Page 792 of One More Kiss

“What?” he snaps, indignantly.

I shouldn’t hang on his every word, but I do. Who’s he talking to? Is someone complaining about me? Because I’ve been killing it. Even on double shifts, nobody works as hard as I do. I have a legacy to maintain.

And yes, I may have mixed up an order here and there, or spilled one tiny, little kid’s milk. But I fixed every last mistake. And the milk spill Boomerang clip the kids posted got a ton of love on Tiktok. Which should balance out the fact that the putrid dairy after-smell is almost gone. Almost.

“No. No way,” I hear him say, chuckling so hard, he might actually fall over.

I frown hard. I know that laugh. That’s his evil laugh.

It’s the laugh he had when he and Brian set a rope snare and trapped me in it, which, in my defense, I was eight. Or when they left out a bowl of nasty tasting jellybeans and insisted girls couldn’t eat them. Which effectively was a double-dog dare I couldn’t back down from. The reputation of the female race was at stake. Whoever decided that vomit and boogers were palatable should be shot. He also had that very same annoying laugh when he came up with the nickname—

“Choir girl?” he balks.

Fire fills my face as my arms knot across my chest. This is the same man who tosses nicknames like babe or princess to every walking vagina in town, but for me, I’m simply Choir Girl. I mean, sure, I am in the church choir. And not just because everyone there is nice or that they give out cocoa and cookies after every performance, which I live for, but because it’s my safe space. My refuge. My escape.

It's the one place where the world melts away and I’m not worried or scared or lonely, even. It’s just me, singing my heart out. Singing to mom and dad and imagining they’re in their pews listening. Smiling. Telling me with nothing more than their glances how much they love me.

By this point, I’m already inappropriately one foot in the office, and charging straight at him.

He doesn’t notice and just keeps going. “Me with a choir girl? Not with a ten-foot pole,” he scoffs. Half of my heart shatters as he goes from being cold to cruel. “Make that a hundred- and ten-foot pole.”

It’s as if Mark took the heart that just shattered and stomped it into dust. The dork-wad has ignored me since his senior year, casting me out like a dwarf planet in my own brother’s solar system, but has the need to gossip about me?

My foot begins to tap. Which marginally gets his attention as he turns, and finishes with, “Not even if the fate of mankind was dependent on us fucki—” I narrow my eyes.

He hangs up. For the longest second in history, I stare down the first man to make the Vow to Hate for All Eternity list.

“Jess,” he huffs, annoyed. “Every hear of knocking?” He walks over to his desk.

My mouth falls open, and I can feel every last one of my freckles catch fire. “Oh, I'm sorry, Your Royal Highness, is that the proper etiquette? Knocking so I don’t disturb you being an ass-hat?”

“Ass-hat?” His steps stop cold. He turns, facing me. “Well, this ass-hat is still your boss for today, Jess. How about you take it down a notch?”

I stand my ground. “How about you give me an apology?” He rolls his eyes. I poke him in his dumb, stone chest. “I deserve an apology.”

He moves into my space. “Haven’t you heard? In life, you never get what you deserve, Jess. Only what you can negotiate. “Move it along, Choir Girl.”

“Make me.” I step up to him, toe to toe, but the man has, oh, I don’t know, a yard of height on me. My stare down is feeble at best. I blame his eyes. They’re gold now—charged and deadly—like some wild exotic cat I’m stupid enough to be in a staring contest with.

Two knocks chop at the door. “Come in,” he barks.

“Hey, hey, hey.” Brian’s voice is too familiar to both of us. Neither of us budges. He wraps a casual arm around me as if nothing is happening. He pulls me back and leans over to Mark. “I thought we had a talk about this.”

I whip my head to Brian. “A talk about what?”

“Nothing.” Mark’s reply is quick. Too quick. He retreats to his desk.

I turn my attention to Brian, breaking down his resolve with my death glare. “What talk?”

He shrugs, smiling guiltily. “Nothing,” he assures me, rushing me out the room with both hands on my shoulders. “Mark and I need to chat, Jess. See you later.” Before I get too far with a protest, a door slams in my face.

“Ugh.” I stamp. I still need my check. Maybe I should’ve taken Anita up on that lunch. My hangry state overtakes me. Enraged, I open the door.

“Why’d you hang up on me?” Brian asks.

“What?” I ask, darting my glare between the two of them, trying to make any sense at all for why Mark would be gossiping to Brian about me. What the hell?

When Anita asked me about Mark, did I say, “Me? With the dildo of the century? Not even if my vagina was on fire and it was the only way to put it out.” Of course, I didn’t. At least, not with my outside voice.

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