Those handful of words already had her off her game and set the tone for something she knew would shift her entire relationship to her job and to herself.
“How’s, uh...lovely Detroit there? You having fun in Motown?” She kept her voice as light as possible because if she didn’t she’d end up talking to him in a sultry, sexy tone that would systematically destroy every shred of feminist belief that she had held for most of her life.
“Detroit was...interesting,” his voice dropped to a low, threatening tone. and she felt her abs curl in, her body go on alert, the steady warmth that had begun to spread turning into a sudden, shattering tingle.
“Interesting. Glad to hear it. You’re there for a couple days, right?”
“No, actually I’m back in Boston.”
“That was fast. How did you manage that?”
“I have my ways.” Oh, this conversation was not going well. What had she done? She thought it would be funny, really, to pick the seediest part of Detroit, the cheapest possible ways of booking his trip, and had done so with great gusto, from declining to add car insurance to his rental car to picking the tiniest, cheapest option available, to choosing some motel that – who knew why – only cost $39.95 a night. What had he experienced? She knew that this was going to be something she would pay for, but hey – Matt was the one who said that they needed to economize so if anybody was going to pay for anything, it needed to be as cheap as possible, right?
His teeth were gritted; she could hear it in his voice as he said, “I saw some lovely sights in Detroit. Let’s just say I got the insider's tour and was able to spend a not inconsiderable amount of time among real Detroit-ers. I gained a healthy appreciation for government in the Motor City.”
What the hell did that mean? “Matt,” she said, clearing her throat, trying to work the nervousness out of her voice. Keep it professional Lydia, she told herself. “I was very careful in booking your travel. I looked up the rental car company, the airline, and the hotel on major social media sites and found that they met the criteria you laid out for me.”
“I can hear what you’re stepping in there, Lydia,” he responded.
Silence. “What do you mean?” she asked, not just playing dumb on purpose at this point. She was genuinely perplexed and wondered why he seemed so angry, and yet cagey. He wasn’t telling her what had happened or why he was calling her at 6:20 in the morning at home. Dave never called her at home, ever. There’s no such thing as an emergency for an administrative assistant. That kind of crap might happen at the executive level, but this? This was invading her personal life on a level that wasn’t fair.
A call at home should have come with an invitation for a date attached.
Not a reprimand.
“You booked me in coach, first of all.”
“Yes, the tickets were only $217. Isn’t that fabulous for our budget?”
“I flew Boston to Minneapolis to Dallas to Detroit, for fuck's sake.”
“Oh. Too many legs?” She bit her cheek to stop from laughing.
“I sat in someone else’s body fluids for the entire first leg of the trip. They nearly threw me off of the plane when I put up a fuss.”
“Why would you sit in someone else’s body fluids?” Silence.
“Why would you book me on a plane that would involve my sitting in body fluids?”
The man was impossible. “We could go around in circles on this one but I don’t see how it’s my fault that someone might have bled, peed, uh...something more intimate on your seat. Why didn't you didn’t just change seats or catch another flight?”
A ragged sigh was his response. A simmer started to bubble over in her. Bournham Industries had a very tight policy about how much money could be allocated to each section of the trip itself, from a per diem for your breakfast right down to the amount of a taxicab they would cover. She didn’t feel like going into all the specifics with him, but if he pushed her, she certainly would. She could administrate him to death verbally if that’s what this was going to take, but none of this was her fault.
The glee she felt, though, was all hers to enjoy. Following the rules had paid off in its own sneaky little way.
“And then there’s the car.”
“Yes. I got a great deal on a nice, local place.”
“It was the size of a coffin on wheels,” he barked.
“Really? You’ve been in a coffin before?” Keeping her voice chipper was the hardest part.
“Lydia.” That voice, again, as if he were correcting a naughty girl. She decided to throw it right back at him.
“Matt.” She could hear his breathing intensify on the phone. What was the point of all of this, she wondered. Why was he calling? They'd be at work in an hour and a half. “I trust you got great mileage efficiency on that car, thus saving our department even more money on gas and commuting costs for you during your trip.”
Officious. Officious, officious, officious. She was going to play her game, not his. She checked her mascara in the mirror, putting her phone on speaker.
“Did you just put me on speaker?” he asked.
“Yes, is that a problem?”
“Is someone else in the room?” An accusation, tinged by worry, came through loud and clear. What if there was? What if she'd gone to a bar and picked up a guy or two (Jeremy and Michael Bournham) and had them here at home still? Applying a thin line of eye liner, she paused a few beats before answering.
“No.” Why should you care? she thought. But he did. And it thrilled her much more than she wished it did. Blusher seemed redundant – her face burned, pink and eager, as she checked herself out in the mirror.
“Okay.” Dammit. She had just given him information about herself. Now he knew she lived alone, or was he fishing? Was that just a question? She was way, way, way out of her element. And why was he grilling her about the trip.
“And let’s talk about the hotel.”
“Yes! An Embassy Suites for only $39.95.”
“Did you check the spelling of Embassy Suites? They spell it S-W-E-E-T-S.”
Suppressed snicker. “It got perfectly fine reviews on travel social media sites and it was the lowest priced hotel in the entire metro-Detroit area.”
“That doesn’t come as a surprise,” he said dryly.
“One of the reasons I picked it,” she said, disingenuous with great intent, “was that it said – I don’t remember the exact wording but something about the place – that ‘Sunshine brought a smile to his face’. Isn’t that fabulous? I thought ‘that’s the place for Matt’ when he goes on his travels. Saves Bournham Industries money, close to the client and lots of sunshine.”
“Sunshine is the name of the local prostitute.”
She covered her mouth to stifle a laugh. “I see.” Lowering her voice, she said in a whisper, “You know you can't bill that cost to your expense account, right?”
Click. Motherfucker! Did he just hang up on her? No way. Who the hell did he think he was? Mister alpha male strutting his stuff, ordering her around, calling her at home, invading her personal life and – ugh! Lydia just couldn’t get her swirling mess of emotions about him to calm down long enough to figure out whether he pissed her off or turned her on –
Or both.
She had clearly hit a nerve, though, because whatever had happened on that trip had happened as a result of following what he told her to the absolute letter of the law. The entire two-night business trip cost less than $400. Some bean counter in accounting was going to be overjoyed at coming about $750 under the allocated travel expense budget.
Michael Bournham should be pleased, right?
She suppressed a sly smile and then realized she didn't have to; she was alone and let her face spread with a giant grin, the woman in the mirror closer to the Lydia she’d been a few days ago. She missed that Lydia. The go-getter. The one who busted her ass to try to prove herself, not just for the sake of proving herself, but because it was the right thing to do.
Because it was an internal drive that pushed her to new places.
Like threesome dreams.
When he got to the part about Sunshine, Jeremy was laughing. By the time he described Bernie, that man was prostrate on the ground, face-up, like a turtle on meth. The pièce de résistance with Mike describing the feeling of being pressed against the hood of a sprite can, his face smashed in a bum’s urine, stopped Jeremy’s laugh cold.
He looked up and said, “The exact same thing happened to me in Bangkok once.”
“I can’t one up you on anything, can I?”
“You’re about to be a billionaire, so I have to give you that.”
Mike grinned. “Yeah, I am. As long as I get this reality television thing out of the way and then I can focus.” Once again, Jeremy had surprised him in the office, but by now his presence seemed accepted. Matt Jones had a friend, and it gave him some street cred. Made him more human. No connection between Michael Bournham and Jeremy had been detected, so the triable of Mike to Matt to Jeremy wasn't a concern.
“Lydia did that to you? She really bested you?” Jeremy seemed pleased. A little too pleased. There was a puckish quality to Jeremy, an impish, almost childlike attitude that practical jokes, goofy scenarios, and embarrassment were the highest art form. Especially when Mike was the victim. It wasn’t malicious and never mean-spirited – just good clean fun that Jeremy enjoyed. He was a great fan of Judd Apatow movies and the old 90’s film, Dumb and Dumber, was for Jeremy, celebrated the way people considered Fellini a master. For him, it was the Farrelly brothers.
As Mike described his slimy, seedy, horrific experience in Detroit, complete with Dom rescuing him, and later stopping at a drugstore so he could buy lice shampoo, Jeremy practically clapped and begged for Mike to describe Sunshine once more.
“Sunshine? Her name is Sunshine?”
“Yeah,” Mike said. “She was quite a ray of something.”
“And you were arrested because...?”
“That’s the part that I don't understand, but when your face is smashed in a bum's urine by Detroit's finest, you don't ask questions. Dom saved me. Good old Dom.” Mike had sent Dom to rescue Jeremy a few times, mostly from bars in the college zone where Jeremy targeted barely legal women. If there was a Mardi Gras celebration, a g*y pride parade celebration – a party of any kind – you’d find Jeremy at the heart of it, the guy drunk and covered in vomit the next day. Sort of a cross between Charlie from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Otter from Animal House, Jeremy was Mr. Fun to Mike's Mr. Decent. How in the everloving hell Jeremy managed to pull off a combo of those two mystified Mike.
But he’d been a hard worker – smart, suave, extremely analytical, and just a little bit unpredictably whacked. When they’d cashed out their stock from the sale of the start-up – and who knew writing reviews about local businesses would turn out to be a multi-billion dollar set up? – leaving hundreds of millionaires of the original post-college, lean and mean founding staff, Jeremy had taken to a life of fun while Mike had taken to a life of sticking his nose to the grindstone.