Page 37 of All Superheroes Need PR
“He’s not a good Clark. You know, you don’t have to go, but I will say ...”
“Don’t be shy, Margie. Just tell her.” Garrison is grinning over at me, the natural curve of his cheeks turning his eyes into crescent moons.He looks as giddy as I feel about our newest team member, and that makes me decidedly nervous.
“What?”
“Somebody’s got a crush on you,” Garrison says, making his voice go up and down in a way I definitely don’t enjoy.
Vanya throws a pen at him. It hits him in the chest. “What are you, five?”
Margerie is laughing and shaking her head as she resumes her seat at the table with them. She opens her computer, all of her actions way, way too casual.Waytoo casual. Way, way,waytoo ... “The Wyvern was in a piss-poor mood at the office this morning, but he did come in early. At seven.” Margerie yawns.
“What did he want?” I stammer, annoyed that she’s being so vague and keeping me in suspense.
“He wanted to talk to us about the reporters responsible for your fall yesterday ...”
“We had to tell him that it wasn’t okay to melt people’s organs,” Garrison adds. “Did you know he could do that?”
Vanya shrugs, staring at her screen. “Sounds cool. I’d have given him the go-ahead.”
“Luckily for the reporters, the rest of us talked some sense into him. Hewaspissed though,” Margerie says, looking at me quickly, then away.
“So ...” I should be doing work or at least eating the breakfast burrito Margerie brought, but my laptop is still sitting open, screen black, on the ottoman, the burrito still wrapped sitting beside it. I reach for the coffee, still hot, and wrap my hands around it. I hold it under my lips as I lean back into the pillows stacked on the arm of the couch behind me. It’s not a Viennese, is the thing I notice on my first sip.
“At the end of the meeting, before he left to meet with design, he asked the women at the table what they liked from their partners when they’d fucked up,” Vanya says. “We told him we like melted organs as a sign of affection. Ideally wrapped in black bows ...”
“Wetoldhim that there wasn’t a one-size-fits-all approach, but that if he messed up with a woman, he should try talking to her about it,” Margerie adds. I sip on my coffee hurriedly, because when Margerie looks at me, she sees straight through me. “And if the woman in question isn’t exactly a talker, then he could try a nice gesture.”
“I told him diamonds. Or a car. Can’t go wrong with shiny stuff.” I snort at Garrison’s response and shake my head.
“I’m not sure all stuff is fixable.” I’m not sureI’mfixable. I reach for the burrito, though it’s difficult not to grab the cinnamon roll first. I know the cinnamon roll won’t be as good as the ones my dad makes, but a cinnamon roll’s a cinnamon roll. I’ll take it. Unfortunately, Elena’s voice is in the back of my head reminding me that, between the two, the burrito is the only one with some substance. Ugh.
“What did he do?” Garrison says out of the blue after we’ve been working in near quiet—as quiet as my team of bickering creatives gets—for another half an hour or so.
I debate whether or not to tell them—or rather, what. “He ... read my file. Redacted information. My therapy notes. Everything.”
A small silence simmers across my staff before Garrison breaks it. “Gonna take a lot of diamonds then, huh?”
“Where did he get the file?” Vanya asks.
“He stole it.”
“Shit.”
“That’s not cool.”
“For fuck’s sake. Is he a stalker or what?” Vanya says, leaning back from her computer as my employees all talk over each other.
“Maybe.” I shrug.
“Well, I hope you let him have it,” Garrison adds.
I nod, smiling. “I did.”
“Good.”
And then Margerie’s voice, too quietly, too ... openly ... says, “You did?”
I look up, and her expression is thoughtful. I feel myself blush as I nod. “We got into a bit of a screaming match.”
