Page 8 of Love's a Glitch
Luke:Some adventures are more difficult than others & some don’t turn out as originally planned. But I’ve never regretted going on a single one. My personal motto (one I stole from the internet) is “If it excites you and scares you at the same time, it probably means you should do it.”
Luke:Not the eye scalding/gouging through. Throwing your coffee at him for being a dick on the other hand…
Warmth suffused me—notcoffee hot, but like a warm blanket wrapped around my shoulders. Downside, Luke hadn’t offered to throw his hat in the redating ring; bright side, he gave amazing advice, and I could use his help to survive this wacky idea of mine.
* * *
On Friday afternoon,I’d left the office a whole two hours early for my annual pap smear. My boss, Marge the Overlord, acted like I was skipping out for a day at the park instead of the most action I’d had in months.
Speculum action was the worst sort of action.
I’d promised I’d make up the work at home, like it wasn’t common for me to put in another hour or two after grabbing dinner. Still, the day had felt especially long, and after the email I’d just received, my capacity to deal with things with a chipper attitude had plummeted.
My fingers moved furiously across my keyboard, the rapid spitfire tapping befitting my irritation.
You havethe same thing in common as most of the guys I date. You don’t know what you want, and yet you’re picky. Like them, I wish you’d figure it out before wasting my time. Seriously, what is it with men and their inability to be straightforward with women?
While it’d been satisfyingto type out the reply in the body of an email, I’d never actually send it to the man who was quickly earning the top spot as the most challenging client I’d ever had. My excitement over taking on the project and the idea of how many ways I could go with it was fading with every exchange. How someone could make selling gorgeous mansions and office buildings I’d sell my soul to work in boring, I had no idea. But the guy who’d taken over the direction of the new website Coastal Luxury Realty had hired me to build was a total stick in the mud.
Charles L. Davis wanted plain and boring, and as I hoped my hot pink glitter skin for my MacBook conveyed, I was more of a make-a-splash gal. When I’d seen the addition of his middle initial, I’d somehow known he’d be fussy. While I was trying to be less judgmental and brash and all that jazz, so many times myinitialimpression was correct.
“Get it, Dot.com?” I said to my cat. “Myinitialimpression.”
She didn’t laugh, but she purred, and yeah, it could have something to do with rubbing the spot between her ears like she liked, but I’d take it.
This was just another example of why, after I built up a decent portfolio, I hoped to branch out on my own. Then I could choose my own projects without my boss yelling at me to do everything bigger, faster, harder—basically all the things you could yell out during sex, but without the happy ending, which wasn’t something I’d had in a very long time.
Perhaps that was why his brisk email, with nothing more than “too busy and fluffy” in response to the suggestion I’d made, grated so much. Did he like the font? The colors? The functionality? Anything for me to go on? Also, hadn’t he heard of the compliment sandwich?
“You could at least mention one nice thing, dude. Or are you one of those guys who thinks complimenting people means losing your power over them? If they’re scared to say anything to you, that’s not power. That’s intimidation, and you’ll never get the best work out of them.”
My kitty interrupted my rant, butting her head against my elbow. She meowed, the sound heavy with an accusation of daring to stop petting her, and I idly ran my hand down her soft fur. She’d been as needy as she was sweet, day one, which meant everything I owned was covered in cat hair. A pile of discarded cat toys sat in the corner, along with three empty Amazon boxes she’d fallen in love with. She now got excited every time a new package arrived, as if she needed another box. The air-filled packing bubbles were also endlessly entertaining. Her favorite was to jump on the bed and pop them while I was trying to sleep.
“Who’s my pretty baby? You love all my ideas, don’t you?”
Dottie purred, and I swept my fingers over her cheeks, lightly tugging on the ends in the way she loved. Bonus, it left her with a handlebar mustache that took her adorableness to a level even I couldn’t handle. She moved closer, butting her forehead against my chin, and I heard the whooshing noise that signaled an email being sent.
My stomach bottomed out as my heart picked up speed. “No, no, no, no, no.”
Ignoring Dottie’s disgruntled squeak as I lifted her off my keyboard, I stared in horror at my inbox. The email I’d composed to get out my snark no longer remained on the screen, and the cursor jiggled along with my shaky finger as I moved to my sent folder.
“Please say it didn’t—” I threw my hands over my face, as if that’d help. “Kitty, you sent it! Why did you do that?” Totally my fault, but I didn’t want to admit that.
Dottie jumped off the couch, her tail in the air as she trounced away from me without a modicum of regret, leaving me alone to stew.
I snatched my phone and dialed the guy’s assistant, praying she was still at the office and could help me undo my mess. She’d conveyed a few messages between us over the past week—I assumed because Charles was way too important to pick up the phone and talk to little ol’ me. I imaged he thought of web designers the same way he considered the maid, butler, and chef he doubtlessly had—we were merely ‘the help.’
Voicemail.Damn it.
My inbox chimed, and I flinched, an awful sense of foreboding creeping along my skin.
Sure enough, I’d gotten a reply.
Please be an auto response, please be an auto response.
I exhaled a long breath and steeled myself the best I could, terrified I’d go to work tomorrow only to be fired. As in-demand as websites were, one would think I’d stumble into a dozen jobs a day. But my side jobs were meager, the pay on the lesser side of the scale, and Dottie and I liked to live in the lap of luxury, e.g. we enjoyed eating, electricity, and shelter. While my kitty loved her boxes, neither she nor I wanted to share one for the rest of our lives.
More than that, I prided myself on being professional. My reviews were stellar, to the point people referred me and requested me by name. It’d earned me more projects, if not an ounce of slack from a boss who demanded more than her employees could physically give. I’d never be good enough to meet her high, constantly moving standards, but it boosted my confidence and fed my belief that one day in the not-too-distant future, I’d be able to work for myself.
