Page 25 of Loathing My Boss
Chapter 9
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It’s like looking in a broken mirror…
Crisis
“You seem…” I nudge a few scrambled eggs onto a slice of buttered toast. “…more tired than when you slept on the floor.”
Across from me, Viktor’s eyes lift, the dark circles under them catching the morning light that streams through the main dining hall’s tall windows. Wearily, he blinks, stifles a yawn, and grunts.
My stomach constricts. “Was your…pillow uncomfortable?”
“The dog bed is very comfortable. Shockingly comfortable. No complaints.”
Okay…so why do you look like you’re about to collapse in your oatmeal? Don’t tell me his body has actually become reliant on the green protein smoothies I make for him. That would be terrible—for him. Justifying for me. Proof that I’m totallynottorturing anyone and am just unorthodox in the way Ibenevolentlyassist my clients.
No pain, no gain, and all that.
I open my mouth, to cast light on my benevolence.
“I’m not exhausted because I haven’t had the morning concoctions you make.” He rubs his eyes, downs a bite ofoatmeal, crunching a piece of apple he cut into it. “It’s just…hard to sleep the first night in a new bed.”
“Is it?” I ask. I slept great yesterday. Super great. Last night was no different. To be fair, though, the first night here, I lulled myself to rest by thinking about Viktor on the floor and last night it took everything in me not to wiggle with glee over the picture of his head snuggled up against a dog bed that looks like a cartoon sloth face.
He stares at me in such a way I worry he can see through my terrible thoughts. Maybe he can. He did know exactly what I was thinking a moment ago. At least he doesn’t call me out again, though. He just mutters, “Yes, usually,” and stuffs down another bite of oatmeal.
“H-hi!” a young woman chirps, startling my attention toward a bespectacled lass covered in more freckles than even Crimson has. Red curls frame the woman’s face and bounce when she throws her hand out toward Viktor. “Huge fan.”
Tired Viktor must not be as terrifying as Hurting Viktor. Either that, or these people are getting brave and soon we’ll be swamped with young whippersnappers, eager to touch the master’s hand.
Case in point, the woman melts a little and squeaks when Viktor greets her—by means of lifting his chin an inch higher and stuffing another bite of oatmeal in his face.
“I-I just wanted to say—” She swallows, pulling her hand back to her side and wiping it on her plaid dress “—I absolutely loved your bookDust and Dawn. When Raweina and Prince Lark could finally, finally be together, I died. I just absolutely died.”
Wild. She’s dead, is she?
Yet, she still stands.
Running her mouth.
Awful chatty for a dead person, I think.
She continues yapping. “My favorite scene ever, in any book I’ve ever read, is the campfire moment. Their first stolen kiss by firelight. The regrets that followed. I stopped breathing. The way Lark cared about her while they both fought to save their kingdoms… I just—” She squeals.
Like a pig.
“—I want to write something a fraction as incredible. It’s been my dream ever since I first read one of your books years ago.”
Is someone going to tell her that writing something afractionas incredible as someone else’s work is a wholly attainable dream? Drivel is afractionas incredible, because afractioncan be as small as one one-millionth.
I think girly needs to define her fraction a little more clearly. How far are we aiming here, gumdrop?
Half as? A fourth as?
I’ll be kind and bet you’ve got an eighth in you—with enough practice…and rewrites. Again, and again, and again.
Ugh. I can’t believe I oncewasthis person. So…sobrightand hopeful and hanging onto the great Viktor Bachelor’s every word. I studied his work. Intimately. I diagrammed his sentences to learn their patterns. I, like in every other area of my life,obsessed.
