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Chapter 3
Ember
My toes were throbbing when I finally managed to limp to my desk. I glanced up at the clock and cringed; I was fifteen minutes late.
“Ember!” Harold Nickers, my boss, yelled the moment my ass touched my seat. I hung my head for a second and sighed. “Ember, get in here!”
I pushed myself out of my chair and limped into his office. “You wanted to see me, Mr. Nickers?” I asked as I entered his cluttered office.
I worked for a small furniture store in the middle of the city as the office manager. I’d been lucky to land this job, and that had only been because of a single stroke of luck. I’d come into the store looking for a couch for my apartment and witnessed Mr. Nickers firing his old office manager. As soon as she walked out, I had knocked on his office door and gotten myself the job. I had also gotten ten percent off a couch—and I had regretted my decision every single day since.
I’d been here for almost six months and I doubted I would make it another six, hell, with the look on his face, I doubted I would make it to the end of the day.
“You’re late, again!” he spouted. Mr. Nickers was a foul-mouthed man who smoked cigars, luckily outside in the alley, but normally he had one hanging from his plump lips. He wore polyester pants held up by suspenders and plaid shirts. How he had managed to stay in business this long was beyond me.
“I know, sir. I broke two toes this morning when I was getting dressed, and I had a hard time walking to the subway.”
“You should have gotten a goddamned cab then!” He chomped down on his cigar end and ground it between his teeth.
“I couldn’t afford to take a cab all the way into the city, sir.” My palms were clammy, and I brushed them down the sides of my slacks.
“That’s not my problem. I pay you good. How you choose to spend your money is not my problem. You not getting to work on time, now that’s my problem.” He sat up to his desk and leaned forward, narrowing his eyes to try and look evil. He looked like a rat with big jowls instead. “This is your last warning,” he ground out. “If you are late one more time, you’re fired.”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir.” I backed out of his office, walking as gingerly as I could on my foot.
“Goddamned worthless employees,” he muttered as I turned to leave his doorway. Tears started in the corners of my eyes, and I blinked them back. There was no way in hell I would cry because of that asshole—no way.
He could take this job and shove it right up his ass. I sat down at my desk and covered my face with my hands—and then once he did that, I could live on the street because I wouldn’t have the money to pay rent.
Shit! Why had I gone out to the bar last night? If I hadn’t done that, I would have had enough cash to pay for a cab today, and I wouldn’t have been late.
I needed to stop hanging out at the bar. No, I needed to find another job, that’s what I needed.
Going out to the bars to unwind and meet up with people was what kept me sane. If I didn’t have that, I’d have nothing. Who was I kidding? I didn’t have anything even when I did go out to the bars. What the hell kind of life did I have?
A worthless one. Everything in my life was worthless now and had been since I was nineteen. One stupid mistake, and my entire life had changed into a horror show. I glanced down at my wrist and tenderly ran my fingers over the letters inked in my skin, a constant reminder of how stupid I was and how easily life could be destroyed.
“Are you going to go unlock the doors? Or are you going to sit there and daydream all day?” Mr. Nickers broke me out of my reverie with a start, and I jumped up, forgetting about my foot. I winced and hobbled through the showroom to the front door.
What a lazy fucking prick. Even with his big flabby butt and short legs, he could have made it to the front door faster than I could today.
Grin and bear it, just grin and bear it, I repeated the words to myself on the way back to my desk. Normally, for the first two hours of the day, Mr. Nickers and I were the only staff in the building. At noon, our accountant came in along with another salesman.
My title might have been office manager, but in my time here, I had learned to do just about everything, including selling the furniture, which really pissed me off because when I had to go out on the floor to help a customer during a busy time, I didn’t get any commission like the salesmen did. In fact, I had to give my commission over to one of them. Mr. Nickers would remind me that I was salary, and they were hourly. It wasn’t like the hours and salary were any different. We all got paid about the same, well, before commission was added in.
A few minutes after twelve, Adam waltzed in. I glanced at the clock. How come I got yelled at, but he didn’t. He winked at me as he set a cup of coffee and a brown paper sack down on my desk.
“You brought me lunch?” I stared at him suspiciously. Oh, shit! “What do you want, Adam?”
“Hey, can’t a friend buy a friend lunch?” He took his suit jacket off and folded it over his desk chair.
“We are not friends,” I stated bluntly.
“Come on, Ember, we are too,” he sat on the corner of my desk, “and I need a little favor.”
I leaned forward and pushed his leg off my desk, “No.”
“Please! I have this hot date tonight, but I need to get out of here an hour early. Can’t you please stay and cover for me?”
