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It was frustrating.
He’d set me up for failure, though I wasn’t certain he realized it.
As soon as the kitchen was sparkling clean and smelling like the apple soap I’d found on the counter, I finally walked back into the living room to find Neil on the couch staring at the TV as he flipped through channels. He looked as miserable as I felt.
“So, you’re going to be mad at me,” he said quietly.
With a sigh, I picked up the garbage from the food I’d brought him and took it to the kitchen to toss it into the freshly emptied can.
“Why is that?” I called.
“I’m going to quit this job.”
I froze, then walked back out to him, staring at his lanky body draped over the couch. “What? What about your health insurance?”
He sighed and rolled his eyes. “It isn’t any good, anyway. That’s why you have to keep helping me out.”
My head throbbed and I was sure it would pop off my body. “No,” I whispered. “It’s better than nothing!”
He shot up off the couch and stormed toward me scowling. “I hate that fucking restaurant. Fancy French food prepared by people who’ve never left St. Loren while Geoffe rakes in the cash. Fuck that. I’m quitting. I’ll get a new job first. Don’t worry about giving me money.” He shoved me aside so he could get out to the kitchen, and I stumbled against the wall.
“That isn’t the point. This is your fourth job this year!”
He shrugged and stared around the kitchen with a sour pout. “So what?”
“So, it looks bad. If you want to get a better job you can’t bounce around. You should stay. Please, don’t do this.” I grabbed his shoulder, and he shook me off.
He snorted. “Last I heard, your job situation was a nightmare. Who are you to talk?”
My face scalded hot and I stomped toward the front door.
Neil laughed. “Run away, you baby. Like you always do when I’m right!”
I flipped him off and slammed his front door behind myself, then stood outside on the stoop, pushing my hands against my bruised ass. The cleansing pain that pinged through me from the mild injuries gave me the energy to get to the bus stop, then to my apartment. I was completely exhausted by the time I was in my own cramped living room, which barely had space for me to walk between the coffee table and the couch.
I grabbed my laptop and fired it up for the first time in a long while, and my fingers shook as I logged in. What had Albion told me to do? Oh, right. It wasn’t anything fantastic. He’d asked me to render the designs they were presenting to a client in a couple of different styles. He had the best one done already, the one they wanted to sell the client on. This was busy work, just to provide some options on topical changes. I let out a long breath. This was easy. I’d done a lot of the work when I was on Xadrian’s team because he’d thought of himself more as a big picture thinker. He was the king and the rest of us were the peons who did his bidding—which meant he hadn’t actually done much at all.
I settled in for a long night, sickly happy to be doing anything Albion told me—especially since I knew exactly how to do this. Okay, so maybe I didn’t need to be so afraid about work. My heart began to beat faster as I opened files. What if he hated this, though?
Shrugging off the nerves, I focused because I could do this. I might be a fuckup in literally every other part of my life, but this wasn’t a mystery. I smiled and slid down to the floor, then hissed, but kept right on working.
As I went through the familiar motions with the file I was signed in to, my access abruptly cut off. I stared at my computer screen and started frantically trying to log back in, but nothing happened. I stared, open-mouthed, then groaned.
“Shit,” I grumbled. “Maybe if I restart the computer?”
I did everything I could. I restarted. I tried to log in again.
Nothing.I kept getting an error screen.
Biting my lip, I grabbed my phone and texted Albion.
Wade: The work network is fucking up.
My lip hurt from the way I’d been furiously chewing on it when I got a text back.
Albion: Don’t lie to me.
Anger scrambled through me, and I was humiliated when tears started to trickle out of the corners of my eyes. Roughly, I wiped them away, then took a photograph of my screen and sent it to him.
