Eight Arya
eight
Arya
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Arya muttered, holding the door open.
“Bitch, I wish I was,” Carley said as she stepped through.
Carley was the senior production manager for Mitchell Murphy Events.
She was a white woman with thick, curly black hair, piercing blue eyes, powerful boobs, and an even more powerful personality.
Clients loved her. So did Arya. He didn’t believe in work spouses, but if he did, Carley would’ve been his work wife. Even if she did call everyone a bitch.
When he asked her if it wasn’t misogynistic to call people bitches, she just looked him in the eyes, said, “Bitch, it might be,” and carried on with her day.
A loud horn blast from the semi outside shook the halls of MME’s office-slash-warehouse. It was in, of all things, a former industrial bakery in North Kansas City. Even after three renovations (only one of them by MME), on some particularly hot summer days, the place still smelled like Twinkies.
Arya winced at the noise.
“Cool your cooter!” Carley shouted, as if the driver could hear them. “Fucking guy.”
Arya chuckled and led the way down the long hallway connecting the offices in the front half of the building to the warehouse on the back side, facing the alleyway.
The office was still empty. Most people took Monday off, since they usually worked weekends.
Arya would’ve been home, too, but after getting woken up by a phone call from a pissed-off trucker, he’d thrown on what clean clothes he could find (in this case, jeans and last season’s Lions raglan) and dragged himself to the office.
Bless her, Carley had shown up, too, after dropping her daughter off at school.
A few others were on their way, but they lived out in Johnson County, and they’d never make it through the traffic downtown before the truck was unloaded. Kansas City didn’t have much of a rush hour, but it did have one.
While Carley went to turn on the warehouse lights, Arya hurried to the loading dock and opened the doors.
He groaned at the sight that awaited him: A trailer loaded with wheeled black cases, stacked three high.
The driver honked again. Arya clapped his hands to his ears as it echoed off the brick buildings hemming in the alleyway.
He needed his hearing for work, damn it.
Fuck a duck.
Carley stepped up next to him, eyeing the truckload of LED wall.
“Well, this fucking sucks,” Carley said. “Where are we putting all this shit?”
“Wherever we can find room,” Arya said, hitting the button to raise and level the dock plate. “Then I’ve got to call Val.”
“Right.” Carley pulled out a pair of work gloves and slipped them on with a sigh. “I just got my nails done.”
“Me too.” Arya had forgotten his gloves at home. “I’ll get you a manicure once we get this fixed.”
“As long as it’s on the company card.”
“You know it.” Some days—like today—being Mitchell’s partner really fucking sucked. But it had its perks, too, like the ability to treat their employees when they went above and beyond. “Let’s get this shit unloaded before the driver blows a gasket.”
The good news was, the truck was evenly packed, all the cases on nice new casters, and once the driver finished complaining about being made to wait for forty-five minutes, he helped them unload it.
The bad news was, all this gear was supposed to be in Seattle. Not Kansas City.
When Jim—their warehouse manager—finally showed twenty minutes later, Arya filled him in on things and let him deal with the 102 cases they did not have room for. Then he went to his office, closed the door, and played with his fidget cube for a couple minutes until he could calm down.
Ramin had gotten it for him a couple years ago.
Arya had balked at first, but he’d actually found it useful, which Ramin had known he would.
Ramin used to help him study, back in high school, before Arya had finally gotten diagnosed with ADHD, and he’d learned early on that having something to do with his hands helped Arya focus.
While Carley called Val—their production manager in Seattle—to fill her in, Arya got on the phone with Scotty, their rep at the LED wall rental company to figure out what happened.
And what had happened was, Mitchell had picked the same billing and shipping addresses.
Worse, Mitchell had yelled at Scotty when he’d tried to double-check.
So now they had a shitload of LED panels in Kansas City, Val’s show in Seattle had none, they had a pissed-off vendor, and they were about to have a very pissed-off client unless they could solve it.
“Is there any way we can get the tiles we need in Seattle?”
“Our nearest warehouse is in LA,” Scotty said, voice scratchy and still half-asleep. He lived in San Francisco, and it was barely six o’clock there. “Even if we got a truck packed and sent right now, they wouldn’t make it to Seattle until after midnight.”
Arya groaned. That would mean Val and her crew would have to load in the event overnight and go right into morning rehearsals without sleep.
Fuck!
“Let me see what I can do. I’ll call you back.”
“All right. You’re a lifesaver. Thanks, Scotty.”
“Talk soon.”
Arya sat back in his chair and sighed.
This was a fucking disaster. In fact, it was yet another in a long line of recent disasters.
Mitchell Murphy was the company’s president and founder.
He was Arya’s mentor. He was Arya’s partner, after he’d bought in to the company five years ago.
His stake was only 35 percent, but that wasn’t nothing.
And the plan had always been for Arya to buy in more each year, and for Mitchell to ease off and retire.
But now?
Now Mitchell was fucking disintegrating or something.
Arya rested his head in his hands and sighed. Then he sniffed. He hadn’t had the chance to shower this morning, and unloading the truck was sweaty work. He smelled like cooked onions.
A rap on his door made him sit up.
“I talked to Val,” Carley said. “They’re going to load in what they can for now. Any word about the LED wall?”
Arya massaged his scalp for a moment.
“Scotty’s going to let me know, but they probably won’t get anything until after midnight.”
Carley’s eyebrows climbed toward her hair. “Fuck. That. Shit.”
“Yup.” Arya sighed. “I’ll let her know.”
“Got it.” Carley gave Arya a long, piercing look. She was one of Arya’s favorite people. They’d been working together for ten years now, but from Carley’s first day, they’d gotten along well. Old friends who just met, as Farzan liked to say.
Arya knew Carley better than anyone save Farzan and Ramin, and she knew him just as well. So he knew what was in her head before she said it.
But she still said it.
“Someone’s got to do something about Mitchell.”
“I know.”
Mitchell finally showed up at the office after ten, impeccably dressed as always.
Arya wouldn’t say he got his style from Mitchell, exactly, but the fact was, Mitchell wore suits most days, and Arya did, too, at least when he was on the job.
The job being planning events and making sure they ran smoothly—not unloading trucks that had gone to the wrong fucking city.
Mitchell was a tall, skinny white queen with gray hair he kept dying to light blond (why bother?). He was in his sixties, and could usually be found with a drink in one hand and a twink of the month on the opposite arm.
(Arya did not emulate that part of Mitchell’s style.)
This morning, he was still wearing his sunglasses when Arya rapped on the door frame of his office.
“Morning,” Arya said evenly. He needed to figure out what kind of mood Mitchell was in before he decided how to tackle the shipping issue.
“Morning,” Mitchell said back brightly, which meant he was either in a good mood today, or his liver hadn’t quite finished processing last night.
“So…” Arya began. “I don’t know if you heard yet, but there was a mix-up with some gear…”
“Ugh, I heard,” Mitchell said, running a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry you had to deal with it. Val knows what’s what?”
“She knows,” Arya said. He bit his lip.
Five years ago, he would’ve called out Mitchell for fucking up, and Mitchell would’ve acknowledged it, and they would’ve figured things out. But these days, it seemed like Mitchell was allergic to accountability.
What had happened to Arya’s friend, his mentor, his business partner?
The sad thing was, Arya knew; he just couldn’t figure out what to do about it. But it was affecting everyone now.
Mitchell blew out a heavy sigh. Maybe today was going to be a good day, after all.
“I don’t know how I fucked up the shipping info. It won’t happen again.”
How many times had Arya heard that before?
“You know, if you need some time off, we’ve got things covered well enough here.” If Mitchell would at least take a vacation, they could get things on a more even keel.
Mitchell shook his head, though. “I’m good. I’ve got it covered. Now, where are we at with the Philharmonic Ball?”
“Meeting this afternoon,” Arya said. “I’ve got to go home and change for it.”
“You need me to come with?” Mitchell and Bruce, the CEO of the Philharmonic, went way back. Like, toxic nineties exes back. Arya didn’t need any more complications added to the mix.
“I’m good. Promise. It’ll be the best year yet.”
“Great. Thanks, Arya.”
Arya rapped goodbye on the frame and headed out.
He needed a shower.
The Kansas City Philharmonic’s offices were downtown, close to the Kauffman Center, in a building that used to be a restaurant, and before that an antique shop, and before that some rich person’s house. It still had a little gated garden and a cobblestone path to the door.
Carley made it there before him, also looking freshly showered, holding an iced coffee in one hand and an herbal tea in the other.
Despite the truck, her manicure was intact, sharp acrylics in teal and gold.
Not that Arya was opposed to buying her a manicure—he’d get her a thousand manicures if it kept her happy.
But when would they actually find the time?
“What would I do without you?” Arya asked as Carley handed over the tea.
“Die in a fire, obviously,” Carley said airily as Arya got the door for her. He followed her in, fixing his cuffs as he went. He was dressed in a red suit and a black shirt underneath with the collar unbuttoned.
Arya waffled about undoing a second button.
His chest was still in good shape, but he’d started finding more and more grays in his chest hair, too many to pluck.
No matter how much he lifted and how much protein he ate, he’d never been able to grow the kind of Ricardo Montalban Wrath of Khan chest that would justify shaving.
He could maybe have gotten away with it if he were a twink, but he’d always been way too brown for that to be viable option.
Now he was too brown and too old.
Against his will, Arya’s mind went back to Ben, who said he liked getting older. Feeling more and more at home in his own skin.
Well, Arya would never see Ben again, but fuck it, that was good advice. So he undid another button as they greeted Delilah, the Philharmonic’s receptionist, a young she-they with their hair buzzed on the left and down to their shoulder on the right.
“They’re all set up. Just down the hall,” they said with a gesture.
“Thanks, D,” Carley said. “Love the haircut.”
Delilah blushed. “Thanks.”
As soon as they were out of earshot, Arya narrowed his eyes.
“Be nice.”
“I am. It does look nice. Even if it is cliché.”
Arya snorted. It was a bit of a cliché, but who cared? Arya was all for gender euphoria wherever people could find it. Even in a haircut that literally every femme nonbinary person he knew had worn at some point in their life.
“It’s like lesbians and Subarus,” Carley said. “Two great tastes that go great together and all that.”
“Fair.” Granted, Arya owned a Subaru. He’d driven a WRX for most of his adult life, but last year he’d given it up for an Outback.
He told people it was so he could carry shit around for work, but truth be told it was because his knees had started popping every time he lowered himself into the WRX’s bucket seat.
In fact, he’d kept the WRX so long specifically to avoid having to lug shit around for work.
That’s what they had trucks for, after all.
Arya schooled his features, put on his Client-Facing Smile?, and held the meeting room door for Carley.
He stepped in after her, smile in place, iPad in hand, only to stop cold.
Because there, sitting across the table, sandwiched between the Philharmonic’s development coordinator and box office manager, was the last person in the world he expected to see.
Fuck my life, Arya thought.
It was Ben.