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“What’s the matter?” April asks, leaning forward on the blue couch across from the one I’m seated on. She plunks her mug down on the coffee table and pulls her long brown hair up into a messy bun on top of her head.
I would be dead if anyone outside of my home caught me in a messy bun, and I was sure this was one of April’s three go-to hairstyles.
What I wouldn’t give for that freedom.
“I’m just not sure how I go from the underling to the boss.” True, I’d been CEO of Leads Energy for a few months now, working my way up from lowly intern, to assistant, to, well, more. Until my mother decided she was ready to retire.
Or so she said.
“Has your mother loosened the reins at all?”
In the past couple of months since meeting April, I had been able to confide in her so many things that I very literally could not confide in anyone else. All my other friends had ties to my mother through their own parents and wouldn’t think twice about leaking my secrets in favor of gaining something else.
April knew everything. She was the person I’d texted when I was struggling, the one I begged to meet me for late-night hot chocolates instead of wine because I’ll be damned if I’m forced to drink another glass of wine. I’ve had enough of that stuff from the millions of dinners and events I’m forced to attend on the regular.
“No.” I sigh, sitting up. “And I don’t think that she will anytime soon.”
“What is it, exactly, that she wants from you?” April leans back against the couch, not touching the phone that’s lit up at least three times in the last five minutes, her attention completely directed to me.
“To be her, I think,” I answer, looking at the dark city sky, littered with twinkling lights from the hundreds of buildings and homes. The closest thing we have to real stars in the city… “She wants me to act, react, and be her for the most part. Doesn’t want to hear or understand new ideas or ways to do things. Doesn’t want me to take the company in any direction that I see fit, but the one that fits her vision.”
April scoffs. “Why make you CEO, if she’s just going to keep pushing you to be something you’re not? When she’s still trying to make all the decisions?”
“I don’t know,” I reply, but maybe I do. “My mother is the ultimate control freak and doesn’t know the meaning of ‘retirement.’”
“She sounds very Miranda Priestly.”
I snort at the image. She’s not far off. “Right? Next, she’s going to ask me for the advanced copy ofHarry Potter.”
“Okay, but can you imagine getting to read that before it was released? Like, come on. Those kids didn’t even know their privilege.”
“Yeah, but they didn’t know what it was like to have real parents either.”
Rolling her eyes, April leans forward and grabs a pretzel off the charcuterie board. It’s “sweets” themed, to go with the hot chocolate. “You have to make it serious,” she mumbles. “So, what are you going to do?”
Another sigh rolls through me. “I don’t know yet, but I’m ready for a change. I need one. And sooner rather than later.”
Chapter Three
“I found you without looking,
And love you without trying.”
-Mark Anthony
Warren
I was prepared. Well, as prepared as a mail room slash delivery person could be.
But I’d worn a clean, blue button-down shirt, so I would say that I was doing pretty good.
Greg, the head mail room clerk, was someone who took his job very seriously. When I’d first started this job last year, I had no idea what I was getting into. I didn’t realize how much you had to do to be someone who delivered mail in such a big building, but the list of jobs was endless.
Plus, delivering mail to the wrong person was a huge no-no for Greg.
He pulls me aside and shows me my cart. “Okay, Warren, we’re sending you upstairs.”
“Which floor first?” I asked, knowing that I was being ‘promoted’ to deliver to some of the higher-ups in this company.
