“Thanks for picking that up for me anyway,” she says and goes back to her book.

I smile, but don’t pursue the insult.

It’s already twelve-thirty, and if I’m going to find any wet comfort, I’d better get showered, changed and on my way. Otherwise, I’m going to end up booty-calling one of last month’s rejects, and that’s really not worth the drama if I can avoid it.

Chapter Five

Work, Work

Leila

A couple of weeks have gone, and I haven’t kicked Dane out yet.

That’s not a testament to his improving manners: rather, my saint-like patience.

I’m walking down the hall at the firm right now, hoping Mr. Kidman isn’t in his office.

Every time I pass, he calls me in just to see if I’m going to take him to HR for sexual harassment this time.

To tell the truth, I would—the man’s a degenerate—if I didn’t know he was just trying to get fired so he could cash in his ridiculously bloated severance package. This may be the only situation in which I’m willing to put up with his crap.

I pass the office, but am immediately beckoned back.

Unfortunately, Mr. Kidman is one of my many, many bosses. If he wasn’t, I’d just keep walking and let him use someone else for his little game.

“Miss Tyler,” he says as I poke my head into his office. “You look absolutely fuckable today.”

“Did you want something, or are you just trying to make me think you have a less embarrassing package than you actually do?” I ask.

It helps that I can give as good as I get.

“You know I love it fiery,” he smirks. “Why don’t you waddle that juicy ass over here and pick up this file? It needs to go to Atkinson, so don’t suck any dicks on your way to his office. This needs to go out today.”

Okay, maybe I can give as good as I can get, but this jerk is so far past the line, I almost don’t care that one complaint from me and he’d get rewarded with a check larger than what I’ll make in my lifetime. It’s almost worth it just to have the man out of my life.

This is really a horrible position to be in.

I walk over to his desk and take the file.

“Now, why don’t you give me a little kiss,” he says.

“Try it and you’re going to find the business end of my high-heel embedded in your left grape.”

He just laughs, and I am so sick of it.

I don’t know if he actually thinks I’m enjoying this or what, but I do know that things only got worse when I told him to stop.

My only consolation is that my silence is causing him pain.

“One more thing,” he says as I’m almost out the door.

“What?” I ask; any tolerance I had left now gone completely.

“Would you mind walking out again, only this time with your skirt pulled up above that bubble butt of yours?”

Leila, don’t hit senior citizens. It’s not worth it. You’ll be the one to end up in jail.

Oh, but it would be so worth it.

“Screw you.”

As I exit the office, fully intending to just give up and get the prick fired, I glance back: he’s smiling and pumping his arm in celebration. Getting him fired is what he wants, but I can’t deal with his crap much longer before I come in here and become the latest office-shooting statistic.

And I’m really a very calm, nice person.

I get the file to Atkinson’s office. Luckily for me, he’s always been respectful.

The problem with Atkinson is that he always has a couple dozen things for me to do, and I’m not sure he realizes that I’m still an intern.

It’s not like I haven’t told him a few dozen times.

He tries to get me to make a call to the SEC and go over my monthly numbers as some part of our firm’s latest investigation that I still don’t quite understand, but I have no personal numbers to go over. To make the conversation go more quickly, I just tell him that it’s already taken care of.

He smiles, and I only end up getting coffee for him and half the floor, emptying his wastebasket, calling his wife to tell her that he won’t be home until after midnight because he’s slammed with work and then call his favorite drinking buddy to tell him that they’re still on for six o’clock, water his plants, place his picture of the Great Wall in a more Feng-Shui-friendly position, explain to him yet again that I don’t know anything about money laundering, but reassure him that I’ll look into it, tell him which tie is most appropriate for a trip to a sports bar and organize his stack of subpoenas by date of appearance.

This is my job.

And college was so exciting.

I stayed up every night before an exam to make sure I’d always be at the top of my class. A social life was a concept that I only became aware of in a sociology class, and then only as a study of human behavior. It was never a participatory topic for me.

Now, I’m the office bitch and this is somehow supposed to prepare me for life as a big time broker.

“Hey, Lei-Lei,” Annabeth says.

She’s the only one here who knows the hell that is this job. By that, I mean she’s also an intern.

“Hey, Annabeth,” I sigh.

“Bad day?”

“I don’t know if I remember what a good one is to make a suitable comparison,” I answer. “How about you?”

“Well,” she says, “I tried slapping Mr. Kidman, thinking maybe that would get him to shut his fucking mouth without getting him fired, but that only seemed to turn him on.”

“What the hell is it with men, anyway?” I ask. “I get that he wants the severance, but even in his position, with that much money riding on it, I would never treat anyone that way.”

“You and me both, girl,” Annabeth scoffs. “Smoke break?”

“Please.”

I don’t smoke, but going out on the roof with Annabeth is about the only time on the job where I can pretend like I’m making some kind of a difference.

Annabeth blows out her first puff before we’re out the door and I’m holding my breath.

“Have you gotten any offers yet?” she asks.

“Nothing yet,” I tell her. “I would say that I hope I can get something here when my internship is up, but I really don’t know that I could handle working in this hellhole for the rest of my career.”

She takes a drag. “I know what you mean. If it wasn’t for Kidman, I’d say we could make it work, but sometimes…”

“Have you heard back on anything?” I ask, walking to the other side of her to avoid the cloud floating by me.

“Not a damn thing,” she says. “I always thought that summa cum laude meant I could walk onto any job I wanted. Too bad everyone else had the same idea and we all moved to New York.”

The problem with Annabeth is that she tries to work how she got summa cum laude and I only got magna cum laude into every conversation. Still, other than Mike, she’s the closest thing to a friend that I’ve got in this city.

“Things still bad with your roommate?”

“Oh, you wouldn’t believe,” I tell her. “Last night, he came in at like four in the morning, drunk and knocking over just about everything that stands upright on the way to his room.”

“Well,” Annabeth says, blowing her drag out, “at least he was alone this time.”

“Oh, did I forget to mention that every time he crashed into something, I could hear the chick behind him running into the same thing?”

Annabeth laughs.

“It could be worse,” she says, but doesn’t offer any proof to back the theory.

“I guess,” I tell her. “I wish that just once, something could go right for me in this city. Everything’s so competitive and everyone treats each other like dirt.”

“It’s not the city,” Annabeth tells me. “You just need to get out there and get your freak on.”

“My freak,” I tell her, “is permanently set in the off position. Besides, I think people stopped saying that like ten years ago.”

“Whatever,” Annabeth says. “I have the perfect guy for you.”