Ishouldn’t have let Brooke talk me into buying these shoes. They’re gorgeous, and when I’m standing still I love them. But when I’m walking? I hate them with the fire of a thousand suns. Which, coincidentally, is what the soles of my feet feel like they’re being burned by.
And it’s only ten in the morning.
“Did you get that?” Trevor angles a brow at me from where he sits behind his desk, redirecting my attention from the unimaginable pain I’m suffering thanks to three-inch heels and bad decision making skills.
“I did not.” I don’t pretend or make excuses. I’m not a machine—no one is—and he needs to get used to that fact. I doubt it will happen today, though. He had a meeting with his brothers this morning, and now is wound for sound and wants to accomplish a week’s worth of work before lunchtime.
Which is actually pretty normal for him. Trevor works harder than anyone I’ve ever met. He gives a hundred and ten percent to everything he does. Busts his ass to try to make McKinley SecuritySystems the absolute best and most successful it can possibly be. Which is great. Admirable.
The problem is, he expects everyone else to give a hundred and ten percent as well, and other people have lives outside of this place. Spouses and children and pets and hobbies. Their whole life isn’t work.
Trevor’s is. And that makes me kind of sad.
Trevor stares at me in silence. I lean back in my chair, knowing he’s about to try to be a dick to me. It’s his default. Part of me thinks he’s not purposefully trying to be an ass, he just doesn’t have time to buffer what he says.
Or the inclination. Okay, so maybe he is a purposeful ass after all.
“You’ve been back a week. I thought by now you’d start to be a little less…” He pauses as he considers his words. “Distracted.”
I almost smile, because the way Trevor speaks to me is different from how he speaks to just about everyone else. There’s not a sharpness in his voice. It’s more of a challenge. He knows damn well I’m not going to take his shit. That I will come back at him and put him in his place. Yet he continues throwing down the gauntlet, which, I have to think, is because he sorta likes it when I’m mean to him.
“AndIthought by now you would have gotten all your fussies out, but here we are.” I look pointedly at the sofa in his office. “Maybe you should take a nap.”
Trevor’s eyes narrow at where I sit across from him, partway through writing down all the tasks on his mental to-do list. “I don’t have time for a nap.”
I make a show of looking over the list on my legal pad. “Good point.” I huff out a dramatic breath. “You’re going to be a nightmare by bedtime.” I give him a smile. “Luckily, that’s not my problem.”
I don’t know who tucks Trevor into bed at night, but I have asneaking suspicion it’s nobody. I wonder if maybe he’s single the same way Tucker was. If so, it makes me question why everyone gave Tucker shit, but nobody mentions it to Trevor.
Probably because they don’t want to listen to him throw a fit.
Trevor leans forward, bracing his forearms on his desk. “You know, most people are nice to their bosses.”
I lean forward too, making my voice as sweet as possible when I say, “If you don’t like it, then you should probably hire someone else.”
It’s a dig. I know it, and he knows it. Trevorcan’thire anyone else. There are very few people in this world capable of tolerating his moods and temper tantrums.
Luckily, I have experience in that department.
Standing up, I look over everything he wants us to accomplish. “This is enough for now. If we put too many more things on here it’s going to become overwhelming.”
There are many things I’ve discovered about Trevor and the way he works. Yes, he puts in an extraordinary amount of time and effort, but it’s not always done in the most organized fashion. He has so much on his plate and in his mind, that it jumbles together, leaving him frequently racing from one fire to the next, barely knocking down the flames before moving on.
My first—and biggest—task as his new assistant, is to get him to a place where he’s acting instead of reacting. I think feeling out of control and overwhelmed is a big part of where his grumpiness and volatility comes from.
Or not, and he’s just an asshole. Which is also fine. I don’t care. He pays me well. Doesn’t micromanage me. Listens to what I have to say. And buys me lunch every day.
Working for him is the best job I’ve ever had.
I expect him to snap over me telling him what we're going to do, but he just nods. “Fine.”
I’m not positive, but I’m starting to think Trevor likes me telling him what to do as much as he likes it when I’m mean to him. It takes the weight of that decision off his shoulders.
There’s also one thing I do I’m positive he loves. I’m not sure he’ll feel the same if he ever figures out what I’m actually doing, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.
Setting our list on my desk, I quickly brew up a cup of his favorite coffee and pull out his morning snack box. While working with him before my ill-fated move to Maryland, I learned Trevor frequently doesn’t eat the whole time he’s here. I took a wild guess that at least a portion of his sour temperament was actually due to hangriness, and after feeding him regularly a few days in a row, discovered my hunch was very accurate.
Now, every night, I assemble three separate snacks for Trevor to eat throughout the day and bring them into work with me. He was confused the first time I offered him one, but I pretended to be confused back, telling him this was something we did regularly in the hospitality business, but that I would stop if he wanted me to.
