The Rule Book (Rule Breakers #1)(20)

“Lainey.”

By the way he was staring at me, I could tell I’d zoned out for a little too long with that fantasy. Is this what long-term dating hiatus did to the body? Maybe I needed to join a dating site, because I’d never meet anyone if I was at work during all of my waking hours.

He cocked his head and looked at me. “Have you been working on Willington’s account today?”

I cleared my throat and snapped back to reality. “Yes. I’ve made three posts and used the pictures from his vacation.”

He nodded. “Good. He’ll be pleased.”

The dog let out a low woof and began pacing around the room. I still could not get over the fact that this beast was in the building. What was this, take your dog to work day?

“That’s an, um, interesting dog you have.” Could I have possibly picked a worse adjective?

He smiled and pointed to the dog. “Lainey, this is Bruce. Bruce, Lainey.”

I’d never been introduced to a dog before, so I wasn’t quite clear on the protocol. Shake a paw? Pat on the head? Doggie etiquette shouldn’t be this damn confusing. This would be one of those instances where a special rule in the employee manual might actually prove helpful.

Rule 652: When meeting the boss’s dog, hop on one leg and transition into a twerk, followed by a flourish of jazz hands. Allowing a polite butt-sniff is also acceptable.

“Nice to meet you, Bruce.” I settled for kneeling down to his level, and reached my hand out to pet him. A set of jagged teeth gleamed as his jowls pulled back. Bruce squinted his demonic doggy eyes and snapped at my hand, but I managed to pull it away before he could make a meal out of my fingers.

“Christ on a cracker.” I pushed up to a standing position and planted my hands on my hips.

“Bruce!” His deep voice boomed, and he pointed a finger at him. He turned to me and frowned. “Sorry about that. He has trouble meeting new people sometimes.”

The urge to blurt out “Yeah, ya think?” was overwhelming. “No problem.” I tucked my hands behind my back just in case the beast decided to take another lunge at me.

Bruce rolled over, and Brogan scratched his belly, the dog’s behemoth paws twitching in the air as a sound that I could only describe as a pig snort came out of his mouth.

A photograph of Brogan with a little girl in a blue and white dress hanging on his shoulders sat on Brogan’s desk. The girl had to be about five, maybe six. Unlike Brogan, she had massive blond curls and big blue eyes. My mind turned to sleuth autopilot. Daughter? Niece? Hopefully the latter of the two. Our first few conversations hadn’t exactly been stellar, and his dog didn’t seem to like me, so maybe this was my chance to make it up to him. Nothing like asking about a person’s loved ones to jumpstart a good rapport. Plus, I was dying to know.

As soon as my fingers touched the frame, Brogan stiffened. “Don’t touch that,” he boomed.

The sudden outburst startled me into fumbling with the frame, and I quickly placed it on the desk with a hard thunk. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I—” I turned around to face him. Jesus. I could not win with this guy. Everything I said and did managed to either concern him or piss him off.

The barest hint of a scowl disappeared from his face within the time I’d taken a breath, but his shoulders were still bunched together, the muscles coiled. “I didn’t mean to raise my voice. I don’t like my stuff touched. If it’s in my office, it’s off-limits. Even pictures of my niece.”

Private guy. Got it. Didn’t like his stuff touched. Wouldn’t be making that mistake again. But I did give a big sigh of relief that Brogan was kid-free. “Okay,” I said, filling the silence.

All righty then.

I slowly moved toward the door, not sure if I’d make it there without doing something else to piss him off. “Right. Well, I should get back to work.”

“Good idea.” He cleared his throat and focused his attention on Bruce. “Tell Jackson that he needs to take Bruce home tonight. I have a meeting and won’t be able to feed him dinner.” He tossed the leash to me and went back to his work.

Right.

I stood there for a few seconds, irked beyond belief at myself that I couldn’t manage to have a single conversation with Brogan that didn’t involve me screwing up somehow. Seriously, why was I even still employed here? If I weren’t in such dire need of money, I’d fire myself and put us both out of our misery.

Bruce turned to me and let out a loud woof, and I clutched the leash to my chest and walked out of Brogan’s office, shutting the door behind me.

I chucked the leash onto Jackson’s desk and made my way back to my own. I still had a bit of paperwork to fill out, enough to keep me busy until after five. But with one client and Jackson hogging all the tasks, that left me twiddling my thumbs for the rest of the week. How was I supposed to prove myself as an asset to the company if I didn’t have anything worth contributing?





Chapter Seven


Starr Media Handbook Rule #425

Any misspelled or grammatically incorrect posts must be taken down immediately. Failure to do so will result in a chain of consequences listed in Appendix A.

The next day, I dedicated the entire morning to the Willington account. Cranking out a tweet for Craig was akin to playing a game of Operation. Every time I thought of using a certain word that was on the list of “words that should never be mentioned” an internal buzzer sounded in my head.