearance. “Uh, Hannah, do I need to remind you that you spent an entire year in one of our offices pumping milk out of your breasts? Do you know how inappropriate it was to have to listen to that day after day? We didn’t even get to watch. We could only listen. Now that, that is inappropriate. So, since we’ve been through that annoyance, I think you can do the company a solid this week. Am I wrong?”

  “Yeah, man, you’re wrong.” Logan walks up from behind the cube wall I’m leaning on. “I just heard that whole thing.” Logan is visibly enraged. His face is a dark shade of red, and his top lip is slightly curled to one side. “Get the hell out of her cube before I do something far worse than what Human Resources would do.”

  I can’t lie and say I don’t love having someone stick up for me here. It’s been years of battling this crap on my own, and I’ve gotten nowhere. Last year at the expo, Taylor asked me to set up a kissing booth, along with assuring me that he and Nick would be the first in line. That same trip, I got calls at midnight with requests to visit their hotel rooms for a late-night rendezvous as if I were some paid prostitute. Each situation was reported. Each situation was ignored. No proof, no story. It’s nice.

  “Logan, don’t bother trying to explain anything to him,” I say. Can this situation get any more complicated right now? What I urgently need is to figure out how to re-split my ass cheeks apart from each other before I die of pain, but instead, I’m talking to the world’s biggest pig.

  “Aren’t you just a temp?” Taylor asks Logan. “I’m sure you have some papers to be collating somewhere else, don’t you?”

  Logan takes in a deep breath, and his chest puffs out in response. He places his hands on top of the cube walls, now locking Taylor into this tight space with Brielle and me. “I don’t think you should be talking to me that way.”

  “Temp, go away,” Taylor says through unnerving laughter.

  “His name is Logan Grier,” Brielle tells him. I know why she added the Grier in, and now I’m watching Taylor’s expression contort into utter humiliation. He had no idea.

  “Wait a minute. You’re Logan Grier, as in MVP of 2015, and the Logan Grier who was nearly castrated in front of over a million people?”

  He had to throw that in there? Obviously, Logan was more than talented and a top player, yet his final moment on the field is what he’s remembered for. How does he walk around with confidence like he does? No wonder he got gun shy with me the other day.

  “How many Logan Griers do you know?” Logan asks Taylor.

  “Just you,” Taylor says with amazement. “I can’t believe I’m standing in the presence of a baseball god.”

  “Taylor, I’m going to ask you to apologize to the ladies and move on with your day.”

  Taylor lifts his arm and squeezes his shoulder while stretching his neck in each direction. Then, he looks at me and babbles something before hightailing it out of the cube. “I think I’ve waited to see a look like that on his face since he started here five years ago. Thank you,” I tell him. Now if you only you knew of a way to separate my ass cheeks, I might fall in love with you right here and now.

  “You’re just all sorts of amazing, aren’t you Logan?” Brielle asks him with a wink. “Maybe you have more tricks up your sleeve to help our poor Hannah out today.” Brielle winks at me as if I didn’t ask her very nicely to keep her mouth shut about my situation.

  “How can I help you, Hannah? Is everything okay?” I specifically asked Brielle not to react to my situation so I could avoid it being announced, and instead, she hints about it to Logan. She couldn’t just wait two minutes for him to leave the cube. Unbelievable. Nope, it’s believable. This girl cannot control her mouth.

  “Ah, I think I’ll just go handle the problem myself,” I say, looking between the two of them.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing, it’s fine, really. It’s just girl stuff, no big deal.”

  “This isn’t girl stuff,” Brielle chirps. “This is a serious issue, Hannah. We may need to go back to see that woman. She can fix this.”

  I can either waddle out of here, or I can sink to the floor and scream out in pain—neither of which will make this any better.

  “Seriously, what’s going on?” Logan asks. There’s more force behind his voice this time, which I find to be a turn on, but also very upsetting because I’m aware he’s about to find out what I did this morning, for him, and what the outcome was, which will not benefit him in the least at the moment.

  I love how Brielle can bring it up so casually and then look at me like a deer in headlights afterward as if it were a total accident. It’s not that hard, is it? To think before you speak? I want to ask her.

  More sweat is percolating under my skin, and I’m burning up. Nothing has gone smoothly—ha ha—with Logan, and I was so hoping tonight would go well, but this all seems to be a bad joke that’s on repeat. First, I puke all over him, and now he’s about to find out that my ass cheeks are waxed together because I needed to do a serious weed hack before he came anywhere near me again.

  I think it’s been about two full minutes since anyone has said anything, and there is no way for me to slip out of this cube.

  “Logan, I can’t …”

  “You can’t what?”

  “Her butt is glued shut,” Brielle says as she slaps her hand over her mouth. Why do people do that, like it’s involuntary? The human mind can control what is being said.

  Logan laughs, and I know that is an involuntary reaction, but I think he’s only laughing because he thinks Brielle is joking.

  “It’s not a joke,” I tell him. My face probably matches my whole nether region right now.

  “How is that possible?” Logan’s disposition straightens out, accompanying a more serious tone.

  “Wax. Our poor girl is like a human candle right now, and we don’t know how to fix the problem.”

  Logan closes his eyes and presses his hand over his face. “Hold up, you had the inside of your ass waxed?”

  “Yeah, Logan, it’s called a Hollywood glow, so obviously, many people do it,” Brielle says in my defense.

  “Just because you hear Hollywood does something does not mean it’s common,” he corrects her. “And have you done this sort of thing before?”

  “No!” I’m quick to blurt out. “Never. It was her idea.” I’m pointing to Brielle like I’m in fifth grade becau
se it’s just the easiest way to handle the repercussions of my stupid decision, and she did insist on the Hollywood Glow.

  Logan looks to be chewing on the inside of his cheek as I’ve seen him do a few times now while thinking intently about something. “Wax melts, so we have to reheat it somehow.”

  “When did this become a ‘we’ thing?” I ask. No one is coming anywhere near my ass.

  “Can you heat up your ass alone? I mean, all the power to you if you can, but I’m not sure I’d have the capability of doing such a thing.”

  “Heat up my ass?”

  “How else are you going to melt the wax?”

  This is getting worse by the second. “I think I should just go back to the woman who did this.”

  “Here, I’ll take you,” Logan says.

  “I’m not prepared for the event tomorrow, not at all. I still have hours’ worth of work to do.”

  “I have it all under control,” he says.

  “How? I didn’t go over everything with you.”

  “What else was left?” he asks.

  “I don’t even know right now. I can’t even think straight with the pain I have down there. And I have to figure out how to get this fixed before Cora’s school calls with an early snow dismissal or something inside of me tears.”

  “Can you do whatever is left from home?” Logan asks. He’s beginning to look more concerned than I feel, which is making me a whole lot more nervous.

  “Yeah, I suppose I can.”

  “Give me two minutes,” Logan says.

  He walks off toward the offices, and he’s on a mission I’m not sure I want to know about. “What the hell, Bri?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It slipped. I didn’t mean to say it, but it just blah— It blurted out of me, and I couldn’t stop it.”

  “Thanks, Brielle. Let it be known, I have all intentions of storming out of your cube because I’m pissed, but I’m not sure I can move.”

  I reach into my back pocket for my phone and realize I don’t have it on me. I went to the bathroom in such a panic, I left it on my desk. I’ve been worried about school getting canceled, and I have no clue if they tried to call or email. Shit.

  “Help me up,” I tell Brielle, reaching my arm out to her. I’m in an odd squatting position against the wall, and the thought of moving seems like the worst idea ever. “Actually, don’t help me up. Could you go get my phone off my desk? I’m worried the school tried to call.”

  Brielle scurries off in her four-inch-heeled boots and slams her hand down on my desk while making contact with my phone. It’s never hard to figure out where that girl is with the amount of noise she makes. She has it back to me in a matter of seconds, and I’m relieved to see the school hasn’t tried to call. I should just check the damn forecast already.

  “Folks,” Alan says from outside his office. “Can I have your attention for a minute.” Everyone in their cubicles turns to face the corner office. “I know most of you are leaving in the morning for the expo, but the snow isn’t expected to stop until about midnight tonight. So, in hopes of everyone getting home safely and having everything in order for the morning, I’d like you all to go home now and finish up whatever remaining work you have remotely. I’ll be accessible all evening through email, so please take extra caution while driving home.” All I heard was, blah blah blah, I don’t want the company to be sued, and work all night so you can be exhausted in the morning when you’re digging out your driveway in preparation for an airport transfer.

  Logan returns to Brielle’s cube with my coat and a box of papers. “Let’s go.”

  “Did you just do that?”

  “Oh, you, and your cute little tight-end, I have a certain finesse with my words. Haven’t you learned that yet?”

  “Tight-end?” I repeat. “Really? Don’t you think it’s a little soon to be making jokes, considering I’m still suffering right now?”

  “Don’t yell, you might split the seam,” he chuckles, obviously having fun with this situation, at my expense.

  “While you’re making jokes, I need to figure out how to drive home, and I can’t sit, so please have some empathy.”

  “Empathy?” he laughs. “Should I remind you about my ‘flat tire’? Imagine sitting on that thing for the first two months.”

  Fair point. “Come on, I’m here to help you,” Logan continues. “We’ll get you fixed up. Think of it as a butt lift. It’s training your muscles to stick together and be perky.”

  “Are you saying I need a butt lift?” My butt isn’t flat, but it doesn’t stand up all perky and crap like Tiana’s does because it blew up like a freaking balloon when I was pregnant, then deflated.

  “That wasn’t what I was saying,” Logan corrects my thoughts and adds a smile for good measure. “Where is this wax place?”

  “Just down the street,” I tell him.

  “Hawaiian Breeze Spa?” he questions.

  How does he know … “Yes?”

  “Oh no, did you happen to get waxed by Mary?”

  “Logan, how do you know so much about Hawaiian Breeze Spa? And Mary, for that matter?”

  “Let’s just say … I know her.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  It’s still Monday, also known as the most mortifying day of my life. Take two

  “You know Mary?”

  “I know Mary,” he repeats.

  “How do you know her?”

  “Mary used to work for my team. She was fired and relocated to the suburbs. Then she opened up a shop.”

  “I’m sorry, what exactly did Mary do for a bunch of baseball players?” I’m holding myself up against the railing in the elevator, hoping the bouncing doesn’t do any further damage.

  “We waxed stuff. It’s really not important,” he says.

  “Yeah, it is kind of important. What did you wax? Now that you’ve brought it up, I need to know.”

  Logan glances over at me with a raised brow and a smirk. “How about you use your wildest imagination and go with that.” This man is turning me on with just a look and the words coming from his mouth.

  “So, you all just took turns getting waxed by Mary?” I know I’m pushing, but it’s distracting me from my situation. “Like, was she in the locker room and you all just stood in line waiting for your turn?”

  “Hannah,” he says sweetly. “I’m more than happy to help you today, and even happier to spend time with you tonight, but I’m a little less excited to talk about anything that has to do with baseball, or the life that accompanied it.” He had to throw in that card just to make me feel guilty enough to stop asking questions.

  “Fine. I’ll stop for now, but don’t think this is over yet.”

  “On a scale of one to ten, how much pain are you in right now?” he asks.

  “Are you a nurse or a doctor?”

  “No, but I spent enough time with them to know how they gauge pain. Considering you’ve been through childbirth, I have an idea what to base your pain level on and whether we should go directly to the hospital or back to the spa.”

  “I don’t want to go to the hospital, and I have to be free to get Cora off the bus. That’s if they don’t cancel school early. The ER will take hours since I won’t be on their top list of emergencies.”

  “This is kind of an emergency. What if you have to go to the bathroom or pass gas?” These thoughts hadn’t crossed my mind, nor did I want them to because now I’m sitting here wondering what’s going to happen if either of those two situations come up before I’m repaired. Will I just explode? This is serious.

  We walk—I hobble—outside into the snow that’s piling up to several inches at this point. I hear the plows, which is good since that means they’re planning to keep up with it. I also hope that means they aren’t planning to let school out early. “I really don’t know how I’m going to drive like this,” I tell Logan.

  “Well, let me drive you to Mary’s first, and then after that, we’ll come back for your car.” Minivan. You
can say it, it’s fine. I’m not embarrassed by it. I can make a minivan look hot, even with my candlestick ass.

  “Okay, so my next question is about how I’m going to get into your monstrously high truck?” We shuffle through the snow and up to the passenger side of the truck. He opens the door and scoops me up with what feels like little effort. “This really hurts.”

  “Did you do this for me?” he asks quietly.

  I close my eyes because he’s staring at me with the most adorable smile I’ve ever seen on a man, and I’m melting, which would be awesome if I meant that literally. “I did. I wanted to give you what you’re probably used to being with.”

  “That’s ridiculous because you have no idea what I like or what kind of women I’ve been with.”

  “Well, Brielle appointed herself as my waxing mentor, and I was also basing it on my own experience because I know for a fact that’s it’s horrible to get a pube stuck in your teeth.”

  Logan jerks his head back, and a small gust of snow blows off the top of his head. “How in the world did that happen?”

  “He was covered from base to … like, halfway up. I was trying to show off my skills, and all of the sudden I felt like there was floss in my teeth. I told him I didn’t feel well and made him go home. End of story.”

  “First, I don’t think that’s normal. I mean, I’ve unfortunately seen my fair share of dicks in the locker room, and I don’t believe I’ve ever seen someone with that much pubic hair. Second, I can see why you might be scarred.”

  Okayyy, enough about my history with bad dates. “Anyway, here I am, and I’m waxed shut.”

  “I have a feeling you’ll laugh about this someday,” he says with a soft smile.

  “I have a feeling I’ll still be crying about this someday, but I’d like to go with your theory for the time being.”

  “I think it’s adorable that you cared enough to do that during a snowstorm and when you have a lot of work to get done. You must really like me, huh?” he says lightheartedly, giving me a gentle squeeze.

  “We survived the man flu, and we’re still speaking to each other. I think that should answer your question on whether I like you.” I try to laugh, but it hurts.