Page 96 of You Chive Me Crazy
He finally dragged his eyes away from the phone, then glanced at me, the color gone from his face. “I just got fired by text.”
ChapterTwenty-One
LUCAS
As I pulled my car into the parking lot ofDevour Americamagazine, I knew it would be the last time I’d be parking there. Truth be told, it wasn’t such a bad thing. I’d been contemplating a change for a while now. What I hadn’t expected, however, was for it to end the way it did.
The Dickster’s text informing me I was fired had really annoyed me. To make matters worse, he followed it up with another text ten minutes later, telling me I needed to be in the office at eight in the morning to clear out my things and meet with Paisley in HR. He knew I was out of town. It was completely unprofessional, and it left me even more disgusted with the Dickster than usual.
I hated leaving the Serendipity Inn last night, but I hadn’t wanted to wake everybody up at four in the morning for my three-hour drive back. It also meant I had to put on hold anything with Zoe back at the Love Shack, like she had hinted. She had been a good sport about it, though, and told me there would be plenty of time for us to be together. It wasn’t a surprise that that sent my imagination soaring.
Sitting in my car, I pressed my index fingers to my thumbs and closed my eyes, inhaling and exhaling deeply.
Peace. Serenity. Love.
I got out of the car and walked toward the front door of the building to get it over with. Too bad my employee badge didn’t work to get me inside anymore.
“Seriously?” I mumbled to myself, glancing up to the third floor where the Dickster had his office. Being escorted to my office like a prisoner by one of the new security guys was not what I expected, but I held my head high and did what I had to do without letting my ego take over.
I stared at the empty box sitting on my desk.
How kind of them to leave that for me!
Yes, I was being sarcastic.
They just couldn’t wait to get rid of me.
Once I had all my belongings, I walked with the security guy over to HR to meet with Paisley.
Her door opened just as I got there, and I froze.
Damian walked out of Paisley’s office with aDevour Americafolder under his arms and a cocky grin on his face.
“Well, well, well,” he said, eying my box of belongings. “If it isn’t the Terminator himself. And look who got terminated this time? Payback’s a bitch, isn’t it.”
I had never wanted to punch a person so badly in my life. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t the sulphur-breathing dragon. Looking for Tic Tacs?”
“I tell you what I’mnotlooking for . . . a job.” His cocky grin returned for an encore. “I’m the new senior food critic. Funny how that happened, isn’t it? The magazine had a sudden opening, and luckily, I was in the right place at the right time. It was like a total serendipity moment.” He pretended to wipe sweat from his brow. “Good thing, because there arenojobs out there for food critics.”
I could feel my blood beginning to boil.
Damian had taken my job.
And now he was rubbing it in my face.
“Anyway—someone’s got a job to do,” he said. “Good luck. It’s a jungle out there,” he snarked on his way past me.
I stood there, speechless, completely numb.
Paisley came out of her office and gave me a sympathetic smile. “Hey, Lucas. I’m ready for you.”
I followed her inside and sat in the chair across from her desk with my things on my lap, my mind still reeling over Damian being the new senior food critic.
“I’m sorry you will be leaving us—you’re going to be missed around here,” Paisley said. “I’ll need your employee badge, then I just have a few things for you to sign, and you can be on your way.”
I handed her my badge, then took the clipboard from her with several pages of documents to look through and sign. I never got past the first page, rereading what I was sure had to be a mistake since it did not show that I was receiving any severance pay at all.
My contract had a buyout clause stating thatDevour Americawould pay me the full contract amount if they let me go before the end date. Two years of salary was a lot of money that I had planned on getting, but it appeared they were trying to get around paying me that.
