Chapter Thirteen
? ? ?
This isn’t a bad gig, if I’m honest.
Amber
“Liam.” I sip my coffee, which was brewed fresh this morning in the breakroom back behind what I suppose is now my fancy assistant desk.
“Mm?” He creates a line of tiny heart stickers across my cheekbone, which is a mild improvement compared to the tweezer work he was consuming himself with a moment ago as he shaped my brows with tiny pink and white sequins.
“Why?”
He examines his handiwork, and the corner of his mouth tips. “Cute.”
Did I cave into the pressure of fifty grand extra on my salary for wearing stupid lacy clothes?
Yes.
Did walking into a lobby and finding the timid receptionist arranging her sticker sheet ammo for sticker day before her coworker tackled her to the ground make me feel the opposite of out of place ?
Sure.
Packing up his own sticker ammo, Liam says, “It’s sticker day.”
“What the—” I swear. “—is sticker day?”
“Why, it’s only one of the most magical days of the Countdown to Valentine project!” an unfamiliar voice startles me, and I just manage to keep my coffee as a sandy-headed man in a red polo strides off the elevator before us. He throws his hand over my desk. “Brian Single. Charmed to make your acquaintance.”
I do not reach for his hand. I look at it.
It is poorly hiding a sticker.
The moment I raise my brow, he laughs and turns to Liam. “I tried.”
“Try harder. But not with my Bambi. I’ve already perfected her.”
“Understood,” he chirps, pressing the sticker perfectly to the center of Liam’s black tie. “I never did like Teresa. Always glared at me and asked if I had mail to deliver whenever I’d try to come visit outside lunch hours. Then, if I did have mail, she’d hold it and say you were very busy . Too busy, even, to get your mail immediately. An outrage!”
Liam, with all the emotion of a gargoyle, nods. “I agree. An outrage.”
I am stuck, staring at the sticker on Liam’s tie. Given that it’s a little white bear with enormous eyes, hugging a heart, I know he loves it. Surely this Brian character is not aware of that, though. Unless he is.
My eyes narrow.
Hold on.
Does Liam have a friend ?
That would be very odd behavior for Liam, who once—after trying and failing to secure friends for years—told me that they were a waste of time and energy. He then promptly vowed he’d only ever have minions.
The minion smiles at me. “What’s your opinion on mail, Bambi?”
Liam’s hackles rise, and murder slices through his eyes.
“Only Liam’s allowed to call me Bambi. My name’s Amber. And mail is the only appropriate way to communicate. Texts are where information goes to die, while phone calls should be outlawed beyond familial relations.”
“Would you say that the backbone of society rests upon the post system?”
I’m sensing a commitment to mail that reflects Liam’s commitment to cute. “I would not explicitly state that, no, but it is not untrue.”
“I like your new assistant, boss.”
Arms folded, Liam says, “She’s my wife.”
Brian’s eyes go glassy. He blinks. He drags his attention to Liam. “Your what?”
“My wife.”
“You’re married?” Brian’s head topples, tilting into his shoulder. “Since when? Why wasn’t I given the honor of delivering wedding invitations to your staff?” His gaze turns hollow, empty, despondent. “Do you hate me?”
“Yes, I’m married. Since January 5th. We didn’t have a wedding. No, I don’t hate you.”
Brian snaps back, beaming. “Oh, is that so? You don’t really strike me as a wedding guy, anyway.”
Liam would kill for a wedding. He’d design every part of it himself. It would be pink, and purple, and blue. He’d color-match his Barbie DVD collection for the swatches. I don’t even want to think about what kind of dress he’d put me in for it—Barbie gave him too many exact replica options in her earlier films. I know. Because he’d show me the pictures on his phone before he’d put it back in its box in his backpack.
He’d fill the church pews with stuffed animals and send them home with the guests as party favors. I’m thinking…tea party reception with them, too…and as much vegan pastry as the world’s finest bakers can make.
I’m losing the plot, which is: Brian does not take Liam for a big cutesy wedding guy, but Brian knew he could put an adorable sticker on Liam’s tie without repercussion.
Who is Brian and where does he rank in Liam’s minion army?
“Don’t you have mail to deliver or sort or something?” Liam grumbles while I’m busy studying the guy. He’s definitely got cute points. Seems as harmless as a baby carrot. Those are qualities Liam appreciates.
Rocking on his heels, Brian reaches into his bag. “Yup! Delivery fresh from Will.” Brian presents what appears to be an exorbitantly fluffy lamb puppet. It is wearing a shirt, which states in flowing cursive: Mad About Ewe . “See what a good mailperson I am, doing my deliveries, working very hard?”
Liam glares at the lamb.
He loves it.
He’s selling his soul to the glass eyes right this very second.
But, unless you’re me, you wouldn’t know that. You might even assume he’s trying to set the poor thing on fire with his glare as Brian plants it in his hands. A swallow moves through Liam’s throat, then he says, “Get back to work,” with zero I am in love with this lamb inflection.
Taking the subtle hint, Brian twists toward the elevator. “You got it, boss! Enjoy the nepotism, Amber!”
I giggle as the elevator door closes behind the odd chap. “Brian seems fun.”
Already making the little puppet’s hands clap, Liam looks at me and sets the rest of his stickers primly on my desk. He directs a lamb hoof at them. “If anyone comes up here today, put a sticker on them. Do not let them put a sticker on you, by threat of swift retaliation.”
“I’ll tell them you’re firing anyone who touches your wife.”
He searches my eyes and smiles. “Yes, do that.” Moving behind my chair, he braces himself on the head rest and starts up the desktop before walking me through my job expectations, using the lamb to explain everything like we’re guests on Sesame Street .
Schedule. Emails. Be at his beck and call. Don’t remove the stickers he put on me. Eat lunch with him. Order snacks from Sweet there are just broken humans, pleading to be loved.
Exactly as they are.
With all their soiled atoms.
? ? ?
Dear whoever replaced Mr. Warrick’s last assistant:
I’m lodging a complaint – twelve complaints, to be exact – and I’m lodging them with you instead of HR because a member of HR is part of the problem.
The lack of professionalism in this office since Operation Countdown to Valentine started is, frankly, absurd. Not that we were exactly top of the heap before this mess, but it’s gotten quite out of hand.
Today, in an effort to win this moronic sticker contest, twelve members of staff set up in-person meetings with me for the sole purpose of stickering me. During these meetings, they came behind my desk and implemented “casual” touches that were not only unwanted, but unwarranted.
As Mr. Warrick is plainly aware, though I recognize that you might not be, I am blind. I could not see these stickers. I could not remove them from my person on my own. I had to request the help of a colleague, which was potentially embarrassing and raised the unprofessional behavior in the office by, I estimate, five thousand percent. I am a math whiz, so you can trust these numbers to be accurate.
Please advise Mr. Warrick that his planned sensitivity training needs to happen sooner rather than later.
Wishing you a better day than mine,
Ruby Vann
Finance Director
Whirlwind Branding
P.S. I’m leaving for the day. I will not be participating in the stickering. I will gladly take whatever negative consequences this incurs on Monday.
I read Ruby’s email twice, shocked, appalled, disgusted?
Yeah.
Disgusted .
I’m sorry, what ?
It is one thing to have stickers all over my face because a guy I tolerated in school—who is now both my husband and boss—told me it was sticker day and I had to get stickered for his morale to boost by two hundred percent, since we’re the only people who will be up here all day.
It is another thing entirely for people in this building to randomly touch a blind coworker under the pretense of a children’s game. That goes beyond inhumane. It is outright sickening.
I press the intercom button. “Liam?”
His voice buzzes through. “If lunch is here, go ahead and bring it in. We can watch an episode of My Little Pony while we eat.”
“Very little appeals to me less, and—yet—something that would qualify as less appealing is sitting in front of me right now. Could you come here please?”
He’s in front of me in less than ten seconds.
“Ruby emailed.”
His brow rises. “She emailed you ?”
“She emailed whoever replaced your last assistant.” I motion to the screen. “You should take a look at this.”
Striding behind me and leaning over my chair for the second time today, he scans the screen. The air changes with every passing moment until it might be too thick to inhale. After a still minute, Liam’s voice is lethal. “I already shared the sensitivity information Will sent me company-wide. Making it mandatory to review. Unfortunately, it appears my employees are illiterate.” Rising, he turns on his heel, strides across the lobby, and mashes the call button for the elevator. “In an effort to be inclusive , I suppose I’ll have to deliver the message verbally.”
I’m on my feet in an instant, tucking into the elevator with him. His brow rises again as I perch myself at his side and he presses the twentieth floor button.
I catch his look. Fold my hands together against my skirt. “Yes?”
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“Getting our lunch.” Certainly not preparing to take notes for any potential assertive moments my male lead might encounter in the book I’m writing. That would, surely, be unethical.
When the elevator opens on the finance floor, Liam steps out like a whirlwind—how on brand of him.
The office noises quiet as he scans the cubicles, employees packed into their designated stations like sticker-covered sardines. On the far end of the room, a slew of empty private offices take up the wall.
Keyboard clacking dies out.
A thread of fear winds tight in every pair of eyes that skids our way before darting down, like children who know they’ve been caught red handed.
Voice steady and irate, Liam says, “It has come to my attention people have been taking advantage of the team-building exercise today. Instead of using it as a tool to brighten our mundane work environment, many on this floor used it as a means to harass Ruby Vann, our blind Finance Director. How many people here know Ruby?”
No one moves.
“ Show of hands. ”
Every single hand hesitantly lifts. Some poor guy at a desk positioned outside one of the private offices appears to be hyperventilating as his shaking hand rises.
“I’ve met Ruby a handful of times,” Liam continues. “She is hardworking to a fault. This entire Operation is little more than a nuisance for her, but I’ve made it mandatory so people like her will be obligated to participate, obligated to enjoy the activities that many might talk themselves out of for being too childish if given the chance. Everyone is a part of the Whirlwind Branding team, everyone deserves the obligation to have a little fun, but instead of building Ruby up today and having fun, you tore her down. Instead of being conscientious of not only Ruby’s feelings but also her character, you used her as an easy target because of her disability. Well. Congratulations. On this floor, instead of the person with the fewest stickers on them by the end of the day being the prize winner, she is. Anyone who has a problem with that—anyone who dares to think she’s getting an unfair advantage because she’s blind—pack your things. I don’t want to see you here again, and I envy the fact Ruby never had to.”
With that mic drop, Liam turns, strides past me, and takes all the air from both the room and my lungs.
Dizzy, I follow him to the elevator, which he holds open for me, and step inside.
Once the doors close, he mutters, “I need to go yell at HR now.”
First, he didn’t yell. His voice remained level throughout. Second, I get to witness that again?
Maybe I should record it this time. So I can reference it. For research.
“Sorry,” he murmurs. “Our lunch might be cold by the time we get it back up to the office.”
Lacing my fingers behind me, I cross my ankles and smile. “No worries.”
“This really bothers me.” He frees a tight breath. “Make sure you send Ruby an email to let her know things have been taken care of.”
“I will.”
Firmly, he nods. Then he puts a slew of grown men in their place. And, after that, we get our lunch. While we eat together, I do my best to understand how William Warrick can go from nearly making a bunch of people on two office floors cry…to knowing every song in a show about pastel ponies and friendship.
As soon as the pastel nightmare ends, I pull up Ruby’s email on the desktop and reply:
Dear Ruby Vann:
Liam took care of it.
It was hot.
Significantly better assistant than the last loser (although the bar was low),
Amber
P.S. Nice to meet you. Hope you have a fantastic weekend.