by Mima
“I trust that we can start a new page, no?” She spoke quietly, as she pushed her laptop aside. “I think we are ready for a new beginning. I think we all deserve it, especially you.”
Chase nodded and felt overwhelmed with emotion and didn’t dare speak, fearing that it would open a can of worms. Staring into her eyes, he sensed she was fighting the same battle on the other side of the desk. She took a breath, blinking rapidly, Jolene cleared her throat.
“This year, it will be different,” Her smile appeared forced as she nodded, glancing out the window before turning back to Chase. “You will see, it will be different for you. You are part of the family and with family, there’s a loyalty and love, but there is also working together for what we all want. This year, we expand, grow, you will see. We will make more money, be very successful. Everything will be perfect.”
Chase nodded and felt she was waiting for a reply. “I agree.”
Grabbing her phone, she began to text rapidly and then sat it down again.
“Diego, he will meet us now and with the rest of the staff a little later,” Jolene took a deep breath, pushing her breasts up and Chase quickly looked away, just as Diego walked in the door, closing it behind him.
“Did you two play catch up?” Diego bellowed out as he walked toward them, coffee in hand, appearing reluctant to sit down. He seemed joyful unlike their drive into work earlier but Chase noted that he glanced in his direction with some curiosity.
“We did,” Jolene replied and gestured for Diego to sit down while she grabbed a nearby newspaper and pointed toward an article. “Did you see this?”
Moving his chair forward, Diego squinted his eyes and read out loud, “Greek men that are flavorful and hearty”.
“No! No! No!” Jolene shot back, pulling the paper back a bit. “It say, ‘A Greek menu that is flavorful and hearty. You see with your pervert, sex eyes again! Ah! Ah! Ah!”
Diego grinned and shot Chase a mischievous look. “I like what I said better.”
“No! No! We are not going to this topic, Diego,” Jolene retorted. “That was not what I was pointing at in first place but also, this year, you need glasses.”
“I don’t need glasses, Jolene,” Diego insisted. “I was just having some fun with you.”
“You need glasses,” She insisted again and pointed at another article. “This is the article I am speaking of, here!”
“Sex club supports immoral behavior in Toronto,” Diego read out loud and shrug. “Oh, like Toronto had morals, to begin with! So, who cares, Jolene. This is just in the opinion section anyway, no one gives a shit about anyone’s opinion.”
“They might, it shows that these religious people, they aren’t going to go away,” Jolene complained. “This, it could be a problem.”
“Whatever, I’m not worried,” Diego shrugged and sat back in his chair. “A new abortion clinic will pop up and they’ll be too busy protesting that and forget about us in no time. You’ll see. Plus, no one cares. It’s not like we have them in school gymnasiums for fuck sakes. People are allowed to express their sexuality in a party. They have to agree to the contract before they pay for the party and so, legally, we are covered.”
“And morally,” Diego continued as an impish grin lit up his face. “Let’s face it, none of us have morals here.”
Chase couldn’t help but laugh and Jolene reluctantly followed suit.
“I just, you know, don’t enjoy this attention on us,” Jolene pointed out.
“I know, keep under the radar,” Diego agreed. “We had this exact conversation on the way to work this morning. Some lady reporter was calling Chase for comments on what happened back home.”
“Oh,” Jolene quietly replied. “What do you say to them, Chase?”
“Nothing really,” He shrugged. “That it was a sad year for everyone involved and that was basically it.”
She appeared satisfied with his reply and nodded.
“This reporter, total bitch, was mad he wasn’t ranting and raving like a lunatic so she could get some radical comment and hung up on him,” Diego complained, his face scrunched up in frustration.
“No!” Jolene appeared shocked. “So rude!”
“Media,” Diego shrugged and sniffed. “Psychopaths out for blood.”
“Yes, speaking of that, Chase, is there any lead or any news from where you are from?” She asked in a quiet voice, her composure stern as she wove her fingers together and sat them on the desk. “About this….person who shot your baby?”
Chase shook his head. “Other than the bullet and even that, they can’t seem to find anything.”
“No suspect?”
“No, nothing,” Chase replied and the two continued eye contact. “They don’t have the area closed off anymore and when I spoke to Audrey last, it didn’t seem like they had any leads.”
She nodded and looked toward Diego, who merely raised an eyebrow.
“I say, what’s done is done,” He cleared his throat, continuing to stare at his sister. “We move on. Am I right, Chase?”
Both sets of eyes were on him and he nodded. “Yes, I agree.”
“Then let’s not speak of this no more,” Jolene replied in a gentle voice. “It is a sad topic and we are about happy times. We don’t talk sad. That is last year and now, we are here.”
“And now, we are here,” Diego repeated and gave Chase a quick smile. “We must call a meeting to discuss our lucrative holiday parties. We made a killing.”
It was as if the entire room fell silent. Chase felt his throat tighten while Jolene had a perturbed expression on her face.
“I…ah, poor choice of words,” Diego stuttered for a moment but seemed to grin in spite of himself and carried on as if he had said nothing out of sorts. “At any rate, we were successful on this weekend. While you were off canoodling with Jorge Hernandez, Jolene, we were here overseeing the parties and all went exceptionally well. Even the venue owners are begging to have us back.”
“What is a canoodle? I do not understand?” Jolene looked confused. “Is that a perverted sex thing?”
“Sorry,” Diego replied. “Off falling in love.”
“I do not fall in love this weekend and furthermore, what if I did?” Jolene snapped back. “You, you like meaningless affairs and I say nothing. You do not tell me what, who or if I can love. As someone once said to me, ‘I will be happy in love or I will be happy to die’.”
Diego made a face and didn’t respond.
“Do you remember saying that? Diego?” Jolene pushed a little farther. “Do you remember?”
He didn’t respond for a moment, merely rubbing his face with one hand while closing his eyes. “Things, they change sometimes, Jolene. And you know I don’t like you saying that especially considering the company you’re keeping now.”
Chase bit his lip and attempted to ignore the tension in the room. There was apparently so much more that he didn’t know about Hernandez and he had a bad feeling that he was about to find out.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
January was a temperamental month that consisted of impromptu and erratic storms that seemed to put the city at a standstill. Diego constantly complained about the ‘unliveable’ temperatures and even spent half of one morning wearing leather gloves in the office, repeatedly asking Chase why Canadians ‘put up with this weather’ as if anyone had a choice, whereas Jolene merely draped her Christmas green winter coat over her shoulders and cranked up the heat.
“What are you hot-blooded?” Diego commented on one of those days, nearing the end of January. Rubbing his gloved hands together as if they were both sitting in the middle of a snow bank and not his office. “It’s freezing cold in this office. How are we expected to work?” Chase shook his head and with a humored grin, crossed the room, turned up the thermostat and returned to his desk. “It’s not cold in here, Diego. Haven’t yo
u ever experienced a real winter before?”
“Sometimes, when I was in California.”
“No, a real winter, come on, Diego,” Chase sat back down on his chair and attempted to return his attention to work. They were coming up on their busiest season since starting the business; Valentine’s Day. Although it was a holiday that never had any meaning to him, he could see how it would bring out the right mood for their parties, requiring them to hire two more party planners. Chase was in the process of going through resumes with what he called his ‘Diego eyes’ in attempts to figure out who he would like.
“It was a real winter there too, amigo, sometimes I had to wear a sweater,” Diego’s dark eyes stared in his direction. “And you know me, I don’t like sweaters. I find them bulky and uncomfortable and they, you know, they’re not a good look for me.”
Chase looked up from his work to catch Diego with his lips twisted as he stared at the thermostat.
“I think I will get another coffee,” He said and jumped up from his chair, grabbing his coffee cup, he rushed toward the kitchen, almost running into Deborah on her way in.
“Chase I need to talk to you,” She airily commented while pushing the door slightly, managing to leave it open ajar. Glancing over her shoulder as if she expected to find Diego listening on the other side, dropped her voice as she moved toward him. “Why aren’t you answering my texts? I thought we had..an arrangement.”
“Deborah, it’s not a good idea,” Chase replied while leaning back in his chair. “We work together. Plus my life, it’s been pretty complicated lately, I’m not in a good place for anything.”
“As if you’ve ever been in a good place,” She complained as she swept her hand over his desk. “Suddenly the fact that we work together is an issue? I talked to my therapist about this and she said the most interesting thing, she..”
“Nah nah nah,” Chase waved his hand in the air and shook his head. “We aren’t going there, Deborah. I don’t need to know what your therapist says or thinks. Things get complicated when people have to work together and…I’m, I’m sorry.”
“It’s Jolene, isn’t it?” Her eyes suddenly became smaller, darker behind her glasses, as her pale face formed into a frown. Deborah leaned against his desk, her voice rising slightly, making Chase nervous. “You’re having an affair with her, aren’t you? I see how you look at one another and she’s stacked and hot, I get it. You’re throwing me over to satisfy the boss.”
Just then, Diego hurried in the door, his eyes huge and full of anger. His strong presence caused Deborah to jump, startled by his brooding glare as he approached her, it was clear that she had crossed a line this time. Chase felt compelled to say something to cut the tension but also recognized when it was probably best to not say anything, as Diego pointed at her with his free, gloved finger.
“You, I’ve had it with you,” Diego snapped, his voice turned cold, his eyes darting through Deborah, who actually appeared nervous, her original confidence long gone. “Always leaving your station, showing up late for work, now you suggest that Chase is having sex with me! You’re hardly one to question anyone’s morals little girl, I think its time we have a talk.”
“Diego, I think she means…”
“Chase, can you leave us alone?” Diego didn’t even allow him to finish his comment and deciding that perhaps it was better he didn’t, Chase stood up from his chair and picked up his laptop. “I’ll be in Jolene’s office.”
Just as he reached the doorway, Diego could be heard calling out for Beverly to take over reception, something that she appeared unhappy about as she rose from her desk. Jolene glanced up from her laptop and her eyes jumped back and forth between her assistant and Chase.
“Thank you, Beverly.”
Diego slammed his door so hard that it caused Chase to jump just as he was entering Jolene’s office.
“Close the door,” She instructed and he followed her order before walking toward the empty chairs on the other side of her desk.
“Is it Deborah, what did she do?” Jolene asked innocently and although Chase didn’t want to tell her about the affair he briefly had with the administrative assistant, he wasn’t sure how to avoid it either.
Slightly embarrassed by the entire story, he sheepishly confessed the truth, “I had a…thing with Deborah for a while. I wasn’t probably in a good place and it happened and now she wants to know why we haven’t continued.”
“Oh..” Jolene appeared intrigued. “Is that why Diego is mad?”
“Well, not really,” Chase replied. “I think it’s a lot of things, the fact that she’s always late or leaving her desk and…he kind of overheard something when he walked in.”
“What?”
“Well, Deborah was kind of suggesting that the real reason I wasn’t showing her any interest was because I was…with you,” Chase finished hesitantly and saw Jolene’s face tighten in an unpleasant expression. “Diego walked in at the end of it and heard her suggest that I was sleeping with ‘the boss’ and assumed it was him and flipped out.”
“He think, he the boss?” Jolene spoke abruptly, her finger pointed toward the next office. “And she think that we…”
“Pretty much,” Chase replied with some hesitation, seeing the anger burning behind her eyes.
“This office gossip, it has to stop,” Jolene said and shook her head. “Terrible, these people who make up stories. When did we ever do anything to suggest such a thing?”
Chase answered with a shrug.
“It is funny that Diego thought she meant him,” Jolene started to grin as she playfully swirled her chair around. “He don’t like gossip.”
“I think he might fire her.”
“I think I might fire her,” Jolene countered. “This is too much. These stories at work are not right.”
“It’s not right,” Chase agreed and wondered if she was also thinking the same as him; he somehow doubted it. He quickly pushed his own intriguing thoughts aside, as he had done more and more lately, his attraction to Jolene somehow had grown in recent weeks to shamefully fill his fantasy life during times that required it.
Diego flew in the office shortly after proclaiming it done. He fired Deborah and walked her to the exit.
“But what we will do?” Jolene suddenly was aware of the consequences. “We need someone to take care of the desk.”
“Beverly’s got it covered.”
“Beverly has a lot of other work to do,” Jolene complained. “She doesn’t have time.”
“Relax, she’s taking care of it,” Diego insisted and sat beside Chase and he noted that the gloves were off. “I told her to go through some resumes and pick someone.”
“We can’t just pick anyone here,” Jolene complained. “We need someone we can trust.”
“It’s answering phones, Jolene,” Diego said and shrugged. “We need someone who shows up to work and answers a couple of calls.”
“There’s a little more to it than that,” Jolene insisted but Diego merely shrugged, as if it were of little consequence.
“So, she thought you and Chase,” Jolene started quietly and winked in Chase’s direction.
“Apparently, she thought you and Chase but I just heard her say, ‘the boss’ and assumed she meant me, since, you know, we live together,” Diego sniffed and curled his lips. “I wanted to stop any rumors right away but after a short talk, I decided it’s better to let her go. She isn’t good at her job and I think we should replace her.”
“I am the boss too,” Jolene commented. “It’s my name on that door out there too.”
“I know, I know!” Diego put his hands up in the air. “Either way, it’s not right. Can we both agree on this?”
Jolene reluctantly nodded and glanced at Chase.
“Chase, what did you see with her? I don’t understand,” Jolene asked. “She’s so..I don’t know, n
ot attractive.”
“It was a situation where the timing was…not great,” Chase said in attempts to carefully reply and hopefully move on.
“He means he was horny when she came along,” Diego jumped in with a laugh. “Kind of like with you and Hernandez.”
“Diego!” Jolene snapped. “That is not right for you to say.”
“It’s true though,” Diego said with humor in his voice. “Hey you two can be all secretive of the fact that you want to get some, but me, I’m always horny and I’m not afraid to admit it.”
“Diego, we don’t need to know, ok?” Jolene sternly commented. “You are very rude.”
“Hey, I’m just honest,” He countered. “And in fairness, Hernandez wouldn’t even have to ask me twice and I’d be naked. He wouldn’t even have to have the question out of his mouth and I’d be on my knees, so I get it but Deborah,” Diego turned his attention to Chase. “God, are you sure you’re not into men cause that girl, with her shape, I don’t know, she’s almost not a woman, you know?”
“Diego!” Jolene snapped. “Enough of you! Stop it!”
Diego fell silent but with an evil grin on his face.
“You cannot fire Deborah for her talk at the office and then turn around to do the same,” Jolene chided.
“I’m just stating my opinion,” Diego spoke defensively. “I’m from Colombia and women there, they got a shape, you know. Here is America, your women strive to be a shapeless size zero. It’s gross. I’m just stating what every man is thinking - gay or straight - we like a little shape, you know?”
“Canada, Diego, not America,” Jolene corrected, as she often did when her brother brought it up. “We are in Canada and not all women are super skinny here.”
“But they want to be,” Diego complained, ignoring her correction and moving on to the second comment. “It’s like they want to look like a bunch of shapeless 12-year-old boys, it’s gross. Men too. I met a man last week that looked like I should’ve been babysitting him, he was so thin, I couldn’t…you know? It was creepy I told him no, not happening,” Diego twisted his lips and shook his head. “I would think straight men would feel the same about their women.”