Page 36 of Mostly My Boss
“It’s okay. This was just a funny thing I saw.”
He tore away the wrapping carefully, which of course drove me nuts, then opened the small white box and pulled out the coffee mug tucked inside.
He was looking at it strangely and I realized the writing was facing toward me.
“Turn it around.”
He did and smiled.
Written in bold letters on the front of the mug were the words World’s Best Boss!
“Maybe it’s a little premature,” I said nudging him. “But I thought it couldn’t hurt.”
“It’s my new favorite mug,” he said. “Thank you for doing this with me. Now you see why Thanksgiving meant so much to me. My parents were in Europe so I was given carte blanche. You made turkey with stuffing and green been casserole and it felt like… the most normal thing ever. No pressure. Just us.”
Yeah. Now that made sense.
“Well, just know someday I’m going to get you back,” I told him. “And you’re going to get fussed over by my mom even as she’ll ask you to fix all the clocks in the house so they’re on Daylight Saving Time. And help her balance her checkbook, only to learn there is no money in her account. And eat all the apple pie she can feed you. All while my brothers make fun of you for just about everything and ask you if you’re boning me. Then they’ll threaten to punch you, regardless of how you answer that question.”
He chuckled. “Sounds like a plan. Jules…someday I’m going to do something to fuck us up really bad. It’s what I’ve always done with people in my life. Just promise me you’ll forgive me when I do it.”
“How can I do that when I don’t know what you’re going to do?” Ah, me, always so practical.
“Because we’re friends. You’ll forgive me because we’re friends.”
“Okay, Ethan. I’ll forgive you. But just one time. You don’t get an unlimited get out of jail free card.”
“Fair enough.”
* * *
Later that night
“It’s disrespect!”
It was the shouting that woke me. It reminded me of John when he came home drunk and would bounce around the house, banging into furniture, not caring who he woke up.
It took me a second to remember I wasn’t in my room at home, but instead in a large, fancy guest bedroom in Ethan’s parents’ apartment. I slipped out of bed and opened the door to the narrow hallway that connected the bedrooms.
The shouting had come from Ethan’s room. His door was open, and while I couldn’t see his father, he must be inside. Confronting Ethan in the middle of the night? Was that necessary?
“Dad, please, you’ll wake Julia.”
“I don’t give a fuck about some girl you brought home. A girl, who I might add, made the Dean’s List. Did you?”
“You know I didn’t. You’ve seen my grades.”
“Which is why I’m sick with disappointment. All the advantages you have and you failed, you actually failed a class. It’s because you’ve decided what medication you will and will not take, and it’s compromised your focus.”
Wait, what? Ethan failed a class? He didn’t tell me. I didn’t know that there were still things we didn’t tell each other.
“It was a mistake. I said I won’t make it again.”
“You’re damn right you won’t make it again. You said you wanted to go to Harvard. You said you could handle being on your own. I’m starting to doubt that. You’ve got one more chance to prove to us you can handle this, or you’re coming home.”
Coming home? Like college was some gift his parents had given him that could be taken away.
I heard movement and stepped back into my room, quietly closing the door so Ethan’s father wouldn’t know I’d been listening. I heard him pass and I waited a beat before I slid out into the hallway and did the stealth thing back to Ethan’s room.
