Not Safe for Work(102)

I stared into my glass. I’d lectured my son for ages over the fact that flipping burgers was not beneath him, and that minimum wage was enough for someone just starting out. A few months into that job, I’d sat him down and explained that while burger-flipping for minimum wage was something you just sucked up and endured, the verbal abuse he took from his supervisors was not.

“There are things we all have to put up with on the job,” I heard myself telling him. “And there are things no one should have to tolerate.”

Closing my eyes, I pressed the glass to my forehead. “I don’t know what to do.”

“I wish I knew what to tell you. But whatever you decide, please do it because it’s the right thing to do, not because you’re worrying about the bottom line on the kids’ tuition. Financially, we’ll find a way.”

“It’d be a lot easier to do the right thing if I could see the way.”

“Isn’t that always the case?”

“Pretty much.”

We sat in silence for a long moment. When I leaned forward to top off my drink, Karen didn’t stop me. I sat back and took a deep swallow. She was watching me, but she didn’t say anything. She’d never gotten on my case about drinking—I didn’t do it often, and very, very rarely to excess—but she never liked it when I did. Anything more than a beer didn’t sit well with her. Drinking myself stupid in the middle of the day after bailing on work? Yeah, I could only imagine what she thought of that.

I rested my elbows on my knees, clasped my drink in both hands and pressed my forehead against my thumbs. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “This is… Fuck, this is such a mess.”

“Don’t apologize to me. I’m just concerned about you taking care of yourself.”

“I’ll get it together.”

“I know you will.”

Eventually. If you know what’s good for you. If you don’t want me to verbally hand you your ass.

I sighed, feeling lower and lower by the second. “On the bright side, this is one of those rare times when I’m really glad the kids are out of the house.” I blew out a breath. “They don’t need to see me like this.”

She didn’t respond right away. After a while, she touched my shoulder. “You’ll be okay. It might not happen overnight, but I know you’ll sort this out.”

Well. At least someone still had faith in me.

“Take it easy tonight, okay?” She squeezed my shoulder. “You’re not going to drink yourself any closer to an answer.”

“I’m not drinking for an answer. If I wanted to think, I’d still be sober.”

“Fair enough.” She paused. “Do you want something to eat?”

My stomach lurched at the thought of anything besides more booze. “Not right now. If you want to, go ahead.”

“Okay. Let me know if you change your mind.”

“I will.”

She rose but didn’t move away from the couch. Slowly, I lowered my hands and looked up at her.

Her thin eyebrows pulled together, and her lips twisted with sympathy. “You know, this whole situation is bullshit, but it’s a damn shame about you and Rick.” She touched my shoulder again. “Seemed like you guys really had something.”

“Yeah,” I said into my glass. “It did.”





Chapter Thirty-Three


My skull throbbed. My eyes ached. I never drank like that, especially not before work, but I had last night, and now I was paying dearly for it. Hopefully I hadn’t kept working on my résumé. God, I didn’t send it to anyone, did I? Guess I’d find out.

Sunglasses on and coffee in hand, I shuffled into work about twenty minutes late. The door to the Zone must have weighed a thousand pounds as I pushed it open. I didn’t look at anyone. Didn’t speak. Put my coffee on my desk. Dropped my sunglasses next to them.

While the daily banter went on around me, I dug up as much focus as I could find and made myself get to work. Measure. Cut. Fit. Glue. I wasn’t good for much else today. Just as well there were still some simpler tasks on the current model. Measure. Cut. Fit. Glue. I wouldn’t be screwed until later when I had to fabricate a railing for the exterior staircase. It figured this would be one of those models where the client wanted every detail brought to life. In the meantime, measure. Cut. Fit. Glue.

And think about Rick.

And how much I’d blown with one badly timed kiss.

And how much I never expected this to hurt.

Measure. Cut. Fit. Glue.

“Hey, Jon.” Teagan’s voice nudged me back to the present. “You in the mood for sushi today?”

“No.” My response was flat, bordering on terse. I glanced up at her, mostly to make sure I hadn’t inadvertently hurt her feelings, but the way she cocked her head and furrowed her brow spoke of puzzlement, not offense.

“You sure? I’ll buy.”

I shook my head and went back measuring…cutting…fitting…gluing.

Shortly before lunch, payroll dropped off our pay stubs. I didn’t usually look at mine unless I’d been on overtime, but I wasn’t getting anything else done today, so what the hell. I opened the envelope, pulled out the slip of paper and stared at it.