Page 65 of Heartless Boss
“I’m trying to figure out why a thirty-one-year-old man is wearing a man bun with glitter nails. I can look past the man bun, but the nails have got to go.”
“Shut the fuck up. I had the kids last night, and Kim wanted to do my hair and nails this morning.” He pushes whatever paperwork he’s working on to the side. Thank fuck Cora doesn’t make me do shit like that. All she wants me to do is play video games and watch anime. He has a boy and a girl.
Ever since college, he’s been wanting to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a judge. You have to watch yourself around Logan, though—he’s manipulative and a con artist. His father was caught accepting bribes from criminals in exchange for lenient sentences, and on his first day of attending law school, Logan got a phone call that his dad had died from a heart attack in prison, leaving his schizophrenic mom a widow. He has so many psychological issues he makes the JokerfromBatmanlook sane. I thought I had issues.
“Are you in some more deep shit?” He leans back in his executive chair. He wears a light blue vest with a white dress shirt. His face is tan, and he has diamond studs in both ears. Back in college, Matt and I used to call him a pretty boy, because all the girls said he looked like a male model. “I can’t keep bailing you out if you keep committing crimes.”
“If I wasn’t committing crimes, you wouldn’t be in business.”
“You got a point there.” He scrunches up his nose and shakes his head.
“What are you working on?” I arch an eyebrow.
“I’m defending a sixteen-year-old boy being charged with first-degree murder for killing his parents with a butcher knife because they took his car away.” He rubs his chin.
“Really? Holy shit. You still get murder cases?” I don’t see how he can work around this shit, it seems like a very stressful job. He never talks about what’s going on at work.
“Yeah, just the other day, I had to defend a guy for killing his wife and her boyfriend because he caught them in the act. It used to fuck with me in the beginning, but after working almost seven years at this job, I’ve gotten used to hearing shit like this. The world is one fucked-up place.”
We are quiet for a few moments. I’ll take running a bank over doing this type of shit.
“You remember some guy named Ryan from college?” I cross my right leg over my left and rub my hands together.
“The fucker who was on the wrestling team with me, Ryan Jackson?”
I nod. “He used to date Gia.”
“That shitface was mean and a bully. He broke Alfred’s nose because he said he looked at him wrong. Darien and Matt told me you’re dating her when we went to Ocean Prime last week. What the fuck are you up to, Gunz?”
“He hurt her.” I’m not going to blab to Logan about Gia’s past. Those are not my secrets to tell. But I feel responsible for what happened to her all those years ago. The helplessness I feel over not helping her is eating away at me.
“In what way did he hurt her? And what are you going to do to him?”
I ignore his questions. “Look him up and give me his contact info.”
He wiggles the mouse and the monitor flickers to life. He starts typing on the black keyboard. “The bastard lives in DC. He was in and out of juvie but got his shit together before college. He graduated from NYU with a degree in communications and has five domestic charges and an out-of-date restraining order.” Logan scribbles his address on a notepad and hands it to me.
“Be careful and call me if some shit goes down,” he says, and I get up from the chair and exit his office.
Chapter Twenty-One
Gia
Please, like my cake.
Please, like my cake.
Please, like my cake.
I chant this to myself as I rest the Oreo cake on the white countertop and my hand shakes excessively.
I stayed up all night baking different types of cake until I found the right one. Everyone loves Oreos. Baking is like sculpting; you bake until you get a shape and form that you will like and if you don’t have all the tools and ingredients, then it won’t turn out right.
Just like any masterpiece, it takes a lot of work to get perfection.
I have an interview with two sisters, London and Paris. Both of them are in their late sixties or early seventies with thinning white hair and wrinkled, reddish skin. They opened up Sandi’s Cupcakes thirty years back in honor of their mom, who used to love to bake. I could live in this place. Different varieties of sweet treats decorate the countertops and pictures of cupcakes decorate the pale yellow wall. This place is as peaceful as watching a sunset.
Butterflies swim in my stomach. My gaze clings to them as they cut a slice and bite into it. I’ve never been so excited and nervous at the same time. I bite down on my lip just to keep from saying the stupid fact.
