Page 13 of Loathing My Boss
I want to know how one might train a cat to leave a dead mouse gift on someone’s face while they’re sleeping.
Everyone knows Viktor is Ender’s second favorite.
He’s the only one other than Kyran who can call that cat’s name and get a response at least seventy percent of the time.
Even though most often Ender is hanging out with his master, the youngest Bachelor, a dead mouse gift onViktor’s face equals feasible. Untraceable.
I’d remain blameless. Even if it happensevery day.
Google has so far been utterly unhelpful in getting it to happen even once, much to my dismay. But that’s not important right this second.
Making sure I look pitiful, I prompt, “What did you want to talk about tonight, sir?”
Air fills Viktor’s chest, and he plucks a folded sheet of paper from his breast pocket, smoothing it out to reveal a pamphlet he seems to have printed off.
I have never seen the logo printed in the top corner of the extravagant advertisement before in my life. Heading the page, the flowing text forWriter’s Retreatdraws my eye.
Under it,Sunset, WV.
There’s a writer’s retreat happeninghere?
I know about everything happening here.
The man in front of me knows about everything happening here.
Werun this town. Manage the businesses. Curate the neighborhoods.
If I don’t know about something, he’s intentionally kept it from me.
“When did you plan a writing retreat?” I ask.
His head shakes. “I didn’t.”
“How did this get approved?”
“I did approve it.”
I blink at him. He approved it? Without it going through me? Who was emailing after working hours, and why was he in the main email, intercepting things?
He continues, “It’s taking place at Canter Creek Ranch, about forty minutes from the heart of town.”
Yes, I know where Canter Creek Ranch is.Weapprove events there all the time. You know.We. As in, usuallyboth of us. It takes an awful lot of energy to keep my eye from twitching.
He says, “It starts in May.”
“And lasts two weeks,” I add, because—you know what, Viktor? I can alsoread.
I amveryused to the ten minute drive between my apartment and the Bachelors’ sprawling property. A forty minute commute to and from a writer’s retreat makes my nose scrunch. But Viktor wouldn’t be showing me this if he weren’t planning to go.
I’dknowabout it if he weren’t planning to go.
Because, yeah, intuition? It’s a thing. And he has to know—at least subconsciously—that I would have discouraged this entirely if he’d brought it up sooner.
People shouldn’t mark off their intuition. Benefit of the doubt is for strangers who stay strangers—not people you’re close to. People you’re close to you’re supposed to be able to talk about the doubts with and come to reasonable conclusions about.
If you can’t or if you feel like you can’t,run.
This is bad.
