Page 150 of Positively Pricked
Chapter 50
Instantly, an image of the senator popped into my brain. Much like the guy's stomach, it wasn't pretty. "No." I gave slow shake of my head. "He wasn't."
"Yes. He was."
Against my better judgment, I just had to ask, "Above, or…" I gave a little shudder. "…below his clothes?"
"Above," Zane said. "And lucky for him."
I reached up to rub the back of my neck. "Well, that's a relief."
Zane loomed closer to say, "He's lucky I didn't toss him down the stairs."
Now,thisI believed. A traitorous smile tugged at my lips. "For a minute there, I thought you might."
Unlike me, Zane wasn't smiling. "If you want, I'll track him down, try again."
Now, I couldn’t help but laugh – although for the life of me, I couldn't figure out why. After all, it wasn't funny.
Zane said, "You think I'm kidding?"
"Honestly, I don't know."
But Ididknow that for the first time since meeting him, it felt almost like we were just two regular people – not the client and the caterer, not the boss and the employee, and not even the bastard and the basket case.
I was mulling all of this over when something he said finally hit home. My smile faded to nothing. "Wait a minute, when you said that I couldn't work for you anymore, what did you mean?"
"You know what I mean."
I shook my head. "No. I don't."
Or more likely, I didn't want to know.
Zane said, "Trust me. I'm doing you a favor."
I made a sound of disbelief. "Some favor."
"Are you forgetting?" he said. "Just two nights ago, you wanted to quit."
"No," I said. "Two nights ago, I wasthinkingof quitting. But I didn't, becauseyouwouldn’t have it."
"Yeah? Well things change."
I made a scoffing sound. "Obviously."
"Don't worry," he said, "you'll get a nice severance."
"So you're really firing me? Seriously?"
He looked away and muttered, "Fuck."
"Yeah, tell me about it."
We'd been talking for how long now? Five minutes? Maybe ten? In that short timeframe, my emotions had bounced all over the place. And was it really any wonder? I was getting so many mixed messages that I didn't know what to think.
I said, "Are you going to give me a reason?"
He looked back to me and said, "You know the reason."
