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Ryan
I groaned like I was digging myself out of my grave. A zombie come to life. A pounding headache. A churning gut. Everything I killed with shots last night was coming back to life.
What time was it? Through slits for eyes, I glared at the table next to my bed and groaned again. Ten a.m. I had so much shit to do.
With another groan that did nothing for the bile churning my stomach, I rolled over until my feet hit the hard floor and rose steadily until I stretched. Nothing went as planned last night, not that I should have expected it to. I wasn’t a good talker. Christie probably hated me for real now. I’d wanted us to hit it off like we did at the airport. So much for that. I made an ass out of myself.
She was prudish, but in a good way. She knew what she deserved and what she didn’t, and she didn’t give in to the whims of who she thought was a horny asshole.
Screw it. Iwasa horny asshole.
Christie was a nice woman. She deserved the nice version of me. But nice never got me anywhere. I was nice to Darlene, and that got me divorced. I was nice during mediation, and I lost the house, the car, and almost lost my kid. I couldn’t afford to be nice anymore.
I trudged to the bathroom to wash my face. The air conditioner had turned the place into a freezer; I shivered with the cold, and within moments, I was as awake as I could get. But my stomach swam with last night’s binge, and I swallowed to keep it all down.
The sound of my phone beckoned me back to the bedside table, where I answered without looking at who it was.
“Ryan, why didn’t the crew show up at Lansing this morning?”
I rubbed my eyes with my thumb and forefinger, lifting my head to the ceiling as I tried to remember what city that was in. “Lansing. Shit, I don’t know. Did you call?”
“Not yet.”
Of course not. “Call them and quit calling me before you make an effort to fix it yourself.”
“Uh... okay then, boss.”
“No, I’m sorry, Missy. I didn’t mean that.”
“Sounded like you did.”
I stared at my feet. “I drank a lot last night.”
“Well, sober up, buttercup.”
“I really am sorry, but—”
“No, no, I get it,” she answered, her volume drifting off, which meant she was looking at another computer screen.
“I’m glad you called, though. I have a couple of big things we need to start doing. And I suck at this efficiency business, so I’m gonna need you to take the lead where you can.”
“Whatcha need?”
I talked to Missy for another hour about looking for an office manager in Waco. Houston would be next, but we were getting so much work in Waco that I needed to prioritize. There was office space in the warehouse, just like the one I was standing in. I already had several crews there, but we were getting enough clients that we needed someone to manage the location. As we hashed out the details, she added a few things to my list that we had to get done before we even started looking.
“Come into the office today, and we’ll line it all up. You’re in town, right?”
“Yeah.” I scratched my head. “I was hoping to look at houses today, actually, but I can come in.”
She squealed like a kid, which was funny since she was in her forties. Over the phone, she always sounded twenty years younger. “You’re finally growing up, are ya?”
I shifted my weight, propping my free hand on my waist as I looked at the clock again. “Why do you have to say it like that?”
She laughed. “Just messin’, babe. Okay, well, tell you what. I am going to work on creating job listings so we can get some of this weight off my shoulders. When you come in, say, four o’clock, you can review it, and I’ll post it. You already have the warehouse and the foremen, and they have their crews. You just need another me out there now.”
“You’re the best. Okay, fine. I’ll be there at four.”
Missy was an old friend of my mom’s; she started working under her for an HVAC company. By the time Missy was the office manager, the place was running like a dream. I should have let her take the reins for me from the beginning, but like she and Darlene liked to say, I tended to be a bit of a control freak.
