AllFreeNovel
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He shifts in place, and the move is hypnotic. Did he bulk up ... his butt?
I knew he did some heavy lifting, but this is ridiculous. I mean, once, when traffic was blocked, he and Brian lifted a fallen maple to the side of the road. By themselves. So, yeah, I get it. Muscle mayhem. But now, his arm bulge alone has his shirtsleeves within an inch of their lives. It’s as if he graduated from bar-belling trees to tanks.
“What?” he snaps indignantly.
I shouldn’t hang on his every word, but I do. Who’s he talking to? Is someone complaining about me? Because I’ve been crushing it. Taking double shifts. All smiles. Amped up like an Energizer bunny. Nobody works as hard as I do, and not just for the tips. I have the Bishop legacy to maintain.
And yes, I may have mixed up an order here and there, or spilled one tiny little kid’s milk. But I fixed every last mistake. And themilk spill Boomerang clipthe kids posted got a ton of love on TikTok. Granted, the putrid dairy after-smell was wafting about for weeks, but thankfully, it’s gone. Almost.
“No. No way,” I hear Mark say, chuckling. I frown hard. I know that laugh. That’s his evil laugh.
It’s the laugh he had when he and Brian set a rope snare and trapped me in it, which, in my defense, I was eight. It was also the laugh that accompanied that nasty bowl of foul-tasting jellybeans and his insistence that girls couldn’t eat them. He knew what he was doing. Throwing down a double-dog dare in the face of the female race. Well, I ate every last one. And whoever decided that vomit and boogers were palatable should be shot.
He also had that very same annoying laugh when he came up with that stupid nickname—
“Choir Girl?” he says with a scoff.
Fire fills my face as my grip on the door handle tightens.
This is the same man who tosses nicknames likebabeorprincessat every walking vagina in town, but for me, I’m simply Choir Girl. I mean, sure, I was in the church choir. And not just because everyone there was nice or that they handed out cocoa and cookies after every performance, which I lived for, but because Mom was there, too. It was our space as much as anyone else’s.
“Me with Choir Girl?” He says it as if disgusted. By this point, I’m already inappropriately one foot in the office and charging straight at him. But Mark doesn’t notice and just keeps going.
“Not with a ten-foot pole,” he says with another scoff, and half of my heart shatters as he goes from being cold to cruel. “Make that a hundred-and-ten-foot pole. She’s too”—he pauses for a moment for just the right word, the wheel in his mind landing on—“Jess.”
Seriously? It’s bad enough that he’s banished me like a dwarf planet in my own brother’s solar system. Why talk about me at all? Oh, that’s right. Because he’s Mark.
I bite my cheek, my face burning with more emotions than I can count. Frozen with indecision—to leave or to knee him in the groin—I blink away my stubborn tears just as he turns around. “Not even if the fate of mankind was dependent on my dick connecting with her vag—”
His mouth snaps shut, and I narrow my eyes.
He hangs up. For the longest second in history, I stare down the first man to make myVow to Hate for All Eternitylist. And that’s not just my period talking.
“Jess,” he says with a huff, annoyed. “Ever hear of knocking?” He walks over to his desk.
He did not just say that.Ever hear of not talking shit behind someone’s back, butt-munch?
My mouth falls open, and I can feel every last one of my freckles catch fire. “Oh, I’m sorry, Your Royal Highness. Is that the proper etiquette? Knocking so I don’t disturb you being an asshat?”
“Asshat?” His steps stop cold. He spins, facing me. “Well, this asshat happens to be your boss for today, Jess. That is, if you were working, which you shouldn’t be. How about you come back tomorrow?”
Is that why Tyler told me to stay home? Because of Mark? When I could’ve used those tips? I feel my anger rise to a dangerous high as I stand my ground. “How about you give me an apology?”
When he rolls his eyes, I poke him in his dumb, stone-hard chest.What am I doing?
His eyes dart to my finger, then to my eyes. “I—” I take a breath, my chin defiant. “I deserve an apology,” I snap.
He edges closer into my space. “Haven’t you heard? In life, you never get what you deserve, Jess. Only what you can negotiate. Move it along, Choir Girl.”
Again with the name?“Make me,” I say in total stupid-brazen disregard for my stand-in boss. But I can’t back down. Instead, I step up to him, toe-to-toe. I’m keenly aware of the childishness of my action considering the man has, oh, I don’t know, a yard of height on me.
My stare-down is feeble, pathetic, really. I blame his eyes. They’re gold now—charged and deadly—like some wild exotic cat I’m stupid enough to be in a staring contest with.
Two knocks chop at the door.
“Come in,” he barks.
“Hey, hey, hey.” Brian’s voice is too familiar to both of us, but neither of us budges. My brother wraps a casual arm around me as if the death-glare crossfire isn’t happening at all. He pulls me back and leans over to Mark. “I thought we had a talk about this.”
