AllFreeNovel
Share Us
This is about to get very, very unprofessional. I turn away toface the door for a second in the hopes that I’ll decidenotto be unprofessional but it’s a vain hope and was always going to be. “With respect,” I begin, and he knows right away that it’s an ominous beginning, “Mr Forest, Sir. What thefucking fucking fuck? This is—I mean—I’m not a fucking dog. I don’t just sit when you tell me to sit and fetch when you tell me to fetch and get slapped on the nose when I don’t give the ball back.”
“In a way, you do. I’m in charge and your job is to follow my instructions, not to second-guess them.”
It’d be hilarious if it wasn’t so awful. “Sorry, did you just sayyes, you actually are a dog?”
“I said yes, you actually should do what your employer tells you to do.”
Why did I think I could get through to him? Why did I ever think I could get through to him? These last two weeks have been a complete waste of time. “That doesn’t mean I’m not—that anybody who works for you’s not—entitled to a bit of fucking consideration and some context.”
“And you don’t think the people who work for me owemethe consideration of doing their jobs the way I tell them to?” He doesn’t even sound defensive. He’s talking like this is the most reasonable thing in the world.
“But we can’t do our jobs if you won’t tell us why we’re doing them. That’s just—Christ, Jonathan, it’s just not how human beings work. If you’d have told me why the budget mattered, I’d have come in under it. That’s basic motivation.”
He gives this slow blink like I’m beneath contempt. “So because you felt slighted that I didn’t explain myself the way you think I should, you deliberately wasted my money?”
“Fucking hell. Your dad was fucking right.” As soon as I’ve said it, I catch the unmistakable scent of bridges burning, and I should probably reach for a bucket of water, not a can of petrol.“Yez treat people like children. Like less than children. Like nobody in the world is capable of anything except you.”
“It’s worked for me so far.”
“But it’s not working for you, is it?” I don’t exactly yell but don’t exactly not. “You live alone, you have no friends, you’ve as good as driven your own family away. And on top of that you’re shit to work for.”
I’m not sure what I’m expecting. For him to yell at me like I’ve seen him do with his family, or just shut me down like I’ve seen him do at work. But he does neither. He just looks—I don’t know sad, almost—sad and stark and drained. “At one point you said you liked me.”
“Yeah well, I made a fucking mistake.”
There’s no coming back from that. But at least it shuts him up.
“I’ll fix the fucking budget for you,” I tell him.
And then I go. I leave the door open a crack so Gollum can come with me if he wants to.
But he doesn’t.
CHAPTER 20
Having told jonathan off for treating me like a child, I go and hide in my room like a sulky teenager.
I have fucked this in so many ways. I’ve fucked my job, I’ve fucked my branch, I’ve fucked the fucking Christmas party, and I’ve fucked Jonathan. Like metaphorically. I’m pretty sure I’ve made him a worse boss and maybe a worse human being. I could probably have come back from dragging his dad into a work argument. I’m not sure I can come back from telling him every nice thing I’ve ever said about him was bollocks.
Honestly, I’m not sure I deserve to.
For a little while, I sit on the bed without a cat, feeling like shit and wondering how it all got this out of control. The plan, I will freely admit, was not exactly foolproof from the start, but I really do think it had a strong basis. And if I’d just been able to keep things between me and Jonathan relatively simple and pleasant, then maybe when all this was done he’d say to himself, “you know what, that Sam’s a nice lad, maybe I’ll give him and his team another chance”. Except instead I got way too deep in his family drama, kissed him, then had a blazing row where I reminded him exactly why he was firing me in the first placeandinsulted him on a deeply personal level. And most of that is probably unfixable. But for the sake of the folk I work with, I need to at leastun-remind him about the firing thing. Which leads me to the inevitable conclusion that even if I can’t unfuck anything else, I absolutely have to unfuck the party.
Doubling down on the rebel teen energy, I sneak into the ensuite—there’s advantages to staying with a man who made his money in bathrooms—lock the door and pull out my phone.
I send Claire an emergency text sayingHelp. Party disaster. We are all screwed.And a couple of minutes later I get a call back from the team. In an effort to be discreet, I plug in a set of headphones and keep my voice down, which leads to the conversation having a somewhat predictable start.
“You’re very fuzzy,” Claire tells me.
“I’m whispering,” I whisper.
“It sounds like you’re whispering.”
“That’s because I am.”
“Can you hear us, Sam?” This is Amjad. “Say if you can hear us.”
“I can hear you. I’m whispering.”
