Crazy Girl(48)

“Sorry about that,” Courtney huffed as she plopped down in her seat. “Mike’s mother just doesn’t know when to stop talking.” She rolled her eyes in a dramatic manner.

Deanna shimmied in her seat, sitting up and cleared her throat. We were silently agreeing to drop the sad talk. No need to get Courtney emotional.

“You guys okay?” Courtney queried.

“Yep,” I chirped. “We’re good.”





Tools





Standing straight, my booted feet firmly planted, and my arms crossed, I stared at Henry Coppel, the new manager of training. I was doing little to control my expression, which most likely screamed the contempt I felt toward him. He’d been here a week, and I already wanted to throat punch him. As he spoke, I glanced over at Kegs who was standing just like me, the muscles in his jaw ticking. He was clearly pissed. We both were.

“I want a complete rewrite of the course with new PowerPoints,” Henry asserted as he attempted to make his physical presence more intimidating by deepening his voice and puffing out his chest. Just one good punch, and I’d lay his ass out. “I want it done yesterday. We’re going to get this place running right, boys.”

Boys?

He called us boys?

My hands itched, and I could feel Kegs bristle beside me.

Who the fuck does this guy think he is?

Glancing over my shoulder, obnoxiously looking around the room, I snorted, “I’m sorry. Where are there any boys in here?”

Henry’s lip curled up, almost as if he thought I was being funny, as he cut his eyes to me. “Sorry, Marner. Didn’t mean to insult your delicate feelings,” he snickered.

Oh, he had jokes now.

I let out a haughty and over-the-top laugh. “I tell you what, Henry.” I scratched at my beard. “Why don’t we meet out by the woodline?” His eyes widened in surprise, or maybe I’d scared him a bit. I was challenging him to a fight and he didn’t like that. “I’d like to show you just how delicate I am,” I added when he didn’t respond. Back in the day in the Marines, when two men disagreed or couldn’t get on the same page—maybe because one was just an asshole, or maybe because there were two alphas and only one alpha could lead the pack—they’d fight it out. This wasn’t the kind of fight you see in boxing, two guys with padded gloves in a roped-off ring. This was bare-knuckled, bar-none fighting. No rules but one—the last one standing wins. This type of behavior was “officially” frowned upon in the Marines, but it still happened. And when two soldiers agreed to hash it out and returned the next day with bruised and lacerated faces, no one said a damn word because the disagreement had been settled. I’d met many men by the woodline and more so than not, I’d been the victor, but I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t gotten my ass beat a time or two. And there was no shame in that. It taught me something and made me tougher. The funny thing was, after it was all said and done, after we’d beaten and bloodied one another, everything was all right. In fact, in quite a few instances I became good buddies with the men I’d fought. This method of settling a disagreement might sound unorthodox to some, but it worked. Nowadays, everything was so politically correct, and there were few men with any backbone. The male species had been muted; forced to soften to meet society’s ever evolving agenda. It’s not that I believed all things should be settled with violence, but there were certain times when I felt it was warranted. This was one of them.

Far shorter than Kegs and me, and nowhere near our stature physically, Henry moved and spoke down to us like he had the biggest dick in the room. It’s funny how a little power, a title, could give some men the illusion they were top dog, that they could treat other men like they were beneath them. The fucker was disrespectful, and we didn’t deserve it. We worked too hard to be treated like a couple of knuckle draggers.

Henry looked to Kegs, and let out something that sounded like a laugh. “You have a colorful friend here, Kegs.”

“I wouldn’t call him colorful,” Kegs replied with a shrug. “Just a guy that calls people on their shit.”

I smirked at my best friend’s reply, as Henry shook his head and fumbled with some papers on the desk. He never addressed my challenge. He was going to laugh it off; pretend it didn’t happen because if I was only joking, then that didn’t mean he was a gigantic pansy for rejecting it.

Taking a deep breath, I made an effort to calm myself. Henry’s job was to “manage” the training. But what he was having us do was bullshit. Kegs and I, along with a few others, had worked our asses off on the current scheduled curriculum before Henry was even a twinkle in Morrison’s eye. There had been countless long days and weeks without a day off while we slaved over it. We took pride in our work and wanted to offer the very best product. We may have been employees of Morrison, but it was our name and reputation on the line with the training. What we’d made was good…better than good. The problem was Morrison was pulling back. Instead of letting us train real security, they wanted us to start backing off and being gentler with the students. I’d been pulled in my boss Van’s office the week before because one of the students got hurt feelings when I told him to move his fucking ass.

“I want to see these changes made and on my desk by Friday,” Henry went on, giving Kegs a hard slap on the back before opening the door to exit. “I know you guys can handle it.” When he walked out, I dropped my arms and turned to Kegs as I let out a growl of frustration. Kegs was still frozen in the position. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t have to. I knew what he was thinking—the same thing I was thinking. He was fantasizing about ripping Henry’s stubby little arm off and beating him with it.