4. McCarthy
MCCARTHY
I ’m yelling at my intern when Jenna shows up the next morning, wearing a black dress that skirts the line of professional. Probably trying to use sex to manipulate me, since I told her I’d eat her out yesterday.
Not one of my finer moments, but then Salinger had identified a pattern. I’d been feeling like I was spiraling out of control the last six months. Not sure whether I was scared enough to try to rein it in or so sick of this whole charade that I would just give in until it consumed me.
“Stop it,” Jenna snaps, shoving her small, curvy body between my little brother and me. I mean, really, she has to be wearing that dress on purpose.
“Don’t try to protect him.”
“You cannot yell at your interns.” She wags a finger at me. “You’re already on thin ice. Did you even review the handout I sent you on How to Manage So Employees Will Listen? ”
“Good luck curing him of his personality disorder.” Isaac glares around her bare shoulder at me.
Jenna’s skin has angry red lines that I want to trace with my fingertips, probably from all those bags she’s dumped on the couch in my office. She has that ridiculous cup in one hand with its ever-multiplying charms and—is that a fucking purse on her cup?
“He’s a minor, McCarthy.” Jenna is scolding me, the accessories on the cup jangling nosily as she waves it around. “You cannot be in the news for verbally abusing a boy.”
“I’m not a boy.” Isaac bristles.
“Yes, you are,” I drawl at my younger half brother. “And he’s so cute too.”
Jenna sucks in a breath. “McCarthy…”
“But not cute enough for me to forgive the two-million-dollar satellite you just ruined.” I shove her out of the way so I can grab Isaac by the collar.
“Don’t put your hands on an employee. I’m adding a workplace conduct session to your PR improvement plan.”
“I’m allowed to strangle him if I want. He’s my little brother, and he’s costing me money.”
Isaac gives me the finger.
I get in his face.
“Fuck up again and I’m sending you back to the East Coast to play babysitter to the puppy pound our father created. Fuckin’ loser. I can’t believe Salinger palmed your internship off on me.”
“Language!” Jenna yells.
Isaac shoots back with “Suck my dick!”
“Stop cussing!” Jenna shrieks. “You!” She points at me. “The car is waiting outside. Go. Now.”
“The car? You mean my car ? I’m not going anywhere. ”
“I already told your driver that we will need his service the rest of the day.”
“Hard pass. I have to work.”
Isaac crosses his arms. The teenager has shot up in height in just the past few months. He’s almost at my nose. He doesn’t have the bulk, though, to back it up. Or the balls. He shuffles back when I jerk toward him.
“Weakling.”
“Get down!” Jenna hisses.
“What did you—”
I turn and curse because there’s that damn dog at eye level with me.
Jenna’s hopping around, trying to get him to jump. “Just jump to Mommy. There’s a good boy! Jump!”
It isn’t lost on me how the teenager’s eyes track the black fabric over Jenna’s chest, which bounces when she jumps.
He barely dodges the computer mouse I throw at him.
“You little shit. Don’t bring that dog here again, Princess.”
“This is a pet-friendly office,” Isaac says, hurling the mouse back at me.
I snatch it before it can hit Jenna.
Jenna beams at me as I extricate her little dog from my shelf. “A pet-friendly office! That’s wonderful! See? There’s something salvageable under that suit after all. We’re going to have a pet-appreciation picnic for your employees.”
“I don’t do picnics,” I say as I follow her, still inexplicably carrying the dog, which is bizarrely heavy, down to the lobby.
“You need more team-building activities. I barely see anyone at your office.”
“We have a generous work-from- home policy.”
“It’s good to come into the office and socialize with your coworkers.”
“No one wants—” Then I shut my mouth.
Don’t argue with crazy girls, I chant to myself. It’s like playing chess with a pigeon.
“You’re not here to tell me how to run my business.”
“That’s right.” She reaches over to adjust my tie. “I’m just here to rehabilitate your public image.”
“Don’t touch me.”
Out of one of the little pouches on her travel cup comes a small vial. I’m cursing as she smears stuff all over my face.
“Don’t make that face. It’s just sunscreen with a tinge of bronzer. Youth is your biggest asset. You need to look nice for photos.”
The stuff on my face smells like watermelon.
“I’m not taking any photos.”
My driver takes one look at me, and the corner of his mouth twitches. He’s fighting the smile as he opens the door to the black SUV and offers Jenna a hand.
I stand there, that dog and me, watching as she, her hand resting on Sarge’s wrist, looks from the ground, to the seat, and down at her short hemline.
If I liked her or wanted to flirt with her or try to coax her into my bed, I’d pick her up by the waist and set her on the seat.
Instead, I stand there and wait.
Because I don’t like her.
Or think she’s cute.
Or want to settle my hands on her waist.
Her mind tries to work out how she’s going to get on the seat without flashing Sarge and me .
“Guess Mommy’s having second thoughts,” I say to the dog, Trumpet. No, Truman.
Sarge’s mouth twitch turns into a full-blown smile when Jenna turns around, sits on the floor of the car, and scoots backward inside.
“This is going to be a fun day, right, Mac?” he says, his grin splitting his face as I step in after Jenna.
The dog immediately hops up to perch on the back of the driver’s seat, wobbling slightly as Sarge sits down. He chucks the dog under the chin and pets the silky hair on his long ears.
“Where to, ma’am?”
“Just take me to the Soundview Hotel,” I tell him, holding up a hand to cut off Jenna. “I have another charity to kill, and Fitz says he’s got a lead.”
“The Soundview?” Jenna hmms. “While I’m glad you’re taking initiative, McCarthy, unfortunately, that’s not going to work for this next step. It’s too formal.”
“It… What?”
“Let’s head downtown,” she tells Sarge.
“Where are we going?”
“Anywhere. Lunch. Coffee.”
“A bar.”
“It’s ten in the morning.”
“There’s the corgi café,” Sarge says. “My daughter had her birthday party there.”
“I think that will work!”
“What the fuck?”
“Language!” she says in a singsong.
I grind my teeth.
Thirty minutes later, we pull up in front of a bright-pink building. Sarge gets the door .
I don’t move.
“We have a schedule, McCarthy.” Jenna huffs as she grabs hold of my sleeve and struggles to physically push me from the car.
“Good fucking luck.”
“I have an influencer waiting. She’s going to pretend to see you while you’re buying cookies for your little sisters that are coming to visit.”
“The fuck?” I jerk back, sending her sprawling half on my lap.
“Lang—”
I grab her face before she can scold me again. “My little sisters are not coming to visit me.”
Behind her, Sarge is laughing silently.
“Yes, they are,” she says, insistent. “It’s a wonderful opportunity for a photo op.”
“I don’t want them in my house.”
“You referred to a woman as a C-word yesterday.”
“She is a C-word. She’s covering up for a despicable man.”
“We need to show that you support women.”
“I don’t support women like her. Or my sisters.”
Jenna looks like she’s about to slap me.
I hold up my hands. “Not because they’re girls. Because they’re animals. They’re worse than Isaac. They stole my car and set fire to my kitchen the last time they were here.”
“I’m going to tell your brother you’re not cooperating.”
“And I’ll tell your boss you touched my junk.”
She yelps. “That’s not—”
“ Stranger danger. ”
Sarge is blinking back tears of laughter. “I can’t double-park here, guys. I’m gonna get a ticket.”
“I need a drink, or I’m not going to make it the rest of the day.” I pull at my shirt collar.
With the annoying hair flip of a woman who is getting everything she wants, Jenna hums as she taps on her phone. “This is such a cute picture of you. I’m sending it to your brother.”
“Don’t—”
But it’s ten forty-five, and Jenna has sucked down an ungodly two gallons of sugar-and-syrup-laden coffee while I had to get my picture taken over and over again as she mimed exaggeratedly and shouted, “Smile! Just smile! You look cute when you just smile!”
My phone buzzes.
Fitz: For someone surrounded by corgis and cupcakes, he sure doesn’t look happy.
Hawthorne: Stay on your good behavior, little bro!
Salinger: I don’t want any more shit from you.
Salinger: I better not get a negative report.
Fitz: Uh oh, widdle bro is in trouble!
Hawthorne: Guess McCarthy did not in fact make Salinger suck his dick .
Whitman: Yeah, Mandy would kill him.
McCarthy: Mandy likes me.
Faulkner: Mandy likes everyone.
Fitz: But you’re not her favorite.
McCarthy: Fuck all of you.
Fitz: LANGUAGE !
Jingling makes me look up.
“Do you want the box or the dog?”
I glower down at the bright-pink box and the growling dachshund in Jenna’s arms. The dog’s wedged against her unnecessarily large Stanley cup.
“We need to move on to the next activity.” She waves the box at me.
“Such a waste of time.”
I choose the dog.
Truman is barking his head off at the pudgy corgis that languish on the bench in front of the window display like seals in the sun. I slam the café door open.
“Yum! Carbs.”
The paper sack rustles as she offers me a treat.
“You don’t want your strawberry cupcake, McCarthy?”
“I want you to get in the car so we can end this nightmare, Cupcake .”
Jenna stops short when I open the car door for her.
My teeth grind together.
She fusses with her bag while my irritation grows.