Chapter 6

“And you need money for tacos. No work, no money; no money, no tacos.”

“Your logic is irrefutable. On that note, I’m starving. Let me go reheat everything.” I pecked her lips and put on my tank and boxers again.

I deconstructed the tacos and heat everything up separately.

“What do you want to drink?” I shouted towards the bedroom.

I put everything back together and it looked just as good as when I bought it.

I came back to the bedroom and she was wearing my shirt. The woman of my dreams was wearing my shirt, her hair mussed up from sex, and I almost had a heart attack.

“Geez! You look hot.”

She grinned at me, and held her hands out.

I handed her the tacos then opened the beers.

“Dude! This is great!” She spoke over the tacos. She was sitting cross-legged on the hotel bed.

“Yeah. Handmade tortillas.”

I sat next to her and dug into my tacos.

“Did you try the salsa?” I handed her the little cup, and she poured the green salsa over everything.

“Oh, god.” Her eyes widened as she covered her mouth. “Mor!”

I grinned, and took a huge bite of my taco.

She sighed deeply as she chewed, looking off to the side in rapture. “I love LA.”

“Wait ’til you get sunburnt or are stuck in traffic.”

“No. This makes everything worth it.”

“Cheers.” She clinked her Pacifico bottle with mine, and we had a different kind of afternoon delight centered around meat and starch for a while until Sully called me later that afternoon.

I reluctantly took the call.

“Moriah. Where are you? Thomas will be here any second!“

“Sul. Our dinner isn’t until seven tonight.”

“Yes, but they’ll want to see you at your booth.“

“Dude! The fair is about to close!”

Suzie gripped my forearm, and I swallowed my annoyance.

“Moriah! That’s what this whole tour is about! We have to be here! Meeting with your–“

“Okay! Okay! We’ll be there in thirty.”

“Thank you.” He exhaled roughly. “Nice to have you in town, Suzie.” His voice was audible through the headset.

“Thanks, Sully.” She shot me a panicked look.

We bust out laughing as soon as I hung up.

“Ooh! He’s going to spank you so hard!”

I snorted out a laugh. “Come on. Let’s go before he starts to hate you too for making me all distracted. You know, it was all Yoko’s fault…” I unbuttoned my shirt off her, and draped it back on myself.

“Please! They would have broken up anyway. At least he was happy before he died.”

She slipped on a sundress then packed a bag of clothes for dinner.

“What?” She froze in the midst of putting her wedges on.

“I sort of rented a bike.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“Damn, that’s hot.” She looked down at her outfit then went to go change.

“We should get an Uber later though, Mor. I promised Sully I’d look hot at dinner.”

“You always look hot, baby girl.” I pulled her into me, and ran my hand down her denim-covered ass.

“Mor! Let go! We have to go!”

“Fine!” I finished gathering our stuff, and we left in a hurry. I draped my leather jacket over her, zipping it up securely. I made sure her helmet was secure too then straddled the bike. She sat behind me and hugged my middle. “Hold on!”

The bike hummed to life, and we zoomed back to the book fair while she screamed in pure delight.

The dinner went as well as could be expected. They congratulated me on the sales of my latest book, and I thanked them heavily for their support.

Suzie was wearing a satin electric blue cocktail dress with a tiny cutout between her cleavage and bellybutton. It had long puffy sleeves. When I was admiring it in the hotel room, I’d noticed the cutout happened to be perfectly placed over a couple of beauty spots, and she had to slap my hand away from touching her.

I was wearing a slim charcoal houndstooth suit that she paired with a matching electric blue tie and pocket square, the perfect shade, same as her dress. We were one of those couples, apparently.

I cringed when I saw her coming with the matching pieces but then her hands moved over my neck and caressed my chest while she fixed the tie in a fancy knot. I melted.

I looked at her beautiful black eyelashes, thickened slightly with her expensive makeup, while she worked on me. Her plump lips were almost a metallic red, and there was a golden sheen around her eyes and high up her cheekbones.

I’d wear a bright green tie with rubber duckies on it if it would make her happy.

I really tried to keep my smugness under control the whole night but it was hard when she was the hottest girl in LA and she was mine.

I kept repeating to myself, “big dick energy doesn’t brag, not even about their hot girlfriends.”

“What do you do, Ms. Kinsey?” Gerard was definitely the most taken with Suzie, and I could tell she didn’t mind him either.

Gerard was the ideal grandpa. Tweed suit, rosy cheeks, and adorable bow tie. Hell, even I wanted to sit on his lap and hear stories about his childhood. I was pretty sure in one of his pockets there were some lemon drops and in another, chewing tobacco.

“I’m vice president of sales for a clothing manufacturer.”

He whistled and his eyes widened. “My! I’m sure you do very well for yourself! I have a feeling you could sell ice to an eskimo.” He winked at her, and she laughed.

“I probably could. Mor and I were a great sales team back when she worked at the company.”

They all turned to look at me while I was sipping on my wine.

“Oh.” Suzie looked at me too.

“I used to work with Suzie.” I clarified.

“In what capacity?” Thomas’ low drawl cut in immediately.

Gerard’s eyebrows rose. “You were a sales assistant prior to being an author?”

“Yes.” I wondered what on earth Sully told the publishing company all those years ago.

“My dear! That’s very impressive.” Gerard seemed more than sincere. There were a few nods around the table.

“Well, I owe the push I needed to take the leap to Suzie here.”

“Ha! For flirting with the boss, surely.”

“I’d like to think it was because I was so damn good at my job.” I grinned.

Suzie smiled at me warmly, remembering those few weeks too.

“Well?” Gerard demanded. “What happened then?”

“Oh, I don’t want to bore you all with the story.”

“Please, we are intrigued now.” Thomas’ sunken eyes and monotone voice made me think he’s never been intrigued by anything in his life.

“Do you mind, darling?” I held Suzie’s hand.

“If you’d like. But be nice.”

“Of course. You can do no wrong, babe.”

Thomas’ wife, Patricia, gave a little warm sigh.

“We were a pretty well-oiled machine after of about five years of working together. And unbeknownst to me, I was in line to get a regional sales rep position offered to me.”

“So, instead, she fired you?” Gerard’s wife, Fernanda, interjected.

“Well, there was more to it than that. I think it started the week of the credit card fiasco.”

Suzie hummed in assent.

******************************

“Hi! I’m going drinking with Gina and Shaina!” I popped my head in to her office to sign off.

“Okay! Have fun!” She said, distracted.

I stumbled at the doorway, knowing that tone.

I walked in to her office a little more and asked, “everything okay?”

“Yes! Everything’s fine!” She said a little too quickly and high pitched.

I swayed in the door, wondering where assistant and friend ended and began.

She finally looked up at me and schooled her face. “Seriously, Mor! All good! Have a nice time!” She waved at me, and I stepped out.

I had a nice night with my favorite coworkers. I resisted the urge to check my work email, but by morning, I had to see what was going on.

A clump of payments for orders hadn’t actually gone through; so, now, we needed to charge our customers after all their orders had already gotten to them. The dates of the orders spanned at least a few months, here and there. It meant a lot of customer service interference, and someone’s head was on the chopping block. I just didn’t know who.

I splurged for the special latte and a few of the new pastries from Starbucks that day, while I planned my day in my head.

Her eyes were closed when I came in to her office, and she was leaning serenely against the back of her chair. Shit. This was scarier than if she was flying off the handle. I placed the latte and bread down next to her, then took my requisite work from the outbox.

I fielded anxious questions from our customer service reps and pretended to be a manager for a few calls. I was pretty cool with the customer service team, and I obviously had the answers to their most difficult questions, working with Suzie as I did. The only question was not overstepping or promising something to a customer that wasn’t warranted. I filtered as many calls as I could and wordlessly set the tone with our team for this latest fiasco. I handled my regular work in addition to the new issue as best I could. Suzie was uncharacteristically quiet.

She would be too busy to be hungry, but part of the job description I put on myself was to make sure she ate every day. You don’t ask her if she wants to eat. You ask her what she’s in the mood for and if she doesn’t respond, you just get food.

I skipped the whole conversation and just ordered a ton of food. I got us a gyro salad, sushi, and the deli sandwich special I like and, of course, she took my sandwich.

I didn’t feel guilty about breaking her diet because it was ultimately her decision. I didn’t offer it to her… She just took it off my desk and munched on it while she spoke to marketing. I ate the sushi and picked at the gyro meat from the salad. I crunched on arugula leaves while I spoke to our customers, having to mute myself, here and there, while they ranted.

Call hours were finally over and we could stop picking up the phone. Everyone celebrated tiredly.

The time after five PM was more for internal office issues, and I got caught up in the list of emails I hadn’t addressed throughout the day.

Suzie sighed loudly from her office at a quarter after eight, and I froze.

I reminded myself that I didn’t need to rush to her side at every sigh, and kept typing.

“Mor? Do you have booze?” Her lovely timbre of voice had my full attention as she approached. It set off bells in my brain every time she spoke, like some addicting pavlovian response.

“Yep! I have scotch, there’s beer in our fridge, or I know where they keep the expensive champagne…” I smiled lightly, looking over her sad face.

“Double whiskey please…” She dropped down on the other side of my desk as I reached down to get my most expensive scotch I stocked for this exact reason. I poured us some then leaned back to look at her. She sipped at it and hummed appreciatively.

“Can we be done, now?” She asked sadly. I knew we still had to turn in the quarterly reports of new styles per our CEO, and honestly didn’t know what to say.

“Today was bad, huh?” I asked helpfully.

She just sighed then slurped at my expensive whiskey.

“Just one more report, darling. Then we’re gone,” I said in my softest voice.

She sighed pathetically as I switched over to the most recent report she’d sent him. As she sipped, wallowing in her exhaustion, I quietly worked on her report, plugging in the data. I knew it better than her, honestly. In fact, I’d taught her most of the excel formulas. She sipped and stretched her legs on the other chair I had, and I typed loudly. I finally renamed the file as she stretched and stood up.

“Okay, fine! Let’s do this.” She pep-talked to herself.

“I made the fourth quarter report and sent to you.” If I spoke too loudly, I feared she would break.

“What?” Her voice was muffled as she walked away, and I heard the clacking on her keyboard.

I heard a faint swoosh, and started packing up for the night.

She was sitting on my couch when I finished.

I approached her cautiously. “Let’s go, hon…”

We took the elevator down. I was a little worried at this point because she was so quiet.

I looked at my watch. 9:02pm. Shit.

We walked to my car, and I loaded the trunk.

I drove us to her house, then she gripped my forearm in the car.

“Stay, please.” Her eyes were soft, and I melted. I nodded and picked up her bag, taking her keys from her hand when she fumbled at the lock. She wandered through the dark house, slipping her shoes off as she went.

I silently considered this woman as I heated up hot water for her tea. I grabbed a beer from her fridge, and swigged at it.

Why was this woman–I thought to myself–who is smarter than me, having to suffer fools like these? I didn’t understand why no one understood how badass she was, and just did what she asked. I mean–we, objectively, made more money and less mistakes when we listened to her. So it should be a lot easier than it was today.