Chapter Nine Rae
CHAPTER NINE
Rae
MONDAY’S ONE OF THOSE bright autumn days I’d be absolutely in love with if I didn’t have to drag my ass over to the new office.
All because some out-of-touch finance bro says we have to.
I can’t imagine why Dorothy—the Sugar app’s founder, CEO, and acclaimed matchmaking queen—has entrusted our fates into this guy’s hands.
He’s a consultant who’s been pulled in to cull the flock. I know it, even if Dorothy refuses to confirm. This is exactly the kind of thing that happens to start-ups after that initial wave of success dies down and the executives realize they need to trim the fat to stay afloat.
My job as HR manager is to make sure that doesn’t happen. Okay, not really, but there’s no way I’m letting some corporate toady like the mysterious Grant Bowman come in and slash positions at will. Nope. Not on my watch. I advocate for my team.
From what my phone’s telling me, the new office isn’t too far. So at least there’s that. In fact, it’s in Carytown. Maybe if things get really bad, I can swing over to Off the Cuff for, I don’t know, another massage or something.
Ha! No. No, as the General told me, that was a one-off—a one-night domination experience. Not in the market for a sub.
Whatever. That’s fine. There’s nothing stopping me from finding another Dom to play with, right?
Like he said, maybe the General can introduce me to an experienced Dom like him.
Only better. If I’m lucky, the new guy will rub my back and talk sweet and dirty in my ear and make me come apart at the seams. Maybe he’ll be all frowny-browed and serious about it, like it’s his job to do this one thing right, and by god, he will, come hell or high water.
And maybe we’ll go further than just a back rub.
Maybe he’ll go through the list of things I want, like spanking and hair-pulling, and that fantasy where he pushes me into a dark corner and puts his hand in my panties and makes me see stars over and over again and tells me how badly he wants—
No. I promised myself I’d quit thinking about it every second of every day.
Quit checking my texts just in case the General changed his mind and decided he was in the market for a sub, after all.
Quit picking up my phone and typing out messages asking for just one more Dom/sub experience to slide into the spank bank for posterity.
Seriously, if I don’t stop this nonsense right now, someone like Jaffrey Jenkins will poke his oddly square-shaped head into my new office to ask about retirement benefits and catch me squirming in my seat with my eyes rolled back.
Gross.
I park and hop out of the car, juggling my coffee, my computer bag, my office survival supplies, and a teetering mountain of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies as I go. If nothing else, maybe the cookies will soften up Dorothy’s Evil Boy Genius.
“Grant Bowman,” I mutter. Ugh, even his name has founding families vibes.
I can’t help but picture a fifth-generation Ivy Leaguer and CrossFit addict with a wife named Binky and two-point-five children.
The kind of guy who thinks of cutting employee benefits as a perfectly viable way to improve the bottom line.
Dorothy insists that he’s coming in to help smooth out processes.
Could she be any more vague? Will positions be cut or not?
The company Slack’s become a hotbed of conjecture.
As human resources manager, I should, of course, put a stop to that.
But I mean, who texts the new office address to their HR manager over the weekend like that?
I literally only found out where we’d be working last night and then had to make sure it got out to the full team so they’d actually show up this morning.
I’m half a block from my destination when my phone rings. It’s Samantha.
“Hey.”
“You’re not gonna believe this place,” she hisses.
“Crap, am I late?”
“You’re always late. Listen. Old warehouse. Just converted. Gorge.”
“Okay.”
“It’s ancient. Red brick and everything.
We’ve got the top floor. The renovation is…
” She makes a smooching sound. “Modern industrial. You’re gonna die over all the cast-iron fixtures.
And the furniture…” She lowers her voice to a whisper, the sound muffled like she’s pressing her mouth to the phone, sharing a massive secret.
“Herman Miller chairs, Rae. We’ve got Herman Miller chairs! ”
“Samantha, is the new guy in—?”
“Tasteful too, you know? None of the tacky shit Dorothy bought for the Glen Allen office. Probably got that crap off a truck or something. Someone definitely paid her to take it off their h—”
“Samantha, has Grant Bow—”
“Anyway, we’re upstairs from a club. Can you believe it? Wonder if they have an open-mic—”
“Samantha Martinez. Has the new guy arrived?” I pause and look up. This street is familiar. I feel like I was just here.
“Ugh. Yes. Yes! And he’s…” Her voice goes quiet again. “H… A… W… T…”
I let out a long, annoyed sigh, nearly colliding with a guy in bike shorts in line at the Coffee Hut. Seriously, did I just double back or something? Because I feel like I passed the Coffee Hut just the other…
I glance down at the map on my phone and go absolutely still.
… night. Friday night, to be exact.
My skin prickles. “What was that about a club?”
“Get this. Right downstairs. A literal comedy club. Hilarious, right? Hey. Are you far? Staff meeting’s about to start, and everyone’s asking about the cookies.”
I look up at the street name and over at the cross street. With a burst of speed, I turn the corner. There, half a block up, is the building I spent Friday evening getting… Dommed in, for want of a better term.
“But the office is 2222 Uptown. I’m right around the corner—”
“That’s the rear entrance. Parking’s back there. Well, for Work Dad and Dorothy. We minions get to fight for a street spot.”
Work Dad?
“But the other address? For the front of the building?”
“24026 Cary Street. Geesh, Rae, I know it’s Monday morning, but come on. Didn’t you look it up?”
Everything inside me tries to sink to my toes.
No, I didn’t look it up. I was too busy getting cookies baked and supplies packed up, pumping gas, and then driving a jerry can over to Hannah’s because Schaffer forgot to fill up the car over the weekend, leaving his entire family stranded. I still haven’t called to bitch him out.
Get it together, Rae. It’s just a weird coincidence.
Somehow, I get my mouth to spit out words that make sense. “Okay. Okay. Be right up.”
“With cookies?”
“Always.”
I walk up the familiar sidewalk to the rough-looking brick of the building that does, in fact, house the comedy club, our new office, and, just to keep things real, the kink club that I spent all weekend trying not to think about.
Look how well that’s going.