Ambrosia

I refuse to hide behind my shame or regrets, so I’m at the office at the bright and early hour of 10 AM, hopped up on fair trade, organic caramel soy lattes and ready to talk our internally-grown bok choy.

Unfortunately, I barely make it in the door before I’m summoned to the executive floor.

Once I finished hyperventilating and got a shower in the wee hours of the morning, Eloise and Parker and I huddled together in my apartment, blasting Taylor Swift to cover Hogzilla’s squeaky bedsprings while we discussed the best way to handle the aftermath of my sexual nuclear explosion, and then we all went home for naps before work.

I’m ready. I can do this.

I hold my head high and take the elevator as if Chase and I hadn’t banged each other’s brains out in it last night. I try to hold my breath, because if I can still smell us in there, I might lose it.

When the doors slide open on the executive floor, even the potted plants turn to each other and whisper.

I can forgive the plants. I mean, what else do they have to do all day besides sit around, look green, and hope housekeeping remembers to water them?

But the random execs and sub-execs and secretaries who are all looking at me like I need to wear a scarlet whore letter the rest of my days damn well better be thinking Chase Jett needs a matching one.

Rod Xavier steps out of his office and crooks a finger at me before my heels hit the organic, fair trade, sustainably-harvested bamboo-and-corn silk rug in the lobby. He looks as though someone has plucked all the cherry tomatoes off his bushes a week before they would’ve been ripe and used them to spell Ambrosia has a big penis in his parents’ driveway.

Bad metaphor. Sorry. I’m still scarred from that memory, okay?

Inside Rod’s office, all the seats save the interrogation chair are occupied. I take stock of the suits in the room—joining Rod are Crunchy’s president, vice president, head of HR, and the chief of security.

Usually the only time I see these guys together is on the picture wall in the downstairs lobby.

They’re all smiling in the lobby.

Not so much here.

“Ambrosia, have a seat,” Rod says.

Not a chance. I’ll go down standing, thank you very much. “What’s this about?” I ask with a sweet smile. Eloise’s idea. She says men love the sweet smile. It lulls them into a false sense of security.

Right now, it’s making half of them shift like they’re trying to hide untimely flatulence, and the other half have assumed the very disappointed in you Dad Frown.

“Ambrosia, you were seen in the building at three AM this morning,” Rod says.

I continue to smile my bland, innocent smile.

“In the elevator,” he clarifies.

Don’t blush, Sia. Don’t blush. “Mm.”

“Without…” Rod pauses to gulp his coffee and wipe his brow. “Without your clothes on,” he finishes.

“Was I?” I ask.

“Very much so,” the chief of security says, as though he’s seen the video.

“Mm,” I repeat. Because what else does one say in this kind of situation?

“Sia.” Rod strokes his mustache. “We have certain expectations of our employees, clearly spelled out in the employee handbook—”

“And I’m glad we do,” I interrupt. “The gossip has really become a problem lately, and it’s interfering with office morale and productivity. By the way, has Mr. Jett received a copy of the employee handbook?”

The president is eyeballing me like I’m an overripe, pesticide-ridden apple grown over a landfill. The head of security’s bald head is so red, I wonder if embarrassment alone could fry a free-range egg. And Rod—who was praising my team just yesterday—seems to want to sink through the floor.

“You were observed on video engaging in sexual activities in the workplace,” Rod says gently. “We’re going to have to let you go.”

I keep smiling even though my heart is hammering chips off my lungs. “Is Mr. Jett being let go?”

“Sia, Mr. Jett owns the company.”

“You’re saying that because I was observed in a closed room, just me and the owner of the company and however many security guards were glued to their monitors watching us while other suspicious characters were roaming the hallways, and Mr. Jett appeared to be taking liberties with my more personal body parts, that he gets to stay and I have to leave?”

A stony silence meets my question.

“I’m going to have to decline being let go,” I announce. “And I’m afraid I’m going to have to call my lawyers. And my state representatives. Definitely a few celebrity gossip sites. Mr. Jett is technically a celebrity, so they’ll want to know. Stuff like this spreads over social media like wildfire. I mean, I hate the hit that Crunchy will take, considering our core customer demographic is seventy-percent women between the ages of twenty-six and forty who are politically active and socially conscious, many of whom have daughters, but it’s hard to see how you could possibly let me keep my job and take a stand for women’s sexual liberation and the accountability of man. I mean, your security guards saw my boobs. Federal offense right there.”

I finally take the seat they’ve offered, because if I don’t, my knees are going to give out. “Or,” I say, “you can call Mr. Jett in here, and we can work out an amenable arrangement for all of us.”

Dots are dancing in front of my eyes. I wonder if there are any nunneries hiring in the city. Being a nun sounds damn good right now. Except for the part where I’ll probably have to quit saying damn.

“We’re prepared to give you a very generous severance package and a glowing letter of recommendation,” Rod says.

What? What? Were they even listening to me? Crap. Where am I going to find a lawyer who can take on Chase and his billions? Between the Bratwurst Wagon incident and now this—which I’m certain will be leaked to celebrity gossip sites imminently if they fire me, because I’ll fucking tell them myself—my chances of finding a comparable new job are next to zero.

Which means the only thing I have left is my pride. I shove out of the seat, fury once again the main ingredient fueling my veins. “Gentlemen, you can take your crunchy, orgasmic food and shove it up all your collective, sexist asses.”

I spin toward the door, and—oh, look at that.

The Dick has decided to make an appearance. “Orgasmic food?” he says. His eyes are laughing at me, and for two heartbeats, my uterus takes over for my heart, throbbing and channeling all my blood to my core.

“Organic food,” I spit, even as I’m replaying my last tirade in my mind. Oh, H-E-double hockey fucks. I did say orgasmic food. Right before I told Crunchy’s executive board to stick it up their asses. Look what this man makes me do.

“Get your head out of your dick,” I snap. I’m already digging a hole, and I can’t seem to stop shoveling deeper. “You have two choices, fuckwad. One, you issue an order telling everyone to mind their own fucking business while I go back and do my job, or two, I destroy you. You have ten minutes to make a decision and personally deliver it to me in the snack bar, where I’ll be racking up a tab in your name.”

I march to the door as if I could actually destroy him, which we both know I can’t. He’s a sexy, rich billionaire, and yes, I know that’s redundant, but that’s the part that makes him undestroyable.

That, and his mutant penis. The fact that he has a penis and I don’t provides him with certain ridiculous protections, and the fact that it’s mutant means he could make his next billion doing pornos.

“Rather bitchy, isn’t she?” I hear one of the douchebags say.

One, I’m a nice person. I like puppies and kittens and I keep a goldfish and an aloe plant. I call my mom and dad every Sunday, and the only time I flip anyone off in the city is when I’m driving.

Two, and more importantly— “How the fuck does a company as awesome to work for as Crunchy get such short-sighted, stuffy assholes on their executive board?” I throw over my shoulder.

The secretary applauds when I walk out. “I’d do him too, honey, and I wouldn’t regret it.”

“Great. You can have him. You can have all of them.”

I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not cry.

I’ll get on the elevator and ride it down to the snack bar where I’ll drown my mortification in organic, pasture-raised, hormone-free yogurt sticks and fair trade, gluten-free, vegan chocolate chip cookies, but I will not cry.

I’ll also deposit half my severance package in my cussing jar. Again, see what the Dick makes me do? I’m from Minnesota. Fuck is used sparingly, like pepper. Which is the only heat allowed ever, and never in pineapple tater tot casserole.

I set a timer on my phone for ten minutes—the last ten minutes I’ll ever spend in Crunchy, undoubtedly—and clear out the snack bar. Every organic juice, every fair trade cocoa treat, every pesticide-free cobbler, I pile it all on my tray, grab three more trays to manage the load, and somehow I get it all to the cashier. “Bill it to Chase Jett,” I tell her.

“Yeah, yours, mine, and hers,” she says in a thick Brooklyn accent. Her fingers fly over the computer screen. “One twenty-five sixty. Cash or credit?”

“The Dick’s paying for it.” I dangle my employee badge, letting her get a good look at my name.

Her eyes go wide. Just as I suspected, the entire building knows.

“You the elevator chick?” she asks.

“Yep.”

“They firing you?”

“Trying to.”

She nods. “Go back and get some cheese biscuits too. Hormone-free. Taste like hockey pucks, but they freeze good for when you get hungry. I ain’t seen nothing. Here’s a bag for your goodies. Take six. Gonna need ‘em. God bless ya, honey. Hope the screw was worth it.”

I dump everything—plates and all—in reusable, organic-cotton Crunchy totes and drag my haul across the snack bar to an open table by the windows overlooking the tree-lined street. I’ll miss this view. Not that I sat here and watched the street often, but I have this sinking feeling it’s time to move home. My mom’s been running an Etsy business selling mason jars with homey motivational sayings etched in them in preparation for retirement. I could move into the basement and help double her production. It’s been ten years, and that restraining order for the Bratwurst Wagon will only really be a problem during Baloney Festival.

“Berger.”

Would you look at that?

Mr. Fancy-Pants Twisted-Dick Billionaire himself has come to the snack bar.

I hug two bags to my chest. I’d hug them all if I were half the size of my brothers, but I got the short genes in the family and two’s all I can hold without toppling myself over. Still, the Dick is not getting my cheese biscuits. Or anything else from me. Except a nod of acknowledgment. “Dickhead.”

There are only four other people in the snack bar. All four of them gasp in unison. Chase’s left eye twitches, and for a split second, I swear the right corner of his mouth twitched too.

Upward. Like a… Like a smile. As though he has a sense of humor.

Yep, I’m getting canned.

“Quit fucking around and get back to work. All that bok choy won’t sell itself.”

Glitter is all over his hands. It’s decorating the bits of his soul stuck in his chin dimple. His suit coat sparkles like a leisure suit, and I have to pretend I remember yoga breathing to keep from snorting out a laugh. Swear to God, if his ass is covered in glitter, I’m buying Eloise a new drum set and Parker a new guitar.

Wait.

He just told me to get back to work.

Like I still have a job.

“Don’t make me regret this,” he growls. “I can make your life hell.”

“You already do.” I give him my worst fake smile and stand, still clutching the bags. The whole marketing department’s having snacks on me today.

Well, on Chase.

But I had to sleep with him to get said snacks, so I’m still a giver.

His left eye is twitching again. Without another word, he turns and stalks out of the snack bar.

Glitter sparkles in a giant rainbow all over his ass.

What do you know?

Today is a good day to be me.