Page 29 of Excitable Boy
Why the hell shouldn’tIbe making that money?
Normally, he wasn’t the kind of guy who engaged in bullshit workplace politics. He did his job, put in honest effort, and went home.
Darren, however, had been a pain in his ass for years now.
And he’d never see it coming, because he would never expect Tony to throw him under the bus.
Tony knew he’d have to do some planning during his vacation. It wouldn’t do to start putting a plan into action and then leave for two weeks and give Darren time to stab him in the back.
Better to wait and seem like all was well.
And then strike.
* * * *
Wednesday night, Shayla stopped by Publix on her way home and picked up sushi, since she’d be eating alone.
Again.
Come on, vacation.
Tony’s boss had asked him to attend another late meeting today after last night’s apparently went well. Tony wasn’t telling her everything yet, she suspected, but that wasn’t unusual when it came to work.
He kept his frustrations to himself.
When he was ready to talk it out, he would. It never bled into their relationship, so she had no reason to badger him about it.
At least she’d come up with a few ideas about their vacation. They’d head up into the Panhandle first, stop where they felt like it, and work their way to New Orleans. Then they’d head north, to St. Louis, and make a big loop, through the Great Smokey Mountains, and eventually home again. No firm agenda. And that was flexible, too. They’d take back roads, stop at small towns, explore.
She couldn’t wait.
She’d already told Cali that she could put her and Tony back on the volunteer calendar once they’d returned from their trip, which had made their friend happy. Mal and Kel were still MIA for now, which worried all of them, but it couldn’t be helped. Mal’s health needed to take priority to the club.
They could handle things.
I’m glad Tony had a vasectomy before I ever met him.
Maybe it made her selfish, but when she thought about having a child, and how much more difficult Tony’s absence would have made her life, and how it’d be hard to do everything else they did if they had children, Shayla realized she didn’t have any urge to be a mom.
Or to risk going through the utter heartache Kel and Mal had endured.
Life works in funny ways.It took care of her before she’d ever met Tony, as if it was aligning events in her life to put them in each other’s paths. Her ex running up thousands of dollars in porn bills in her name had made her call off their wedding and triggered her move to Florida in the first place.
Even in the best of times with her ex, she’d never been as happy as she was with Tony, minor blips like the “Denver period” aside, as she was thinking about it.
When he finally returned home a little before eleven, he pulled her into his arms for a long, strong hug.
“Are you okay, Sir?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “Tired. Did you eat?”
“Yes, Sir.” She made him look her in the eyes. “Can you talk about it?”
He sighed. “I don’t have anything firm in mind yet…” His tone darkened. “I think I’m going to rat-fuck my boss and get him fired and take his job.”
She wasn’t sure she’d heard him right, at first. Then she was waiting for a smile or a laugh to indicate he was kidding.
There wasn’t one.
