Текст книги "Under Locke"

Автор книги: Mariana Zapata

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Fancy? I bought most of my clothes from the clearance rack at Target.

By the time his words—insulting my clothes—settled into my brain, Dex had already unlocked the front door and let himself in.

Maybe it should have bothered me that he told me to change the casual work clothes, but it didn't. The thing was, I couldn't get that pissed off. I felt resigned and annoyed.

Halfway down the hall by the time I came in, Dex called out on his path toward his office. "There's a week's worth of pictures to upload."

Did I have a clue what I was doing? Nope. I connected the camera to the computer anyway and thanks to my investigative skills—and the search option on the operating system—found where I needed to dump and arrange the thirty five pictures.

That's exactly what I was in the middle of doing when Blake strolled in, plopping onto the couch like they were old friends.

I nodded at his question, not wondering once how he'd found out where I lived before. "Yep. Near Miami, well, really Fort Lauderdale. Miami's way too expensive." It was. It totally was. Completely out of the price range of a customer service employee. Astronomically out of the price range for two unemployed girls, which only reminded me that I should check in with Lanie at some point.

He made a whistling sound. "Always wanted to go to Miami. Why the hell would you move here?"

At the risk of not wanting to be rude, I didn't laugh. "My old job had a lot of cutbacks. Since I was one of the newest hires, they let me go first. I couldn't find another job, one thing led to another, and I thought it'd be best to—," come mooch off my brother? "Come here. Mr. Locke knows my brother."

Blake laughed, loud. "Mr. Locke?" He laughed again. "Call him Dex. Please."

I smiled at him and shrugged. It wasn't like he'd told me what to call him. Plus, with as quiet as he seemed to be, the last thing I wanted to do was piss him off and call him something that he didn't approve of. My last boss had lost his mind if he wasn't referred to as a sir.

Which I figured completely merited the fact that we called him an asshole when he wasn't listening.

"I heard Sonny's sister or something was visiting the last time I went to Mayhem," he threw in.

"Are you... a member of the Widows?"

"No," he answered instantly, his face flushing out of what I could assume to be embarrassment for shooting down the idea so quickly. "I've known Dex for a long time. That's it. I know all those guys." Then he plunged in the knife. "Only heard of your dad though, never met him."

It took such a small part of me to smile like what he said wasn't a big deal, when it still was. Which was stupid. I was too old to still let him bother me. I'd been through too much to care about where he was and who he'd kept in touch with, when he hadn't kept in touch with his own kids.

But it did.

I'd gone from thinking about him once a year to all-of-a-sudden getting constantly bombarded with reminders of something—someone—I'd rather forget.

And it must have been noticeable on my face because Blake had a guilty expression on his.

"I'm gonna get a pop, you want one?" he asked, already pushing himself off of the couch he was on.

Avoiding the awkwardness? I think I liked Blake already.

"No thanks."

He shrugged and was around the desk a moment later, his Meshuggah t-shirt draped loosely around his shoulders, faded jeans sagging, before he was out of my line of vision. It kind of made me feel like an old grandma, dressed in black work pants and an elbow-length lavender blouse that covered all my fleshly valuables.

I just didn't feel like explaining my arm. Everything always changed after The Arm Conversation.

As long as I could keep wearing my longer sleeved shirts, I could put that bomb off for a while.

~ * ~ *

I'd been staring at the screen for the last hour. The notes that Dex had set down almost two hours ago seemed to be mocking me in mute delight.

What I should have done was ask him the day before to explain to me one more time how to work the program.

Half of it had been more than easy enough. Memos, dates, all that stuff I could guess. But I'd already gone through the same spreadsheet twice, and I swear two of the numbers on the balance were different than they had been originally.

Holy crap.

I had two options. I could go ask Dex for help. The other would be that I could look up instructional videos on how to use the accounting program because the Help button wasn't as helpful as I'd hoped.

In hindsight, I'm really not sure why I chose to ask Dex instead of suffering through a thirty minute long video.

But I got up and headed toward his office, feeling that same urge to gag as the day before, creep up my throat.

Crap. Crap. Crap.

The folder clung to my fingertips as I paused right outside of the opened office door. Dex was behind his desk, a sheet of paper spread out where the keyboard had been yesterday. A pencil bobbed back and forth as he stared at the sheet, two fingers pinched the bridge of his nose.

Deep down I knew I was going to regret this. I really, really did.

"Hey Dex?"

Those two Crayola Blue eyes shifted up to look at me. Emotionless. Impassive. "Yeah?"

I had to swallow back the urge to gag as I lifted the blue folder for him to see. My mouth, the traitor, lifted up into a nervous smile. "I'm having some trouble with that program you showed me yesterday, and I was wondering if you could show me how to use it one more time?"

He didn't say anything. That concentrated, undiluted gaze stayed on me indefinitely.

And the babbling kept spewing out of me. "I just don't want to mess it up any more."

Dex's blink was so slow it could have lasted a day. The hand that had been up shielding his mouth while his fingertips pinched the bridge of his nose, dropped. He let out a deep, deep sigh straight from the monstrous caverns hidden beneath his chest and flat abs. "You already fucked it up?"

Triple crap.

I'd smiled at things worse than Dex, so the fact that my nervous smile stayed on my face wasn't a surprise. "I may have messed it up, but I haven't saved my work yet. That's why I was hoping you could help me."

He looked up at the ceiling and closed those brilliant eyes. "Fuck me. Fuck me."

Quadruple crap.

Maybe I should have told him I was sorry for bothering him, but I wasn't. I really didn't know very well what I was doing, and I figured that I was saving him time now by asking for clarification and not waiting till later and causing a bigger mess. Right?

"I already showed you how to do this shit yesterday, girl. I don't have time to hold your fuckin' hand through this, got it?"

What. The. Hell?

Something that wasn't exactly shame or humiliation rushed through me. I wasn't sure what exactly the emotion was, but it left this terrible, sticky layer over my skin.

"I'll show you one more time, but if you can't handle somethin' as easy as that program then I don't think you have any business workin' for me. I need help around here. I don't have time to be helpin' the help, make sense?" he asked in that clipped, sharp tone that could saw off pieces of lumber.

My fingers curled into themselves on their own just as something knotted in my throat. I was a spineless little wuss. Where had this person come from?

I was pretty passive. Okay, extremely passive, but I could hold my own. I knew when to say no. I knew when people took advantage of me. Yet, there I was. Letting my boss get mad because I hadn't mastered how to do something on the first try.

A spineless little wuss that went and sat right next to Dex, the wielder of the verbal whip, and let him show me how to use the damn computer program one more time.

It seemed like the words went in one ear and settled gracefully deep in my memory. I'd just nodded through the entire fifteen minute demonstration, keeping my eyes directly on the screen and avoiding all forms of communication with him.

By the time the impromptu tutorial was over, I high-tailed it back to the front desk to start the spreadsheet all over again. I mumbled out my thanks and tucked my tail between my legs. Embarrassed and a little pissed off weren't exactly my favorite emotions. I hadn't even been able to look him in the eye.

I kept myself busy after that by asking Blake if there was anything I could help him with when he was free. He showed me how to sterilize the bottles they used to rinse off ink. He showed me where all the artists kept their business cards. How to use the thermal fax in the break room. Where the catalogues were for ordering supplies—I told him I didn't know how to do that yet and he grinned, promising that I'd learn soon.

It was close to eight and the shop was dead, Dex still hadn't come out from his office and Blake had disappeared a few minutes before, when the urge to pee struck. I beelined toward the restroom, ignoring the open call of Dex's office as I did my business and closed the door on my way out, thinking of when I could ask Dex at what time I could take a break. I'd brought a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in my purse and—

"Even a fuckin' idiot can figure out how to do it."

The tile floors carried the not-so-quiet conversation down the hall. I recognized the deep baritone voice as Dex's and my stomach revolted.

There was a laugh. His. "I don't give a shit if she's hot. I'm not lookin' to get my dick wet. I need to get shit done around the shop that I don't like doin'," he snickered. "How hard is it to find a reliable bitch to help out around here?"

I froze for a split second right there in the hallway. The words seeped into my pores, rejuvenating my blood cells and apparently my tear ducts as well.

He thought I was a fucking idiot? All because I asked him a simple question?

I wasn't stupid. I knew that. Knew it without a doubt. I hadn't gone to school any more because I couldn't afford it, not because I wasn't smart enough. And while I'd worked for a boss that was an asshole back at the cruise line, he wasn't an unfair asshole. He was simply an overzealous, hardworking asshole.

He'd never upset me though, and here I was. Standing like a pathetic fool that wanted to cry. Then again, I always wanted to cry. I cried when I was happy, sad, excited, and frustrated with life. And I hated it. Especially now.

Because I shouldn't let shit like Dex's skewed opinion bother me. I needed a paycheck like I needed my next breath. I shouldn't care what one delinquent biker thought about me as long as he paid me, right?

Right. Why did it feel like I'd gotten stabbed in the gut, though?

Chapter Four

I checked my bank account at least three times after overhearing Dex's one-sided conversation. Unfortunately, the amount that showed up on my screen stayed the same each time.

Seventy-eight dollars and thirty-nine cents cemented my fate.

I needed gas, I wanted to buy some groceries so that Sonny wouldn't have to buy them again, and I had to pay my cell phone bill in two weeks. None of that was even including the credit card I'd run up on the drive over to Texas when I'd stopped for gas. Did I have a choice? Not really.

The only option I had was to bite back the ugly feeling that continually swam up the back of my throat when I thought of Dex's harsh words. Was this what I'd sunk to? I mean, the universe couldn't be that cruel.

It couldn't be. There was no way that a handful of surgeries had led me to work for a man that called me a fucking idiot. I wasn't even going to touch his use of the word 'bitch'.

Don't cry, Iris.

Sacrifices were necessary sometimes, I knew that. After Dad had left, we'd moved from a house into an apartment. Downgraded the car. Quit going out to eat. And that was all before the universe and all its assurances of having a happily-ever-after went supernova on me. Life was hard sometimes and there was no book or movie that could prepare you for how harsh it could be.

Except maybe that zombie television show where everyone died. That was pretty accurate.

If it were Will who had found me the job, I wouldn’t have a problem shooting the finger at this place and walking out. I knew he’d forgive me if I made him look like a douche bag. He owed me for busting my butt to feed him and keep him clothed for years. But Sonny? God.

I wanted to leave. Whether it was Pins and Needles, or Austin altogether at that point, I wasn’t sure, but the urge to flee was right on the horizon. Why hadn't I just gone up to Cleveland with Lanie?

This terrible feeling of embarrassment didn’t work for me. Then again, I’d made the commitment to work here, and I really needed the money. Like so badly I was desperate to see just one more digit in my bank account balance.

My pride wasn't going to pay my bills.

But finding another job would.

“What’s up, new girl?”

I looked up to see Blake coming into the shop with a brown paper bag in one hand.

I’m sure my smile was shaky because my hands were still trembling. I was nauseous too, and I was still seriously considering bolting. Knowing that Sonny worked around the corner if I needed anything, and that I needed a paycheck badly, were the only things that kept me in my seat. “Hey, Blake."

"You got some lunch in?" he asked, coming to stand right in front of the desk.

Lying, I nodded because it was all I had in me. The peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich I'd made that afternoon was still sitting in my purse.

Blake’s sky blue gaze narrowed a tiny bit as he slid them over what I could assume were my wet, traitorous eyes. “Dex piss you off?” he wondered in a quiet voice.

I had to keep from sucking in a ragged breath because that would definitely set off an alarm, and shook my head weakly. If I would have been paying attention, I would have taken in the fact that he suspected Dex was capable of doing something to upset me. Like making girls cry wasn’t out of the ordinary for that jerk.

But Blake’s eyes were too perceptive. He opened his mouth to speak but his eyes slid passed my seat and he tilted his head up in the direction of the door.

“Sup,” Blake called out, still keeping his spot directly in front of me.

“Slim called in. You mind stayin' late?” Dex. The smooth, rich, melodic voiced dick-face spoke.

"Whatever." My bald coworker shrugged and slid his eyes over to me discreetly, tapping his fingertips on the desk. “You want something to drink?” I kind of loved him for ignoring the jerk that had just made me feel like I was the dumbest person alive.

I did want a drink but since I wasn’t sure what the hell was about to happen with Dex, I didn’t want to take the chance that I’d be mooching off a soda and have to walk my shamed hide back across the street, so I shook my head.

Blake shrugged and walked around the desk to head toward the back.

From my peripheral vision, I could tell Dex was standing just to my right a few feet away by that point. His black shirted blur told me so. Every instinct in me wanted to walk out, but I wouldn’t until he, the mean jerk, said something.

Some small, sadistic part of me wanted to look in his direction, but I didn't.

Will had always told me I wore my emotions on my sleeve. I was a terrible liar because of it. I was wary of looking people in the face when feeling crappy came more naturally than being in a good mood. It wasn’t a shock Blake could tell something was up, but he wouldn’t know what since he’d walked in after the unintentional verbal beat down had finished.

"Hey—," the good-looking ass started to say before Blake saved me from further humiliation by calling out Dex's name a moment later.

The last thing I wanted to do was stay. I didn’t want them to keep me either. I’d been someone’s charity case for half of my life, and I sure as hell didn’t want it to multiply now. I’d told myself I was staying because it wasn't just a matter of wanting a job. It was a necessity. Plus, Sonny was friends with these people, and I didn’t want to embarrass him. Maybe if I could suck it up a couple weeks, and then put in my notice it wouldn’t be as bad as just walking out. Just two weeks.

I could do two weeks.

I'd lived for years not knowing whether I’d even be alive to turn twenty. Two weeks of dealing with an asshole couldn’t be worse than a million other scenarios I'd already lived through.

So even though everything in my heart screamed at staying and battled against my pride, I was going to stay, regretting with every inch of me ever having walked into the damn building to begin with.

~ * ~ *

It was close to midnight when the second to last customer, an older man that Dex had worked on for well over two hours, made his way out with a wink and a “Goodnight, sweetheart,” in my direction. Blake still had a young girl spread out on his chair with her pants down to her crack as he tattooed a Monarch butterfly on the top corner of her butt cheek.

I’d spoken to Dex twice throughout the last few hours. Each time went along the lines of, “Dex, so-and-so is here for their session.” In reality, I wanted to ask him if he’d sold his soul or if he’d never had one to begin with.

But the minute the dollar signs popped up in my head, I forced myself to say what I needed.

I was surprised by how consistent business was. Most of the customers were scheduled in advance but one had been a walk-in.

A brief conversation with Blake had explained more of the things I'd be responsible for. Shop manager duties mainly consisted of reordering supplies—like inks, gloves, jewelry, etc.—filing expenses, paying utilities. Easy things. Dex handled everything else, any cash deposits at the bank, and settled accounts with the company they used for debit card usage.

He and Blake had been busy, and I’d been busy talking to customers about random stuff while they waited. I was surprised by how nice everyone had been—with the exception of Dex's dumb face.

There hadn't been a single biker in the shop either. Weird.

All of this assured me that I’d avoided having to interact much with my boss. The owner. The bleeding mouth sore.

The snot-faced asshole that I only kind-of, sort-of hoped came down with an infectious illness in his private parts. But you know, something he could get medicine for.

I tried my best to keep from replaying the scenario in the office but it was impossible. It wasn't his tone but the words that had seared me.

And each time, it made me want to cry. It didn’t get any easier or any less painful. How the hell could someone be so rude? I didn't understand and I couldn't get over it.

Every cycle had me coming up with different things to call him. A dick. A slimy bastard. A slimy, small-dicked bastard. Right? Maybe he wouldn't be so mad at the world if his pubic hair wasn’t longer than his full-blown erection. God, I felt awkward thinking about what he had under his clothes but it was the best insult I could come up with.

I didn't normally hold grudges. If something upset me, I'd get over it quickly. Being pissed off took way too much effort and stressed me out, and I had no business stressing if I could avoid it. Plus, there weren’t that many things in life really worth being mad about.

Until today.

After cleaning up my desk and logging off the computer, I wiped off the coffee table, and put the magazines and binders of photographed tattoos back where they belonged. I swept the floor by the front just in case I was supposed to and started spraying the frames on the wall because I’d seen people touching the glass several times throughout the day. Up close, I saw that each frame held articles, clippings, or mentions of Pins and Needles, or Dex Locke’s work.

Certain phrases caught my eye even when I wasn’t trying to read the writing. The ridiculously large fonts made it impossible for me not to catch the highlighted statements.

“Art was the only class I never skipped in high school.” The caption was directly below a picture of Dex standing in front of the shop with his arms crossed over his chest. Typical.

“It’s an addiction,” another article screamed.

Then there was the one that had me rolling my eyes. “Can’t get arrested for it any more.”

Blah. Blah. Blah.

I was in the middle of cleaning off one of them when I heard, “Ritz.”

I knew it was Dex speaking. His voice was its own unique drawl of deep and rich. All baritone and rasp. On anyone else, I would’ve liked to hear them talk all day but Dex? I’d be perfectly fine not hearing him talk for, oh, let’s say, the rest of my life.

“Ritz.”

Now he wanted to talk? Ha. I sprayed the glass and quickly wiped it down, ignoring him.

“Babe.”

Jerk. I scooted over and sprayed the next frame.

“Babe, I’m talkin’ to you. Quit sprayin’ for a sec,” he said, the quick irritation in his tone hinting at the fact this man wasn't used to repeating himself.

As much as I didn’t want to, I stopped what I was doing and turned to look at him. He was standing just to the side of the desk, hands shoved into his front pockets.

“Yes?” I asked, keeping my gaze locked only as high as his bare neck.

“Ritz,” he repeated the name he’d used at first.

“My name’s—,“ I started to say before he cut me off.

“Would you look at me?”

No.

Was there a treatment for gonorrhea already?

I clenched my teeth together. “You didn't tell me what you wanted me to do until you guys were done, so I figured I'd clean up. Blake said you would put up the—,“ I started to tell his neck in a surprisingly even voice. You couldn’t even tell I’d been fighting back tears the majority of the day.

“Look at me,” Dex interrupted in a low voice.

Slowly, fighting everything in me that ached from his shitty words, I dragged my eyes up to his.

"Yes?" It was like the words were pulled from my throat with rusty tweezers.

Some indecipherable emotion reflected back at me from his true blue eyes as I grudgingly held his gaze for all of ten seconds before turning back to finish cleaning the frames.

Dex exhaled. It sounded like he rubbed his palms together before speaking. "You gotta toughen up," he gritted.

Oh my God. The first person in my life who I had the urge to punch in the face was a six-foot-three-ish biker that I assumed beat the living crap out of someone and went to jail for it. Of all the people in the world smaller than me that I could have chosen, and this was who I wanted to nail right in the testicles? Not Sonny, or even Trip who hadn't given me the impression he'd try to murder me?

I bristled and like clockwork, my molars ground together.

I need the job.

I need the job.

I need the job.

“Wipe down the counters for me," he added in a low voice that seemed to go immediately against the harsh, no-nonsense tone he'd used a moment before. How was this man even capable of speaking in that kind of tone after the daggers he'd been spitting out earlier?

I nodded and swallowed back that gross feeling in my throat again. “Okay.”

“Yeah?”

I held back my long sigh, keeping my eyes on the title, “Ink Me!” on the mounted magazine while I wiped streaks across the glass. I wasn’t going to argue with him, I wasn’t going to care enough about the fact he didn’t remember my name, and I definitely wasn’t going to let him know how shitty he'd made me feel. In all actuality, this just made it easier for me to want to find another job. “Yup.”

My pride won out because I didn’t turn back to look at him while he stood in place another minute, and when Blake walked with me to my car twenty minutes later after closing, I didn’t look at Dex again then either.

Fuck him. Not screw him, or damn him. Fuck him. He deserved the f-bomb for being such a dick and heaven knows I saved that word for special occasions.

Just because I let my conscience guide me into keeping the job out of respect for Sonny—and my need for some cash—didn’t mean I had to like my boss. It didn’t mean I had to let what happened go and get over the fire he’d breathed for no reason.

Friggin' asshole.

~ * ~ *

"What's wrong?"

Sonny was going to blow a gasket. There was going to be smoke coming out of his ass and ears. I just knew it.

I'd underestimated him my entire life. When I was a kid, I'd thought he hated me because Will and I had lived with our dad and he hadn't, except for yearly visits that lasted until Son was old enough to tell him to screw off. As a teenager, I thought he wouldn't care too much about the disasters that had stockpiled in my life.

But the fact was, he had. As an adult, Sonny had become the most solid figure in my life even if he lived over a thousand miles away.

We hadn't been raised together, obviously. Sonny had lived in Austin with his mom, where I'd grown up with mine in Florida nine years later. We'd settled for seeing each other once a year when I was younger, when my dad would take Will and I to Austin to see Sonny. So I'd never had that typical overprotective older brother situation as a kid until he got old enough to drive himself, and by that time, Dad was long gone.

Sonny Taylor, whose mom hated Curt Taylor with a magnitude that led her to move out of state the moment Son graduated high school, did care for me. He loved me in his own way, and he knew my facial expressions.

So when I walked into his house, still more hurt than pissed off over what I'd overheard that afternoon, he'd caught onto the clues like Sherlock Holmes.

And now I was a little worried to tell him because I'd promised to quit lying. Apparently, I'd run out of get-out-of-lying passes when I didn't tell him they'd found more cells in my arm.

"Iris, tell me," he insisted.

Crap. He never called me by my first name.

I blurted the tiny story out, feeling like a kid again who wanted her mom or dad to make things better.

The words rode a boomerang in my head over and over again. The moment I'd gotten to Sonny's house, it all hit me straight in the solar plexus.

The guy was just a dick. An ass who didn't know how to get past the things that made us all up—the good and the bad.

When I was in the hospital, any of the times—all of the times—I'd met so many people who just couldn't let go of the anger. The resentment. Frustration with the hand they got dealt. I mean, I got it. I did. If anyone understood what it was like to think that life was unfair, I'd probably won the award a few years in a row.

But at some point, you had to get over it. I didn't want to be a bitter old lady the rest of my life.

Now I was stuck working for a bitter, mean, happiness-sucking leech.

"It's not a big deal, Son. Whatever. I don't care what he thinks."

Liar. Liar. Big, fat liar.

Sonny's lips twisted in a way I'd only seen once before. Barely restrained anger hid beneath the thick layer of his red-brown beard. "That fucking dumbass," he ground out. He cocked his head to one side, and then the other. A deep breath blew out from between his lips. "I'm gonna knock his teeth in."

He was being completely serious. So, so serious about defending my honor, I couldn't help it.

I started laughing.

"It's fine." I snorted. "Son, it's really fine. Knock his teeth in another day." I laughed again. "Or maybe once I find another job, okay? Then you can bust all his teeth and his kneecaps for all I care."

Those hazel eyes that were an exact replica of mine, narrowed. And then he quirked a little smile. "His kneecaps too?"

I shrugged. "Why not? Call him a friggin' idiot while you do it."

Sonny shook his head, full out grinning by that point. "To think I used to call you a good girl. My little sis telling me to break someone's kneecaps. You might make me cry, Ris." He leaned forward across the armchair I was sitting in and ruffled my hair. "Thatta girl."

I snorted and batted his hand away.

His face sobered a moment later, his gaze serious. "Nobody talks to you like that, you hear me? I don't care if it's another member of the MC or some asshole on the street. If somebody takes their anger out on you, I'll beat the shit out of them."

Lord. Where had he been when I was fifteen and got made fun of? I pushed the thought out of my mind and nodded, settling in just to make him feel better.

"Yes, father." I gave him a little smile. "Quit stressing, would you?"

By the way his jaw clenched, you could tell he wasn't exactly happy with staying quiet but he didn't argue against me.

"Fine, but wear whatever the fuck you want, kid. Wear a three-piece suit just to piss him off," he grunted. Sonny leaned forward again to mess with my hair until I swatted at him.

He stood up, grabbed his phone out of his pocket and disappeared down the hall that led toward his bedroom, silently.

Wait...

Sonny wasn't the silent type.

"What are you doing?" I yelled out after him.

His answer, "Nothing!"

A minute later, from the confines of his bedroom, he started yelling.

What did I do? I tip-toed into the hallway that led toward his bedroom and tried to listen in. Just for a minute. That was it.

"—the fuck is wrong with you?...She's shy with strangers, Dex. Shy. You think your attitude helps that any?....No. No. Imagine if she was your sister. How the hell would you feel if somebody called her a bitch....Well, that's Lisa. That's not Ris. Imagine if it was Marie...Did you hear me? What if—no. Fuck you, Dex. If something crawls up your ass, don't take it out on her. You act like a bitch—"

I might have smiled. Big.

Chapter Five

I wore my usual clothes the next day. Khaki pants and a white, long-sleeved button-up shirt were my big "fuck you" to Dex. Throwing all those "fuck you" comments around sort of made me feel empowered. Just a little, at least.

He'd taken a long look at me when I showed up at the door fifteen minutes until four and didn't say anything. Neither did I.

My silent treatment—and eye aversion—lasted exactly eight work hours. For eight hours, I managed to dodge Dex during business hours by bothering Blake. We'd only spoken when he needed me to schedule something and when a customer came in for him.

Each and every single time, I’d feel this incredibly nauseating pressure on my neck. It was my body’s wordless reminder of how carelessly mean he'd been, and how he'd made me feel like I needed a tetanus shot afterward. I'd stayed up the night before wondering why it bothered me so much that he thought I was stupid. It was really his fault I didn't understand what I was supposed to do, wasn't it?