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I’m broken.
Ruined.
She broke me.
She fucking broke Ty Christianson.THE NEXT MORNING, I STOMP down the corridor to my office, as tense as a wolf in a standoff with the pack fucking leader. I barely notice the groggy face of everyone I pass. My only focus is my mission to make it to my office and lock myself inside.
It only occurs to me, as I’m passing Gina’s desk, that my coffee wasn’t waiting for me when I got off the elevator. I stop, looking down at the back of a head resting on the desk, blonde hair a matted mess. I have to hand it to her, she’s here, even if she’s useless. “Hey,” I bark, prompting my assistant to shoot up in a startle of flailing arms.
“What, where, I’ll just put you through.”
“Bad head?” I reach over and pick up the phone, placing it in the cradle.
Gina groans and drags her iPad off her desk, struggling to her feet. “I have your schedule.”
“You look like shit.”
“I feel like shit.”
“Did you get laid?” I ask.
“No, I got mindlessly drunk and snogged Mac.”
I grimace, looking at my assistant in disgust. She’s way too good for him. “Go home, you loser,” I order, marching on to my office.
“No way. You’ll hold it against me forever.”
I slam my door and settle at my desk, skimming through my emails, making sure there’s nothing urgent before our meeting with the social media team. Meetings on a Friday are so fucking uncool. Especially on this particular Friday. I need today to be over pronto so I can resume fixing my worrying problem.
After tidying up my inbox, I head for the conference room, taking a call from Mum on my way. “I’m playing tennis on Sunday,” she declares. “Join me?”
“You and who?” I ask, deciding that if Ted’s name is mentioned, I’m not game.
“Ted.”
“I’m not game.”
“He’s just a friend,” she insists for the thousandth time. “And he’s a great player. I’ve learned so much since he started training me.”
“Bet he’d like to train something else,” I mutter under my breath.
“What?”
“Nothing. I’ll see you Sunday,” I say, hanging up. I can resist strangling the old fool if he so much as lays one finger on my mother. Because that kind of resistance is nothing compared to what I’ve endured these past few weeks. Besides, slugging a tennis ball across a net a few hundred times might do me good.
When I push my way through the door of the conference room, I get knocked back by the stench of stale alcohol. “Fuck me.” I hold my nose as I make my way to the end of the table, taking in the sea of sorrowful faces. To my relief, there’s no Lainey, and I refuse to ponder her absence. Is she hungover and hasn’t made it into work? She’s actually on a probationary period and we’re totally within our rights to fire her. Or is she wallowing in bed, being ravished by Raul? Stop. “You pathetic bunch.” Who am I to talk? I failed to shoot my load last night, for the second time. Second!
Sitting, I scan the table, noticing Sal is missing. “Where’s Salvador?” Just as I ask the question, he falls through the door. Literally. “Jesus, you look like shit.” I grimace, taking in his disheveled form. He scowls at me. I don’t know why. Maybe because I’m the only one around the table that looks alive. I return my attention to my dying staff as Sal gets comfy. “Lesson learned,” I tell them. “Don’t drink on a work night unless you can hack it.” I ignore the half-hearted filthy looks that get fired at me from every direction and get down to business.I’m babbling for over an hour, just me, with no interjections from any of my staff or Sal. I may as well have had that meeting alone. I watch as everyone wobbles out of the room, my pen tapping quickly on the pad before me. “Lightweights,” I mutter, getting up from my chair and following the stench until I’m out of the conference room and breathing clean air. I shake my head in despair, wondering whether anything I said sunk into their thick, hungover heads. “Probably not.” I head back to my office and start to tackle the pile of contracts that Gina has left on my desk.
At two thirty, I’m thoroughly exasperated. Did Sal even read these? I buzz Gina. “Yes?” she says.
“These contracts you’ve put on my desk, has Sal seen them?”
“I assume so.”
“Then how come not one has been redlined by him?”
“Not one?” The surprise in her voice is warranted. Contracts only land on my desk once Sal and our legal department have scrutinized them.
“Not one.” I have another quick flick through, seeing amendments from the company lawyer, along with suggested changes to certain language, but there’s not one comment from my partner. “I’ll deal with it.” I drop the phone and call Sal.
