Chapter 37
Grizzly
The call came in on a random Wednesday.
I had back-to-back client calls scheduled through the day, a contract revision sitting in my inbox that Auden had flagged as needing attention before the end of week, and a new pair of glasses on my face that I was still negotiating with since my old ones got broken in a freak accident.
My phone lit up with a name I hadn't expected to see.
Gillies.
I picked up, worried something had happened with Daddy. Gillies played with him, so it made sense he would call if something happened.
"Grizzly." His voice told me he'd made this call fast, probably between things. "You know a guy named Holb Nekman?"
"I know of him," I said carefully. "He was Paxton's former agent."
"Yeah, well, he's currently in the parking lot of a sports bar two blocks from your office having what I would describe as a loud and personal conversation with himself about what he's going to do when he gets to you.
" A pause. "I happened to be at said bar for lunch. Figured you'd want a heads up."
I set my pen down on the desk. "How long ago?"
"Ten minutes, give or take. He was still working himself up when I left.
Man likes to hear himself talk, so you've probably got a window.
Thought about calling Paxton, but he's in the middle of a conditioning session, and I didn't want to blow the whole thing up if you could handle it.
And I'd have come by your office, but I’m late for a meeting. "
"I can handle it," I told him. “Thanks for the call.”
"Yeah, I figured. Alright. Call me if it goes sideways. I can get out of my thing if I have to."
He hung up.
I sat for a moment with the phone in my hand and the name Holb Nekman doing what it did in my head.
I knew the broad strokes of what had happened between him and Paxton.
I also knew the type of agent Holb Nekman was because I had been in this industry long enough to have encountered his kind many times.
They were the type who believed that leverage was the same as loyalty and that what a client owed them was infinite regardless of what they delivered in return.
I stood up from my desk and went to the doorway of my office.
"Cheyenne," I called.
She appeared from around the corner. "What's wrong?"
"A man named Holb Nekman may be coming here shortly. He's Paxton's former agent, and he’s apparently not having a great morning. If he shows up, do not let him past the front."
She straightened. Her expression went from calm to alert in a millisecond. "Understood."
"Where's Moseley?"
"Filing room."
"Pull him out. I want both of you up front."
She was already moving.
I went back to my desk, though I didn’t sit. Instead, I stood behind it with my hands braced on wooden surface as I breathed through the tension that had settled across my shoulders. This wasn’t fear. Fear made you want to leave the room. This made me want to plant my feet.
Within half an hour, I got proof of just how much a piece of shit my Daddy’s former agent was.
Holb Nekman was shorter than I had pictured.
He had the broad build of a man who had been athletic once and had let the years round the edges of it.
He moved through the front office with the momentum as if no one was going to stop him.
He blew past Cheyenne's desk with a gesture that was half dismissal and half I don't see you.
When Moseley stepped into his path, Holb sneered at him.
"Sir." Moseley's voice was steady. "You need to stop and tell me who you're here to see. You can’t just waltz through here without an appointment.”
"I'm here to see whoever is running this operation." Holb's voice was the carrying kind, meaning I could hear every word clearly. "I don't have an appointment because I don't need one."
"You do need one," Cheyenne said, from behind her desk, her tone pleasant in a cutting way. "This is a professional office, and you've just walked past me without so much as a hello. So let's try again. Who are you and who are you here to see?"
He looked at her then. "I'm here to see Grizzly Thorson. Tell him Holb Nekman is here."
"I already know," I said, drawing his attention away from my people.
He turned to face me, his lip curled back in disgust. I watched as he took me in from head to toe. While he looked, I did the same to him.
"Thorson." He said my name like it was a footnote. "We need to talk."
"My office," I directed, uncaring if I sounded like an ass. He hadn’t seen anything yet.
He took the chair across from my desk and sat in it like it was his. I closed the door, because I didn’t want Moseley or Cheyenne to feel obligated to monitor this. It was mine to handle.
As soon as I sat, he started talking. There was no easing into things. The man was already living up to his reputation.
"I'll make this brief," Holb said, which was what men like him said when they intended to be anything but.
"Your boy has cost me considerably. The fallout from his little scene at the restaurant, the social media circus, the clients who pulled back because they didn't want association with the drama—that sits on his tab.
And by extension, yours, since you're the one who swooped in to capitalize on the situation. "
My glare was instantaneous. "I didn't capitalize on anything. Paxton reached out to me. He was looking for representation that understood him. His former agent failed that requirement in a fairly significant way."
The color in Holb's face ticked up slightly. "What he did was breach a valid professional relationship for personal reasons."
"He enforced a clause that his legal team included specifically to protect him from exactly what you did." I fought not to raise my voice. "CenterGain was a stupid move. You knew who he was, and you brought him to that table anyway. That's not a gray area, Holb."
"Don't speak to me like that. We’re colleagues on even ground. I’m not your client."
"We're in the same industry. We're not colleagues. And no, you’re definitely not my client. I would never work with you." I folded my hands on the desk. "What exactly are you hoping to accomplish today?"
He leaned forward. "I want you to understand that I have reach in this business that you have not yet had cause to feel.
Your little Bellport operation is charming.
The queer athlete angle is smart marketing, I'll give you that.
But you are not insulated from the kind of pressure I can apply when I'm motivated. "
I let the words sit in the room for a moment.
Then I said, "You need to leave."
His jaw shifted. "Excuse me?"
"You've come into my office without an appointment, pushed past two members of my staff, and you have now made what sounds fairly close to a professional threat. I'm telling you to leave. If you don't, I'll call the police and let them sort out the trespassing portion of the day. Your choice."
The color in his face darkened as he sputtered. He planted both hands on the arms of the chair like he was bracing for an argument, and I could see him cycling through his options, trying to find the angle that put him back on the side of this where he had leverage.
He opened his mouth, but before he could get a word out, the door behind him opened.
Auden walked in like a person unbothered at interrupting a meeting.
They had their laptop under one arm and a coffee in the other hand.
They were dressed, as they tended to be, in a way that made everyone else in the room feel slightly underdressed.
They took in the scene—Holb's posture, my expression, the general atmosphere of the room—and they closed the door behind them.
The shift was immediate in a visible, yet unexplainable way. The aggressive forward lean in Holb's posture folded back into itself. His hands came off the chair arms. Something in his face went uncertain in a way that had not been there two minutes ago.
Auden tilted their head slightly to the side. They said nothing. They simply looked at him with an expression that was somehow both challenging and impartial.
Holb cleared his throat. "I was just leaving.”
"Safe travels," Auden replied pleasantly before shifting to let the other man out.
He was gone nearly as fast as he’d arrived. All the bluster the man held evaporated like a drop of water on a summer sidewalk. I felt unsteady in the aftermath.
I looked at Auden. They took a sip of their coffee, which did nothing to hide their smirk.
Moseley materialized in the doorway seconds later, because of course he did. Cheyenne was directly behind him with her arms folded and the expression of a woman who wanted answers.
"What just happened?" Moseley looked between me and Auden. "He came in here ready to burn the building down, and he left looking like he'd been told off by the school principal."
"He was told off," I said. "Technically."
"That's not what I mean." Moseley pointed at Auden. "You walked in and didn't say anything and he just—he folded. Who does that?"
Auden set their coffee on the edge of my desk and opened their laptop.
"Holb Nekman has a number of business interests that benefit significantly from certain relationships remaining intact.
He is also not particularly careful about the methods he uses in those interests.
" They glanced up. "Let's say we have a mutual acquaintance who finds him considerably less charming than he finds himself. "
Cheyenne narrowed her eyes. "That is not an explanation."
"It's the explanation I have available. Some connections aren’t for sharing," Auden replied.
Moseley looked at me like I was going to be able to demand answers. I was still too lost in the seismic shift of everything to even consider pushing for more details.
Auden pulled up what appeared to be the contract revision and began reading it as if the matter fully closed. "I have my ways," they said, without looking up. "Now. We have a call in forty minutes, and I have notes I'd like to go over before we dial."
Cheyenne made a noise that communicated her feelings about incomplete information and went back to her desk. Moseley lingered for another moment in the doorway, visibly turning the whole thing over in his head, before he followed her.
I sat back down.
Across the desk, Auden made a small annotation in the margin of the contract. They were acting as if nothing had even happened.
I thought about the question I didn't have an answer to yet: Who exactly had I hired? What history did they carry that could make a man like Holb Nekman deflate and leave without another word? What was the mutual acquaintance situation? Would it affect business?
Maybe this was one of those time will tell situations.