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“Well, you fucked up the one thing I asked you to do: show up on fucking time. How are you just coming into work now?” Ryan pulled up his sleeve to have me stare at the Rolex he wore, where I was sure the time of one o’clock was glaring back at me. I knew he was furious, because he looked slightly purple even though he wasn’t behaving any grumpier than he did any other day.
“I’m not. I’ve been working all day,” I replied, plopping into his desk chair and letting it spin me around a few times before he walked over, pulled the top of the seat backwards with his hands, and pointed to the two smaller chairs on the other side of the desk where I was apparently supposed to sit, and then he snapped his fingers at me like I was a naughty little puppy who wasn’t doing the tricks that I’d been taught.
I grumbled and got up to take one of the other seats as he asked, “What do you mean you’ve been working?”
“People can work outside of buildings, you know,” I educated. “It’s the twenty-first century. It’s time to buckle up, Ryan, because this century still has a lot left to go.” I rummaged through my briefcase, which was really just a multi-colored, stiff, cheap bag that was made mostly out of hemp. It made everything smell deliciously of weed. I found a manila folder and slapped it on his desk. “Now, here’s what I got. This dude definitely has something. I’m just not sure what until I get in there.”
“Get in there?” He shook his head. “Nope. No getting in there, wherever this particular ‘in’ and ‘there’ might be. I don’t need to bail you out for breaking into his house.”
I looked at the ceiling, exhausted by him. “Why must we do everything the hard way?”
He looked up at me with a no-nonsense look and chided lowly, “Zazie.”
I rolled my eyes. “Fine. Let me continue.” I took a deep breath and dramatically exhaled. “Lately, he’s been taking a lot of meetings with a few billionaires—which isn’t weird. Maybe they saw Squid Games and are wondering how to set up their own version of that. Who knows? But check it out—his office has been taking calls with two separate mafioso groups. One is straight-up Bratva. Goes by Gregor Drekov. Drekov is the forerunner of getting coke into Russia. And vodka, too, which is weird to me because I thought it was mostly made in Russia? But there you go.” I waved my fingers around the envelope like it was a magic trick, and then I pushed it across the desk to Ryan. “And it’s said that things between them did not end well. Some part of a deal went very south.”
He picked it up and opened it. “You already have art?” he asked, beginning to move through the contents.
“Yeah, well, I know a guy that’s been following Drekov, anyway. Been talking to him all morning. He sent some pics to me in exchange for pictures of my boobs,” I answered, pulling a toothpick out of my pocket.
Ryan’s head jerked up. “Pictures of your boobs?” he repeated like I hadn’t said ‘pictures’ and that I’d had to pull my boobs off and put them into a box and bring them to the post office.
I shrugged. “Yeah. He loves boobs. I offered to buy him a drink, and he said the boobs would do.” I looked up at him, taking in his expression for the first time and seeming confused. “I made sure it was artful.”
He grumbled, very much like a dad who’d just learned his daughter’s first job out of high school was as an underwear model. “Let’s keep that one to ourselves so Zach doesn’t murder me,” Ryan said as he continued to rifle through the envelope.
“Sure,” I said with an easy tone, crossing one of my legs over the other. “Also, I’m getting into his house tomorrow, so?—”
Ryan’s eyes found mine in an instant, his expression stern. “No, you’re not.”
“I’m not breaking in,” I assured, putting up my hands to disarm his concern. “I’m following a friend who’s doing an interview with him tomorrow.”
He blinked at me. “Sorry? An interview?”
“Oh, yeah. One of my drinking buddies works for Business Insider and was going to interview him anyway for this article on Antiquity sales. I said, ‘No way, because I’m actually trying to get some dirt on this dude!’ And he said, ‘Well, if you don’t embarrass me, and you give me an Old Fashioned, you can totes come along!’ And I said?—”
Ryan put his hands out and said, “Please God, tell me that an Old Fashioned in this conversation is a drink.”
I rolled my eyes and said, “Sure, Dad. It’s a drink.”
He didn’t look satisfied by my admittance. “It wasn’t a drink, was it?” he asked with a blank expression.
I stared at him for a long second and said, “Nope.”
There was a loud sigh. “You need to actually make a weekly appointment with a therapist. Whatever you’re doing now isn’t working.”
I wasn’t in therapy at all anymore, and I just shrugged rather than inform him of it. He always made too big of deal of everything. I think Ryan, if he had his druthers and if society obliged, would have just arranged a marriage for me already and I would be working on making nieces and nephews for him and my brother. As it was, I hadn’t had an orgasm since Murtagh had given me one.
It wasn’t the same when it wasn’t Murtagh. Anyone else’s dick could have been an elbow for all the satisfaction I got from it. But Murtagh’s cock… Well, Murtagh’s cock had been a cock. And it had been so close, and so hard… And so deliciously off-limits. Mm. Just thinking about it…
Too bad I had dropped off the side of the earth. It was too awkward to go back to him now. There was no rebuilding that bridge.
Ryan was still looking at me with a look that crossed grumpy and headed towards alienated. He grimaced and stared me over. “Look, Zazie Girl, I just want to assure you that it is possible to have a career without doing any sexual favors whatsoever. I, for example,” he put out his hands as if presenting his body on a gameshow, “took no pictures of any part of my body nor gave any hand jobs, blowjobs, rim jobs, or sex to anyone to get to where I am today.”
“Well, I really draw the line before blowjobs and sex, if that makes you feel any better,” I enlightened him. “Hand jobs and pics mean nothing to me!” I combed my hand through the air. “Nothing. Hell, I could give you a hand job and feel fine about it.”
“Please don’t.” Ryan flatly begged in his gruff, nonsensical way. “Look, Zazie Girl, you and I need to have a chat.”
“Are you gonna scold me again?” I groaned, wincing. I had been scolded by Ryan countless times in my life, and they weren’t enjoyable. Ryan’s scoldings didn’t hold much pizazz in them or funny parts to look back on afterwards. He snapped his fingers and pointed back to the seat, and I puffed out a sigh and sat back down in it. “Lay it on me, Pops.”
