Forever Pucked (2 page)

I grab my phone from the top drawer of my desk, but before I can pull up Alex’s contact, Charlene snatches it out of my hand.

“What’re you doing?”

“You need to pose with the beaver so we can send Alex a picture,” she says, as if this should be obvious. Which really, it should be. I’m from the generation where everything we do gets posted online for bored people to see. Welcome to the wonderful world of well-documented bad decisions.

I shuffle the beaver around. It’s not easy since he’s huge, and my cubicle is small. I back my chair into a corner and move the beaver between my legs. I shove the beaver down so his head is at waist level, and Charlene snaps a few pics. Then we turn it over, giggling like idiots as I arrange my skirt over the top of its head so it looks like the beaver’s going to town on my beaver.

I strike several different poses, including a fake orgasm face, which is the exact moment my boss walks in on our little party.

“Mr. Stroker! Hey, hi!” I push the beaver away from my crotch, but it’s too late. He’s already seen me molesting it.

“Miss Hoar.” He glances at Charlene, then to me. “Miss Hall.” His arms are crossed over his chest, and his face remote. He’s giving away nothing. “You two look like you’re hard at work.”

We’re in so much trouble.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Stroker. Alex sent me this for our anniversary—” I gesture to the gigantic beaver. “—and Charlene and I thought we’d send a picture so he knows I got it. We’re not sure if the team’s going to make it back tonight, because of the storm.” I wave my hand toward the windows. It’s snowing like crazy.

Not that it’s going to stop him from firing me.

“He sent you a stuffed woodchuck for your anniversary?”

“It’s not a woodchuck; it’s a beaver,” Charlene says.

He raises an eyebrow. “I’m not sure I want an explanation. Violet, I’d like to see you in my office.”

“Now?”

“Yes, now.”

My stomach does a flip, but I stand and smooth out my wrinkled skirt, shooting Charlene a look of terror. She mouths
sorry
at me, but it’s not her fault. I would’ve done something equally as stupid with or without her help.

I follow Mr. Stroker down the hall to his office. He closes the door behind me and gestures to the chair opposite his desk. I’m totally about to get canned. This is the shittiest sexiversary ever.

“I really am sorry about that, Mr. Stroker. We were being silly. I know it wasn’t work-appropriate behavior.”

He puts up a hand to stop me. “Violet, have you seen some of the clips Jimmy and Dean slip into their presentations? You doing whatever you were doing with that beaver has nothing on those two.”

I know exactly what he’s talking about. Jimmy and Dean are the other junior accountants at our firm. They’re even more ridiculous than Char and me. Last week they threw a slide into their presentation with two hockey players mashed up against the plexiglas with the caption “Happy Hump Day!” It looked like there was a whole lot more than humping going on in the picture. And that’s one of their tamer ones.

“Still, it won’t happen again.” I sag in the chair, unable to mask my relief. I honestly thought he was going to tell me to pack up my office. Then I’d be a famous hockey player’s unemployed fiancée rather than a modest financial contributor to our partnership.

“Sounds good.”

Mr. Stroker shuffles account files around on his desk. I recognize the one on top as one I prepared, because it’s in a violet-colored folder. Alex bought them for me. He thinks they’re cute.

“I’ve reviewed your file for the Darcy account. I think you’ve made some very wise choices in terms of the funds you’ve selected. The returns have been high in the past eighteen months, and you’ve balanced their portfolio well.”

“Oh. Well, thanks.” This isn’t at all what I thought I was coming here for. His praise is unexpected. He’s a numbers guy, like so many of us in this department. It’s always about the bottom line: whether or not we’re making money for our clients or saving their asses from potential bankruptcy.

Mitch Darcy plays defense for Chicago. I met him through Alex. One night after the game his wife was there, and we started talking. She asked what I did for a living, so I told her. She seemed surprised that I worked a job other than servicing Alex’s amazing dick.

Two weeks later, Mrs. Darcy made an appointment and specifically asked for me. Mr. Stroker took a risk by letting me draw up a proposal for the account. Of course he has to review it before anything can be implemented, but it’s an opportunity I wouldn’t have without all my connections. Those sometimes make me unpopular at work.

“This is a big deal, Violet.” Mr. Stroker says, tapping his pen against the folder.

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re aware that Darcy renewed his contract for five more years at four million a year.”

“Yes, sir. He also has endorsements with Power Juice and Sports Mind totaling another two million annually for the next three years.”

“Do you think you’ll be ready to present this to the Darcys next week?”

I sit up straighter. “You want me to present?”

“His wife is rather insistent it be you.”

“But I’ve never presented to a client this big before.”

“You’ve been managing Miller’s account for the past year without an issue,” he argues.

Stroker is referring to my stepbrother, Buck, whose real name is Miller. Everyone has recently started calling him by his given name, but it’s an adjustment for me. I’m not quite there yet.

Usually the accounts I handle are half a million or less. The Darcys’ portfolio is far more significant. Way bigger than anything I’ve touched, apart from Buck’s accounts, and I’ve always had Mr. Stroker look at those before I make any kind of change. I don’t want to be responsible for screwing up Buck’s fortune.

“You’ve got a handle on it. Why don’t you call them and set up a meeting for next week. I’m open most mornings.”

“Okay, great. I’ll consult their game schedule and see what works best.”

“Perfect. You arrange it, check the notes I’ve made on the PowerPoint, and at the end of the week—say, Friday afternoon—I’ll set aside an hour and you can do a dry run for me so you feel prepared. How does that sound?”

“That sounds amazing, Mr. Stroker.”

“It’s just William, Violet. You can drop the formality now.”

He’s told me this before, but I find his last name entertaining. “Of course. Right, William.”

He gives Randy Balls, another one of Alex’s teammates, a run for his money with the dirty names.

“Great. Three o’clock Friday afternoon is open for me. Book the conference room with Edna on your way out.” He passes over the folder and picks up the phone, which means I’m dismissed.

I thank him and stop to set things up with his assistant on the way back to my cubicle.

Charlene is sitting at her desk, chewing her nails and pretending to do some kind of research. When she sees me she grabs my arm and yanks me into her cubicle. “Why aren’t you crying? Didn’t you get fired?”

“No. Stroker didn’t can my ass.”

Charlene sighs with relief. “I’m so sorry. He rarely comes down this way.” It’s true. Junior accountants usually only see the boss-man in the conference room on meeting Monday, which was this morning. “Let’s never take pictures like that again while we’re at work.”

“Agreed. We should have waited until I got home. Then we could’ve posed the beaver on the bed so it looks like he’s taking me from behind, or holding my boobs.”

“Such good ideas. So what did Stroker say?”

“I’m presenting to Mitch Darcy and his wife next week.”

“You’re what?” she practically screeches this, so anyone within earshot, which is most of the office, peeks their head over the edge of their cube wall.

“It’s okay, everyone. I told Charlene I’m thinking about going vegan.”

Jimmy seems to have returned from his coffee break. He looks suspicious, and rightfully so—I’m the first one to order a Philly cheesesteak when he gets takeout—but he’s on the phone, so he goes back to his call. The rest of the office is used to our ridiculousness, so they resume whatever they were doing, too.

I lower my voice to a whisper. “I get to present.”

“That’s a big account,” Charlene whispers back.

“I know.”

“That’s amazing.”

I know she means it, but I recognize the wistful look in her eyes. We’re close, but we’re still competing with each other, and with Jimmy and Dean, for a senior accountant position when it comes open. Being allowed to present to one of the bigger clients gives me an advantage over everyone else.

The people who don’t like me at the office are really going to hate me now.

Cardboard Cutouts

are Terrifying

VIOLET

I get a text from Alex at the end of the day telling me they’re still hours from home. I’m super disappointed. And I swear not just because I won’t get to have awesome sex after a week with only Buddy the Beaver—my super-special vibrator that actually looks like a beaver—to take care of my orgasm needs. As cute as it is, it’s a poor replacement for Alex’s dick. And the rest of Alex, too. I miss him.

Charlene checks her phone, smiling secretly. I imagine she has messages from her boyfriend, who happens to be Alex’s best friend and teammate, Darren Westinghouse.

“How’s Darren feel about bromancing it for another night with Alex?”

Charlene glances up. “Oh, uh, you know—disappointed he doesn’t get to spoon with me tonight.”

“My beaver needs something to hug, other than synthetic dick,” I grumble.

Charlene pats me on the shoulder. “You’ve waited a week. What’s another day?”

“I have MC separation anxiety.”

I don’t get how she can be so unaffected by the delay, but then Charlene and Darren’s relationship is a little weird—and not like Alex and me weird. Darren’s a quiet guy, and private, so the media attention their relationship has garnered, and all the odd speculation about it, means they’ve had a few rough patches along the way.

Plus, Charlene can be flighty. She falls out of love as fast as she falls into it. That they’ve been dating consistently, or mostly consistently, for well over half a year is actually amazing.

“Why don’t we go out for dinner somewhere? We can celebrate you getting to present the Darcy account.”

“I don’t know if I feel like it…”

“We can leave your car here. I’ll drive so you can have a drink, and I’ll drop you off at home.”

“What about tomorrow morning?”

“I’ll pick you up.”

“Really?” Charlene can barely make it to work on time as it is.

“It’s supposed to snow like this all night. If we’re late tomorrow, we can blame it on the plows,” she suggests.

I glance out the window and look down at the streets below. They’re blanketed in white, and traffic is stupid: people honking, sliding, and braking. I don’t like winter driving all that much, and definitely not with this kind of traffic. Charlene is a much better driver than me, not that I’ll ever admit that to her. Now that I don’t have anyone to go home to, I guess dinner out sounds like a decent option.

“Yeah. Okay. Maybe I should call Sunny and Lily to see if they want to join us. We can all be dickless together.” Sunny is Alex’s younger sister. She’s dating Buck. In January she moved from Guelph to Chicago, which is a cute little city in Ontario, Canada. That’s where she and Alex grew up.

Her house in Chicago was purchased by Alex. She pays rent, but instead of putting it toward the mortgage, he puts the money into an investment portfolio for her. That’s all I know about it because Stroker deals with Alex’s account directly. Which is fine. Sometimes I feel like Alex wants me to do it, but I’m not comfortable with the insane amount of money he makes. Not yet.

Seeing how well he takes care of his family tells me what I’ll be in for when we get married, and sometimes that makes me nervous. I don’t want to be responsible for investing it as well as enjoying it. Like I said, at least not yet. I mean, my yearly salary is less than the cost of the car Alex recently bought me. With cash.

Lily is Sunny’s childhood best friend who also moved to Chicago recently. She lives with Sunny, and she’s dating Randy “Balls” Ballistic, Buck’s childhood best friend and another Chicago hockey player. I call him Horny Nut Sac—sometimes to his face, sometimes behind his back. It’s super convenient that we’re all hockey hookers. We hang out a lot when the boys are traveling for away games.

I pull out my phone, ready to send Sunny a message, but Charlene puts a hand up. “I’m on it. You pack up.”

I shrug and shut down my computer, throw a few files into my laptop bag, and grab my coat. Charlene reappears at my cubicle, ready to go. “Sunny suggested we find a restaurant close to their place since they’re both already at home.”

I make a face. “It doesn’t have to be vegan, does it?” Sunny doesn’t eat animals or animal products. I don’t have a problem with this, but if I’m not getting Alex’s meat stick tonight, I might as well indulge in a burger or something equally disgusting and bloat-worthy.

“Lily says the restaurant has a wide selection. Plus, she doesn’t think it’s a good idea for Sunny to drive in this weather.”

I sigh. “Fine.” It makes sense to go that way, and not just because getting downtown would take forever in this weather for Sunny and Lily. Going to them will put us halfway to Alex’s. And Sunny is a worse driver than me, which says a lot.

Charlene and I lug my stuffed beaver to the elevator. We get a few strange looks, but most of the people in our department are unfazed by us now. Charlene takes the tail, and I hold the head as we slip and slide down the slick sidewalk to the parking lot across from our building. Charlene and I should’ve parked our cars in the underground lot this morning, but there were no spots left. With Alex and Darren away, we sometimes have sleepovers and stay up too late. Then we have a hard time getting out of bed in the morning. Last night was one of those times.

Getting the beaver into the trunk of Charlene’s car is a feat, but after some shoving and punching, we squeeze him in.

It takes three times as long as usual to get to Sunny’s neighborhood. The traffic is terrible. I’m definitely glad I didn’t drive or we’d be in a ditch.