Chapter 0053
+25 BONUS
Instead of responding, Maria walked the fastest I have ever seen her move over to my desk.
“Mike and I are currently in the cold phase of our hot and cold..whatever this is,” Maria whispered to me. Why?”
I looked around. Elena was staring hard at us, I discovered.
“Not here,” I said. “Maybe we can talk about it at lunch?
Maria narrowed her eyebrows at me. I tilted my head in the direction of Elena. Maria followed the nod and frowned. She did a little wave at Elena with her middle finger. I stifled a laugh.
“Fine,” she said. “It’s not like Mike and I are doing anything for lunch…again…”
“You guys never have lunch together,” I said, confused.
“Uh, yeah, that’s the point!”
She started to storm back to her desk. I shook my head. Maria and Mike had been on again off again for the better part of a year. I didn’t ask about him much because it was so hard to keep track of when they were good and when they were not. And when they were not…Maria got verrrrry testy at the mere mention of him. But dealing with a testy Maria would be worth it if it got me the evidence I needed to keep my job.
“Oh, Maria, wait!” I called to her. Another brilliant idea had suddenly popped into my head.
She walked back over. “Yes?”
I lowered my voice. “Want to mess with Elena before you go?”
“God yes,” she smiled at me.
“Is she still watching us?”
Maria quickly glanced over. “Yeah, she is. Nosey bitch”
“Perfect,” I said, then raised my voice loud enough for Elena and anyone else around to hear. “So yeah, did you hear? Turns out Peter has syphilis.”
Maria stifled a laugh. “Oh, yeah! I hear he’s not sure who he got it from, exactly, but word on the street is that it was from someone here.”
“Gosh, I couldn’t even possibly begin to guess who that could be,” I said, then I lowered my voice again.” Please describe to me in detail how she’s reacting to that.”
Maria looked over towards Elena. “She’s glaring at us,” she says dramatically like a movie narrator. “She knows we’re messing with her…or does she? She’s thinking about it…now she’s not so sure. She’s looking around nervously. She fumbles through her purse. Where is it, whatever she’s looking for?? She dumps the whole purse our on her desk and…ah, there’s the phone she was searching for. She begins typing, typing so fast and furiously and…oh, act natural, she’s walking this way,” Maria said, ducking her own head.
Elena flew past us, throwing a quick glare at us, and made a beeline for the elevator. We burst into stifled laughter.
“Thanks for that, I feel much better,” Maria smiled. “See you at lunch?”
Chapter 0053
+25 BONUS
I nodded, smiling. Hazel, 1. Elena..well, her score was still ahead of mine, but I was at least in the game
now.
I turned back to my computer and jumped. Logan was standing in front of my desk, staring at me.
“What’s so funny?” He demanded.
“I…well, we….” My cheeks burned. I really needed to work on being a better llar.
“If I catch Maria at your desk again it will be an instant termination. For both of you,” he turned and went back into his office.
I sighed.
Hazel, negative 1. Logan, 1 billion.
“Instant termination??” Maria said as we walked down the sidewalk to a nearby cafe for lunch. I had just delivered the bad news.
I nodded.
“Have you thought about taking the Elena approach and sleeping with your boss to make him behave better? Hell, I’ll take the bullet and do it for you,” Maria said, winking at me.
“Somehow I feel like you would be doing that more for you than for me,” I said.
“Aw babe, no! I’m only thinking of you. I would get no pleasure at all from having that firm, firm bod on top of mine,” Maria said, her eyes glazing over. She was suddenly very, very far away from the present moment. I let her daydream a moment before I broke the news to her that we had arrived at the cafe. “Once you cool down, do you think we could go inside and eat?”
She raised her index finger at me and closed her eyes. After a moment she said, “Okay, I’m good. Let’s go.”
She walked to the front door and froze. She put her hands up against the glass door and peered inside. Then she looked over at me. “Is that…?”
“Surprise!” I said in a small, apologetic voice. I gave her a smile that hopefully also read, “please don’t kill
me.”
“What is Mike doing here?” She demanded.
“Well…after Logan threatened both of us the matter seemed a little more…urgent. I need his help. Logan thinks I was working with Peter and the only way to clear it up is to break into Peter’s computer.”
Maria shot daggers at me.
“But good news,” I said quickly, hoping to bring happy Maria back to the party. “He told me he’s missing you and wants to make up.” I smiled again.
“Of course he misses me, I’m amazing.” she said, annoyed, but I caught the small smile she tried to hide. She threw open the door. Mike saw us and stood. He picked up a single carnation that had been laying on
Chapter 0053
the table.
“Maria,” he said when we
not close to the table. “Baby, I’m so sorry…”
+25 BONUS
“Yeah, I know you are. Where’s my apology?” she scoffed. “That for me?” She nodded at the flower.
Mike handed it over. Then he walked around and pulled the chair out that Maria had walked up to so she could sit. He did the same for me.
“Thank you,” I smiled at him. “Mike, thank you for meeting with us on such short notice.”
He nodded, sitting down himself. “So what’s this favor you need from me?”
I looked at Maria, who was busy smelling the carnation, then back at him. “I need help getting into a former supervisor’s computer. He was blackmailing me before he got fired, and I need to get a couple things from his computer to prove my innocence in the whole thing.”
He squirmed uncomfortably in his chair, “I dunno…” He started chewing on his pinky fingernail. “I don’t want to risk losing my job too.”
“Listen,” Maria said, setting the flower down in front of her. “If you do this for her, I’ll…”
She leaned in close to him and whispered in his ear for an uncomfortably long time. His eyes kept growing wider and wider as she spoke. She finally leaned back into her chair.
“Okay, yes, yes! Whatever you need!” Mike, suddenly sweaty, took a long swig of water from the cup in front of him.
I looked at Maria.
“All I promised was to…” she started.
I put both of my hands up. “Nope, don’t need to know.1
She shrugged.
“So, Mike, how’s tonight around 6?” I asked with a grin. For my thing, not…whatever she promised you.” 1
+25 BONUS
Chapter 0054