Page 8 of The Guy Who Became My Grumpy Boss

“Marissa, Jessica, are you ready?” Danger Zone asked from his doorway.

Marissa was off like a shot. I wondered if her feet even touched the floor as she practically ran to Danger Zone. “Good morning, Peter, how are you?” Her tone was bright. Her eyes, if I could see them, would be shining, and she would likely lick her lips as she pulled away from their traditional hug.

She was the only person Danger Zone hugged. He didn’t strike me as the affectionate type, but he’d never asked Marissa to stop. They’d known each other since their early teens, so maybe that’s why she got special treatment.

I followed, bringing my tablet so I could throw the slides I’d prepared up on the screen in Danger Zone’s office. He was a visual learner, and it kept him slightly less grumpy if he had something to look at.

“This retreat is going to be so great,” Marissa was saying. “Everyone is excited for it, and Amelia has told me she’s expecting this to be the first of many.”

Danger Zone motioned to the two chairs across from his desk. Marissa took the closest one, forcing me to go around her.

“People will be talking about this for years,” Marissa said. She opened her mouth to continue, but Danger Zone interrupted.

“Did you get the agenda put together?”

I hid a smirk. My boss didn’t care for small talk.

Marissa pivoted like a pro. “Of course.” She pulled a tablet from her bag and shoved it at me. “Get this hooked up.”

Danger Zone frowned. “You should have emailed it to Jessica.”

Was it wrong that I absolutely loved it when he stuck up for me? Sure, he’d tossed some pretty crazy projects at me that had equally insane deadlines, but he hated it when anyone else interrupted my workflow or made my life more difficult.

This wasn’t Marissa’s first, second, or even fifth offense. She was saying something about how busy she was and hadn’t had achance to send it. Danger Zone listened politely. I ignored her. It took me a matter of seconds to bring up the file on her tablet. She really should change her password to something besides “MarissaAddams1234.”

I reached for the remote that turned on the wall screen, but it wasn’t sitting in its usual spot.

Danger Zone opened a drawer, drew out the remote, and offered it to me. He did this without breaking eye contact with Marissa.

I took the device, careful not to brush fingers with Danger Zone—because who knows what that would set off—and got the itinerary ready.

Danger Zone’s gaze finally moved from Marissa to the screen, and his frown went from a category one—which was his resting grump face—to a category two, which included a slight furrow of his brows. In an uncharacteristic moment, he interrupted Marissa. “We agreed there would be no trust fall.”

A quick glance at the rest of Marissa’s file told me this wasn’t the only thing up there he wasn’t going to like.

Marissa laughed and pushed her long auburn curls behind one ear. “Don’t worry, not everyone has to participate.”

The category two frown morphed into a three. His brown eyes narrowed, and his lips pressed together. “We agreed on no trust fall,” he said again, this time with a dash of disapproval.

Marissa leaned forward and stretched across the desk. Danger Zone had his hands on the arms of his chair, so she couldn’t reach him, but it looked like she was offering him a lifeline during an actual fall. “Peter, so many people want to do it.”

I barely kept myself from snorting. Everyone I’d talked to said they’d fake being sick if there was a trust fall.

“It’s problematic,” Danger Zone said. “If anyone gets hurt, we’re responsible.”

“The venue is responsible,” Marissa replied quickly.

“We’re responsible,” Danger Zone repeated. “Not only that, but it can also lead to less confidence. If someone gets dropped, it may foster animosity among our employees.”

Like most of Danger Zone’s responses, this one felt thoroughly thought-out as well as practiced. Marissa would try to argue with him, but he’d have enough points in his favor that she would eventually give in. Until our next meeting.

Lucky for me, this retreat started in ten days, and we only had two more meetings about it. Then, at the retreat, I planned to get sucked into making sure everything was going smoothly behind the scenes and avoid Danger Zone and Marissa as much as possible.

Sure enough, Danger Zone had a counterargument for every one of Marissa’s desperate attempts to get her way. Until she brought up Amelia, the CEO.

“Amelia asked me specifically about the trust fall, Peter. I think she’ll be disappointed if we skip it.”

That was like pulling out the mom or dad card during an argument between siblings.

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