Page 53 of Besties
“It’s almost done. The pasta is drained, the sauce is ready. Have a seat, and I’ll pour us some wine. I think we need it after today.”
I walked over to him and wrapped my arms around his waist. “I didn’t forget you saying you needed one.”
He sighed and embraced me, squeezing me hard. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. So many people are depending on me to make this right, and I’m clueless how we can do it.”
There wasn’t many times in my life that I could say Richie seemed lost, but right now he was.
He stepped back and let his fingers drift over my cheek. “Let’s eat.”
I got the impression he wasn’t really in the mood to eat, but more to be comforted. “How about we go to the couch and snuggle for a while?”
“What if we eat, then snuggle?”
“Richie….”
He ran his thumb over my chin. “You’ve been running around all day, and I know you’re hungry. Shut up and let me take care of you. Just you and me, a bottle of wine, some spaghetti, and that’s it. No shop talk until we’re done. Okay?”
From his tone and the set of his lips, it would do me no good to protest, I knew. “Okay.”
“Good. Have a seat, and I’ll serve it up.” He turned and headed for the kitchenette, then called over his shoulder. “It’s nice to have you home.”
As he worked in the kitchen, I kept a close eye on him. He was upset, that much was easy to see. There was a twitch to his eye, and his jaw was clenched as if he was grinding his teeth. When he inhaled sharply and dropped his head against the cabinet, I was there right away.
He turned and grabbed me off the floor, hoisting me up and burying his face in my neck.
“I can’t lose this, Max. It’s my dream to help people, and I thought we were doing good work. I just—”
“Hey, it’s going to be okay.” I rubbed my hands over his broad back. “We’re going to figure this out, I swear.”
He shook his head. “No one can promise that.” He sniffled, then put me back down. “I’m sorry, let me get your food.”
I grabbed his hand and dragged him over to the pullout that we never remade. He went, but not willingly.
“You need to eat.”
“And you need to shut up.” I pushed him down onto the bed, then crawled in beside him. “Roll over and hold me.”
“I should—”
“You need to calm down, so do as your told. Put your arm around me and relax.”
From his stiff posture, it was clear he wanted to argue, but he did what I said. He nuzzled my neck, kissing me behind the ear. “Thank you.”
How many hugs had I gotten while growing up? How many times had Richie dropped everything to come to give it to me? When would he realize he was the reason I grew up mildly sane?
We lay there for maybe ten minutes before his breathing evened out, and his body went slack. I slipped out from under his arm, went into the kitchen, and put everything away. My stomach protested, but I wasn’t in the mood to eat. I took a seat at the table and blew the candles out. I needed to get a handle on all this mess, not just for Richie, but for all the people who accepted me and helped me discover my passion. I hadn’t known that level of trust for far too long, and I wanted to repay the kindness.
Richie’s laptop sat open, so I pulled it to me and loaded the browser. Teaching Time was easy to find, so I started in the most likely place I could think of. Yelp had nearly two hundred reviews for Teaching Time, and as I looked them over, a pattern had started to emerge. First off, there were pages of reviews from the last couple of weeks, totaling over a hundred fifty. Second, most of them had similar, if not exactly the same, screen names. Each one of them trashed Teaching Time, not for anything legitimate, just for a vague nonanswer kind of way. There were some that attacked Richie personally, and those had me seeing red.
My fingers poised over the keys, ready to jump into the fray and do battle to protect Richie, but I pulled back and dialed down the anger. I wasn’t a hot-headed kid anymore and needed to use my brains. First thing I did was look to see about how to dispute a review. The answers I found weren’t encouraging. Yelp might or might not help, and they encouraged Teaching Time to respond to the reviews. That was going to be a big no. Mom told me many times growing up that trolls got bigger the more you fed them. That was another avenue I wasn’t willing to use.
I started flagging the reviews, but gave up when I saw the sheer number of them. If I had any lingering doubts that someone was orchestrating a campaign against Ryland Global, Teaching Time, and Richie in particular—which I didn’t—this would have removed them. Instead of doing this one search on a single site, I expanded my parameters, pulling the entire web up. The sheer number of complaints were staggering.
There were websites devoted to trashing Teaching Time, accusing the leadership—Richie—of playing fast and loose with money, others that said our product had become substandard, and still more that had statements from alleged former partners and employees, telling how the environment at the main headquarters were like slave conditions. Breaks were kept to a minimum, you could be terminated for calling in sick, wages were stagnant, and overtime was unpaid, even for hourly employees.
We could fight these with a campaign from current employees, telling their stories about what working for Richie was like, but the thing about testimonials was that harsh ones were seen as true, while glowing ones were an obvious con job.
When two hands landed on my shoulder and kneaded gently, I groaned and tipped my head back.
