AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Brodie
“Mary, please slow down. I can’t understand you. Take a deep breath and tell me what’s going on.” My hotel’s long-time housekeeper was getting close to hyperventilating.
Her hair was pulled back into the severe knot that all our maids wore, and her top lip quivered.
“Mr. Brodie, I saw something in the penthouse suite. It was…terrible.” The tears started.
Christ, what had she seen? A dead body?
But I shouldn’t joke about something like that. People committed suicide in hotels all the time.
“Mary, sweetie, let’s sit down over here.” I put an arm around her shoulder and led her to one of the club chairs in my office. I sat opposite her.
“Oh, Mr. Brodie. I don’t know if I can say it.” She picked at the edges of her apron.
If she didn’t spit it out soon, I’d just go up to the penthouse and see what the frig was going on. In fact, I might was well just do that.
I stood to go.
She blurted out, “Mr. Joel and Miss Pam were in there. Together. Doing…” She waved her hand around.
Apparently, she thought her hand wave was the universal sign for fucking, but no matter. I got the picture. Loud and clear.
I put my hands on Mary’s shoulders. “Thank you for telling me. I really appreciate it. Now, why don’t you relax here until you feel better? I’ll have Trudy bring you some water.”
I was gonna kill Joel.
I flew out of my office and down the hall. Before I barged in and launched into my tirade, I laughed at the sign on his office door.
Joel Fox, General Manager
General manager my ass. The dickhead wouldn’t have a job if not for me.
“Joel, you in there?” I rapped my knuckles on the door.
There was of rustling from the other side. “Brodie, c’mon in, man.”
Yeah, he sounded all cool and shit. Wait till I got ahold of him.
I flew in and slammed the door. Joel was adjusting his necktie. His shirt was wrinkled, and he’d missed a belt loop. Jesus, he couldn’t even hide the evidence. Might as well have been walking around with his dick hanging out.
“Dude, were you in the penthouse suite again? No, don’t answer that. Because I know you were.” I paced the room. “And you’re fucking Pam? Are you kidding me?”
His head whipped around. “What’s wrong with Pam?”
“That’s not the point! You shouldn’t fuck anyone at work, especially not on the premises, and especially not in the freaking penthouse suite.”
He had nothing to say.
“And you gave Mary from housekeeping a goddamn heart attack. You know how straight-laced and religious she is. She’s probably a goddamn virgin.”
I quit pacing and whipped back around toward Joel.
He was trying not to laugh. I hated when he did that.
“Look, asshole, it’s not funny. If the Dickhead Twins found out, I could be in a heap of trouble.”
Joel shrugged in a lame attempt toward support. “They won’t know. Don’t worry.” He had the nerve to lean back in his chair with his hands behind his head. Not a care in the world.
So, I put my hands on his desk and got in his face. “Next time you have the urge to screw Pam or anyone else from work, go to another fucking hotel!”
“But Brodie—”
I missed whatever he said after that, because I was out the door and halfway down the hall. My admin, Trudy, caught up to me.
“What’s up, T?”
“Phone call,” she said in her usual efficient way. I couldn’t live without her. She’d been my dad’s admin for years, and now she was mine. Like a second mother.
“Who is it?”
“Steve and Hardy, calling from Minneapolis.” She raised an eyebrow.
She knew me well.
The Dickhead Twins.
How could so much be so shitty, so early in the day?
“Want me to tell them you’re out?” she asked.
It was tempting…
“Nah. I gotta take it. Thanks.” I returned to my office, glad to see Mary had recovered and gone. One of her snotty tissues had fallen to the middle of the floor. The expensively carpeted floor. Much as I wanted to, I couldn’t ask Trudy to pick it up. So I did.
I pressed the speaker on my desk phone to speak to the W and E of HWE, LLC—Harcourt, Wooten, and Evershire, the partnership we’d formed to run the hotel after my dad had royally screwed over their dads. I was working to make amends and pay them back, but they still treated me like I was a criminal every chance they got.
“Gentlemen,” I said with as much fake cheer as I could muster.
“Hey, Brodie,” they said unison.
I cleared my throat. I hated this part. “Hey, good to hear from you. Say, you guys give any thought to the San Francisco expansion I brought up a couple weeks ago?”
“Oh yeah. What was the deal with that?” one of them asked.
Sure, like they didn’t remember. I’d only been bringing it up with them every time we spoke for the last six months.
“Hardy—” That was Hardy, wasn’t it? They sounded so much alike. “I gave you numbers last week on what I think we could do with a property in San Francisco. The place is a convention and vacation heaven. It’s always jam packed with people.”
“Oh right,” one of them said as if he’d forgotten.
Phony bastards. I clicked and unclicked the clasp on my gold Rolex, like I always did when irritated.
“Yeah, well, Steve and I have decided against that,” Hardy said.
