Page 5 of Big Bad Wolf: B.B.W
His head tilted to the side. “Are you telling me, the owner of this firm, that your eye is keener than mine? That can’t be it.”His smile was nonexistent. “Ms. Clark, do you have free time right now? I would like to discuss some changes that I’d like to see in this branch while I’m here.”
“Oh, yes. We can move to my office,” she offered.
Her nerves were bad. I wanted to laugh, but I made the conscious decision not to antagonize her. She was still my boss unfortunately.
Orion turned on his heels. “Can I have everyone’s attention,” he called out to everyone. “I wanted to celebrate the awesome work that this branch has done, so this Saturday, I want you all to come out and chill with me. I’ll send the details via email. Everything will be on me, and you all can have a plus one.”
Oh, he didn’t realize that he was singlehandedly changing the culture of the office. First, a company funded lunch. Now, this man said that he was going to take us out after hours to chill. Yeah, this was going to be something serious around here.
After the announcement, the office went back to normal. Orion and Sherrie went into her office for their meeting. I would have loved to be a fly on that damn wall. She loved to talk big shit, but how would she handle herself now that the real boss had entered the building?
After a little over an hour and a half after the lunch, Sherrie barged into my office. This bitch was about to get slapped.
“Sherrie, please knock on my door when it is closed. I could be in here with a client or on an important phone call.”
She waved me off before she closed the door behind herself, then sat in the seat in front of my desk.
“I want you to know that I am not pleased with the arrangement of you giving your proposal directly to Orion. In my eyes, that’s skipping completely over me, your boss.”
My eyelids fluttered. There was no way that she was serious.
“Sherrie, that was not a suggestion or a decision of mine. Mr. Leventis is the owner of the company. Was I supposed to tell himno?” I didn’t give her a chance to answer the rhetorical question because I knew she would. “You just had a meeting with him, so you could have told him.”
“I told him just that, and he expressed that he would rather get your strategy raw instead of washed over.” She scoffed. “Then he proceeded to let me know that he would be moving into my office, and I will move in the office next to it. Can you believe that!”
Yeah, that might have made me upset. Sherrie’s office was massive with a full bathroom and bar in it. That was the office set up when the building opened.
“I mean, yes. He did say that this was his new home branch. Why wouldn’t he take the biggest office? He is the owner, Sherrie.”
She didn’t say anything with her mouth, but her eyes told it all. She was sick of me, and I loved that for me. Outside of my success in my career, I lived to get on this heifer’s nerves.
She stood up then put her arms across her breasts. “Whatever. Hopefully, I can change his mind at the little get together. If I can’t do it with words, I’m sure my mouth will still be useful.”
I almost choked on my spit. Nothing, and I meant absolutely nothing, in the make up of our relationship said that she should have felt comfortable enough to say that shit to me.
“That was extremely too much information and unprofessional.”
Once again, she waved me off. “Please stop acting like you and your little homegirls don’t talk like that.” Her eyes were tight while they shifted up and down. “Your professional demeanor doesn’t fool me. Have that report done by the end of the day.”
I should have reported her ass to human resources since she wanted to be funny. I felt offended and sexually harassed. Professional hos always felt like they could say and do anything.I hated it. What I hated more was that this bitch thought her ass was about to roll up on Orion with her piranha pussy leading the way. Why did that bother me? I wasn’t sure just yet, but I planned to find out.
Let’s Celebrate . . .
My smile couldn’t be hidden while I looked myself over in my full body mirror in my bedroom. When I was younger, I hated my size and never thought that highly of myself. In college, a switch happened. It was like I woke up one day, looked in my door room mirror, and said, “Fuck that! I’m the shit!” From that point on, I made it a point to take better care of myself, to really care about how I presented myself. It was up from there.
The moment I changed my thinking, it gave me the confidence to change my ways. When those ways changed so did my level of desirability. The niggas were on me, not just the niggas though. I became a conquest for those white boys too. They wanted my chestnut-chocolate ass bad. I often received compliments about my good hair as if melanated women couldn’t have good hair. I went with the most stereotypical answer, so I didn’t have to go into how telling a woman of color that she had good hair was not a compliment.Oh, I have Indian in my family.
My hair tonight was in its signature messy bun with tresses hanging around the perimeter. My makeup was a flawless glam look. I loved to showcase my natural beauty, not distort it.
Now, my outfit took a little more time to plan because I wanted to be sexy but not raunchy, fuckable but not alreadyfucked. This outing was tricky because it was technically a work outing but not really. When Orion sent the email with the details, my brow took a trip up north. Never in a million years would I have thought that the owner of a multi-million-dollar firm would choose a hookah lounge to have our celebratory outing. It wasn’t one of those high-class lounges either. It was black owned. It had a touch of hood class. This place was not where I thought we would hang out with Mr. Orion Leventis.
The body suit and thigh high boots that I decided to wear said fuckable. The blazer that covered my ass said professional. Yeah, I planned to use every piece of God given thickness to woo me a nigga or two tonight. If I was lucky, I’d leave with one.
It didn’t take me too long to get to the lounge from my townhouse. A few years ago, I went back and forth about whether I wanted a house or condo. I went with the safe compromise in a townhouse. When I told my parents and gave them a virtual tour of my home, they never said they were proud, but they did send me a lot of housewarming gifts.
I parked my car toward the back of the lot. I learned a long time ago in my twenties that you never parked near the front. When fights and shootings happened, I didn’t need my car anywhere near the club for a seamless getaway.
I wasn’t far from the curb when lustful eyes fell upon me. See? I’d been here a time or two before by myself. I was a friendless woman who would rather be alone. When you were alone, no one else could get you in trouble. Trouble was a determination that you made and solely you alone.
