S.O.S. Perk (S.O.S. #6)

CHAPTER FOUR

Perk knew his shit-eating grin was going to give him away if anybody came into his office, but he couldn’t help himself. Sloane had just called him and scheduled a date. A freaking date! Of course he’d said yes, but…it was only Wednesday. How the hell was he going to fill his time between now and then without going nuts?

“Mistah Perkins.” Mizzay’s voice cut through Perk’s euphoria as she bellowed to him from the front office.

Instead of yelling back or waiting to see if she’d elaborate on what she wanted, Perk quickly got to his feet and beat it toward her desk. He’d found out the hard way, just once, that you didn’t keep Mizzay dangling. He’d had the audacity to ignore her command one time, and had ended up having to clean the entire fleet of company SUV’s for his sins. Inside and out.

But today, he was almost glad she was demanding his attention. He was game for anything. He had a lot of time to kill until Monday.

“Yeah, Mizzay?” he questioned, a huge smile gracing his face as he approached her desk.

“Huh. Somebody’s havin’ a good morning,” she grumped. “I’m glad you ahh, because mine just hit the dumpster.”

Perk immediately tried to downplay his stellar mood, sobering at least externally. “What’s wrong?”

Mizzay growled. “Rory’s school called. She’s puking her guts out, which means youze are now receptionist for the day.”

Perk’s good humor slipped a notch.

“Why me?” he asked. “Doesn’t Billboard usually take ov—”

Ah, shit . Billboard was on his honeymoon, so he obviously couldn’t do phone duty.

He changed directions. “Aren’t any of the other guys around?”

“Nope.” Mizzay popped her “P” decisively.

Perk sighed. “Never mind, then. You go take care of Rory. I’ll make sure this place doesn’t fall apart while you’re gone.”

“Okay,” she returned somewhat skeptically. “But remembah. I’m only a phone call away if something comes up you can’t handle.”

“I know that, Mizzay, but I’m sure there won’t be any fires huge enough today that I won’t be able to put them out,” he told her with assuredness.

She groaned. “Now youze have done it. The shit is sure to hit the fan after that dumb-ass comment.” Mizzay grabbed her purse from under her desk, then stood up with a scowl. “Now listen carefully. Hea’s what you need to know. Mistah Songen is off on assignment in New Hampshire. Mistah Balshir is currently in Boston, checking out some sketchy goings on in a homeless encampment. Mistah Montverra and Mistah Prancingdeer are helping the authorities hunt down some arsonists who have been setting fires in a state forest south of heah, and the Devons’ brothers are on call for emergencies only, because they’re finishing up an excavation project for their brotha. You got all that?”

“Yup,” Perk nodded. “If anything comes up that needs immediate but not emergency attention, I call Prez. Brent and Daire are only on tap if something cataclysmic happens. And I’m stuck to the desk for the entire day.”

“You got it.” Mizzay strode toward the door. “But it’ll probably be at least two days.”

Perk tipped his head in question.

“Rory’ll be down for the count for at least that long. And now that I think about it, two days won’t cut it if I catch this son-of-a- bitchin’ virus. That’ll mean youze’ll be on desk-duty for the next week.”

When Perk made a face, Mizzay narrowed her eyes. “ Or I can come in sick and spread it around to all youze guys.”

“In which case I’ll only be breathing out,” Perk quipped.

“Hah. Hah. Funny,” Mizzay snarked back. She gave him a distracted salute, then left the office.

“Well, shit,” Perk huffed as soon as she was out of sight through the glass doors.

This morning certainly hadn’t gone as planned. Part of it had been oh-so-good, but this part was… meh . Perk gave a shrug. At least instead of hanging around waiting for his next assignment, he’d have something useful to do. Because answering the phones was an extremely important part of the job, he knew, and he wouldn’t let Mizzay down.

Perk settled in at the desk, and flexed his shoulders.

His initial plan this morning, if he hadn’t received orders, had been to head to the weight room—installed by Del in their suite of offices—work up a sweat, then head back to his desk and eat for the rest of the day. But now he’d just…sit here and eat.

Yup . Along with the boyish good looks that had never left him, his metabolism also hadn’t begun to get the picture that he was nearing the ripe old age of thirty; something that should have made his massive caloric intake a problem. Nope . Like a teenager, he could eat with impunity.

The guys were all jealous, but little did they know that sometimes it was a huge pain in the ass, his inner beast demanding food all the time.

And speaking of food…

Perk opened the drawer in Mizzay’s desk that he knew contained all the take-out menus.

If he was going to be here all day, he was going to feast.

Three hours later, with Mizzay’s normally pristine space littered with take-out bags that he’d had delivered, Perk wondered exactly how Mizzay kept from losing her mind. He’d had eleven calls regarding possible new jobs come in, he’d fended off seventeen persistent telemarketers, and he’d had quick convos with both Prez and Wiley, procuring information for them that they needed regarding their assignments. It was a multi-tasking nightmare as far as he was concerned as he tried to navigate all the different winding roads he’d been forced to go down.

The only one who hadn’t called yet was—

As if his brain had conjured the man, Perk’s phone display showed Del’s name.

“Hey boss,” Perk answered, trying for an enthusiasm he didn’t feel.

“Where’s Mizzay?” Del didn’t start with niceties like the rest of the guys. He just jumped right in.

“Great to speak with you, too,” Perk responded sarcastically, but then filled Del in. “Rory was puking at school, so Mizzay had to pick her up and take her home.”

“Damn. It’s fall bug season,” Del lamented. “Which means we’ll probably lose Prez at some point, too. Thank God Liam and Lila aren’t in school yet.”

Perk wanted to tell the boss good luck with that. It was only a matter of time before the man was in the thick of it. Liam had just turned four, and even though Brina and Del had eschewed nursery school for him, by this time next year their son would be in kindergarten and picking up all kinds of nasty shit.

Perk wouldn’t poke the man, though. He sounded a little stressed. Instead, Perk brought the conversation back around to business. For both their sakes. It wouldn’t be long before the phones began ringing again with impossible demands.

“What can I do for you, boss?”

Del quickly barked off his requirements. He needed some detailed intel about the news agency he was investigating whose CEO had disappeared. He didn’t want to access anything from that company’s computers, fearing that one or more of the department heads knew more than they were letting on about the lead man’s ghost-act.

“Okay,” Perk agreed, taking down the pertinent details. Give me a couple hours and I’ll see what I can dig up.” Luckily, Perk was pretty good at finding stuff online. Not deep computer searches or programming shit, but he was a whiz at working all forms of social media, just like the teenager he appeared to be.

“Thanks,” Del returned. “Send your findings over to me on my secured line once you have anything I might need.”

Del hung up, and Perk got busy.

One hand danced over the keyboard while the other shoveled chips into his mouth.

Between TikTok and YouTube infiltrations, Perk answered more calls, took copious notes on several jobs that sounded promising, and finally, as the afternoon waned, he sent everything he’d uncovered regarding the questionable CEO to Del, knowing that some of the dirt he’d found would help him locate the man.

Satisfied he’d had a productive day so far, before he lost all impetus and called it quits, he picked up the phone and contacted Mizzay.

“How’s puke-central going?” he asked when she answered.

“As expected.” The normally unshakeable Mizzay sounded harried. “Although Rory’s been able to keep liquids down for the past hour now, so fingers crossed.”

“Poor kid. I’m glad she seems to be on the road to recovery, though,” Perk offered sympathetically. “Um, if you’re up for it, I have a list of jobs that have come in. I’d like your opinion on which are priorities, and which I should turn down.”

“Hit me,” she agreed immediately. “I need to exercise my brain.”

They spent the next half hour going over the eleven inquiries that had come in. Mizzay had him jettison six as a waste of their time; telling him to inform the wanna-be clients that their local police departments were fully equipped to deal with their minor problems. Of the five remaining jobs, Mizzay prioritized them, had Perk add them to the team’s schedule, and instructed Perk to call each of the new clients back with a possible time-line for starting in on their requests.

Once Perk had hung up from Mizzay, it took him another hour to do as the amazing dervish had directed, until finally he sat back in his chair, completely worn out.

“How the hell does she do it?” he muttered to himself. For the first half of the day, he’d felt like he was on top of things, but as the hours had worn on, he’d become harried, his energy levels had flagged, until…

“Yup.” He slapped both hands on the desk and stood. “It’s time to hit the weight room.”

Forwarding any calls that might come in to his cell phone, Perk locked the lobby door, walked down the hall with purpose, and went into the small but well-appointed gym. There were dumbbells, barbells, weight-plates and benches, mats and medicine balls, kettle bells, pull-up bars, and foam rollers. Everything he needed to dispel the cobwebs.

Perk had just opened his locker when… his phone rang.

He groaned, then sucked it up. “SOS. How may I help you?”

Perk parked his ass on one of the nearby benches as a potential client began a long tirade about not knowing where his daughter was at all times, asking if SOS would be able to put a tracker on her that the girl wouldn’t know about.

When Perk suggested a phone app for doing the job, the man stated he’d already done that, but his savvy daughter had begun leaving her phone behind when she “went places”.

After ten minutes of frustratingly listening to the man bitch, the guy finally revealed to Perk that his “youngster” was twenty years old. That’s when Perk not-so-patiently told him that his daughter was no longer a minor, and that it was illegal to track someone who was over eighteen without their permission or a warrant.

The man had cursed and belittled Perk, who’d taken it because…he knew that’s what Mizzay would want him to do; maintain his professional aplomb. Still, it was damned hard not to tell the guy to fuck off before the asshole eventually figured out he wasn’t going to get anywhere, and disconnected.

Yup. Now a whole lot of reps were in order.

Perk rose to his feet, went back to his locker, and quickly pulled out a t-shirt and shorts. He shed his work clothes and threw his gym-stuff on right then and there. He was alone, after all, and nobody was around to bitch him out about not using the private bathroom.

Once Perk put his weight’s worth of load onto the barbell, his back hit the bench and he proceeded to lift. He didn’t go for his normal, higher amount of weight because there was nobody around to spot him. But the lesser burden allowed him to do rapid lifts, which had him building up a sweat in no time.

It felt damned good.

His phone rang a few more times, but in each instance, after pausing to put the bar on the rests, mop his face, and look at his screen, it was easy to tell they were spam calls, so he ignored them and kept taxing his body.

Once Perk finished with his bench-work, he proceeded to do pushups on the mat, then sit-ups; happy when his muscles started complaining, knowing he’d labored the shitty part of the day right out of his body.

Feeling so much better, Perk went to the cooler and filled a cup with water, twice. He downed both in just a few gulps before heading to the bathroom to hit the shower.

Turning the water on inside the stall, Perk stripped down, then put his work-out clothes in the air-tight hamper that was collected by a service every few days. He felt sorry for whoever had to deal with the bin. It was bad enough, the smell that wafted out when you had to add to what was already in there, but with everybody’s sweaty stuff combined… No. Just no.

With the hot water finally sluicing over his body, Perk felt immensely better, and he let his mind drift back to the good part of his day; when Sloane had called to set up a date.

His hand lowered toward his cock, feeling a twinge of interest there, but he quickly moved it away. There was no need to get ahead of himself.

Did he want Sloane? Absolutely . Was he going to jerk off to her, not knowing where their first date would take them? Hell, no. He wanted to save his fire, acknowledging his libido only after he felt that sure they’d eventually end up in bed together. Then he’d let his fantasies run riot as he fisted his cock.

Ordering his dick to calm down for the time being, Perk turned the water to scalding and steamed away the rest of his lust and the remains of his day. It felt damned good. He’d have to remember this purge for tomorrow, because Mizzay was right. He’d be on desk-duty again. No way would Rory be ready to go back to school so soon.

Perk checked the clock once he was dressed and back in his civvies.

It was just about time to close down and send all late calls to the answering service; something Mizzay had shown everyone in the office how to do.

He strode toward the front of the office to set it up, when his phone rang.

Dammit .

Groaning and reaching into his pocket for his device, he hoped it wasn’t another long-winded person. He was hungry again, and ready to hit the local deli for the largest cold-cut sandwich they offered before heading home.

Perk glanced at the screen, and…all thoughts of food flew right out of his brain.

Sloane .

“Hey. Did you miss me today?” he asked jauntily, his chest filling with a joy that was so much more than what he normally experienced. “I know I had a hard time keeping you out of my mind,” he admitted. “It’s going to feel like a long time until—"

Sloane cut him off.

“I’m cancelling Monday.”