Page 4 of The Guy Who Became My Grumpy Boss

“Don’t call me that.” I could hear my aunt’s scowl through the phone. “I’ll take you off my Christmas list.”

“What a tragedy,” I said.

“Hey, I’m standing outside a gift shop somewhere in…” her voice got farther away from the phone, and she yelled, “Where are we, Harold?”

“On Route Sixty-Six,” my uncle answered.

My aunt muttered a curse word that she would never have let me get away with saying as a teen. “I think we’re somewhere in Missouri.”

I didn’t answer.

“And if you keep calling me Auntie, I won’t bring you a present from here.”

“I’m heartbroken.”

“You will be when I don’t buy you this underwear with a map of Route Sixty-Six on it.”

“I’ll never recover from the loss,” I remarked as I started up the steps to the building.

“Of course you won’t.” Aunt Mei laughed. Then she became serious. Even though she was on the phone, the air around me changed. “How are you doing?”

“I’m fine,” I answered automatically.

“Are you?”

“Yes.” I did my best not to grit my teeth as I crossed a street and started down the block to our building.

“What is your schedule today?”

“Busy. I’m between meetings at the moment.”

“Always working hard.” Aunt Mei adopted a thick Asian accent. “You work too hard. You need a good woman in your life.”

Considering she hated all of the family drama that occurred in many typical Asian families, I knew this was a joke.

“I couldn’t find a better woman than you, Auntie Mei,” I said seriously.

“Of course not.” She laughed.

My dad had passed when I was little, my mother when I was ten. Aunt Mei and Uncle Harold had taken me in and raised me after that. They’d always wanted to buy motorcycles and drive all over the country. That dream had finally become a reality, and they’d left a week before.

“Really, though, how are you?” she asked.

I frowned. “I’m fine.”

“You’ve never been alone like this before.”

“It’s not like I saw you two more than a few times a month over the past year,” I pointed out.

“I know, but I worry.”

“There’s no need for you to worry.” I had work, and I had my weekend activity. That’s all I wanted.

The building loomed in front of me, and before my aunt could really get going, I said, “You don’t need to check on me every day. Please call once a week.”

“You ruin all my fun.”

“True.” I’d lived with Mei and Harold for long enough that I knew that they would appreciate me requiring something from them. “However, I would like a proof of life picture of you each day.”

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