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It took me a second to register that he wasn’t going to add anything else.
“Wait… that’s it?” I said stupidly.
Because that couldn’t have been it. Surely there were more repercussions lined up.
A muscle wormed through his jaw before he replied, almost like it was protesting his answer. “That’s it.”
Wait. I’d assaulted the guy, lost him seven hundred million investment dollars, snooped through his stuff, ruined his office, created a mess for him in the media, refused to apologize for it, and… that was it? I was fired?
Something didn’t add up.
Adrien Cloutier was a cutthroat, ruthless shark who ruined lives for a hobby (I assumed), and two plus two didn’t equal pie.
“Wh—”
“Get.Out.”
I bit back the million questions itching at the tip of my tongue and slipped past him, half expecting a swarm of lawyers to be waiting for me outside his office, lawsuits in hand.
There wasn’t. It was just Frankie holding an empty cardboard box.
Huh.
4
It tookme all of eight seconds to clean out my desk.
A pair of noise-canceling headphones, a stale pack of strawberry gum I’d completely forgotten about, and a sample-sized tube of hand lotion. That was what went into the giant box Frankie had pushed into my arms when I’d walked out of Adrien’s office.
He’d been instructed to escort me through the process of packing and leaving. Just in case I decided to swipe a stapler or something, I guess.
“Done,” I announced, picking the box up. “We can go.”
Frankie ticked a brow. “Were you just hired?”
“Nope. Been here two years.”
“And that’s all you’ve got?”
I shrugged. “Never been huge on collecting junk. Hey, anyone ever tell you that you look like a double-jacked-up Mr. Clean?” He had the earring and the silver eyebrows and everything.
“Yes.”
“Cool. You’re better looking, though.”
“I know,” he responded without hesitation.
I laughed and fell into step beside him as we made our way back out to the elevators, ignoring the not-so-quiet whispers and not-so-subtle stares of my former coworkers, two of whom were not so secretly filming my awesome, sparkling departure.
None of them came over to say goodbye, and that was okay.
I’d never made any friends here. Didn’t really see the point. This was always meant to be a temporary gig, just until I could find something that wasn’t… I don’t know. Something that didn’t suck on my soul and slowly turn my brain into stale oatmeal, I guess. That would be a good place to start.
Frankie accompanied me all the way out the door and took my keycard, emphasizing that I wasn’t allowed back in the building and yada, yada, yada. A rep from HR would be in touch with me within the next few hours. That was all I needed to know.
Though I doubted I’d get any sort of severance. They had more than enough cause to justify my termination according to their corporate code of conduct.
I knew because I’d been bored enough on my second day of employment to read the whole thing.
