Chapter 13

Terri

Mondays still sucked, even when I wasn’t slinging beans. I was a little put out that Mick or Starkad never logged in for the rest of the weekend. I had a hard time looking my brother in the face, though, after giving him so much shit about him and Maeva. I did ask him if he ever wanted to meet her in person and Billy told me not to be ridiculous.

When I walked into work, there was a huge scene going on in the lobby. One security guard stood in front of the elevator with his beefy arms crossed.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, I have orders not to let you up.”

An elegant older woman, wearing a fur coat and diamonds, flashed a flawless manicure as she tried to strike the other security guard, who was dragging her toward the door.

“I will have your heads for this. You know who I am. I own this business. I demand you get your hands off me.”

“What’s going on?” I asked the beefy guard as I sidled up to the elevator.

He just shook his head at me and swiped his key card to bring the elevator down.

“Who’s she?” the woman screamed. “One of my son’s whores?”

I blinked at her. “Hey, crazy lady. Don’t call me a whore.”

“Don’t engage her,” the guard said and stared at the elevator as if by sheer will he could get it to come down faster.

“What the hell is going on here?” The elevator finally arrived and Mick strode out. I had to jump away before he barreled me down, without sparing me a look.

“Michael, I want you to fire all of these people.” The rich old hag waggled her manicure at the guards and me.

“Me? What did I do?” I asked, ready to enjoy the show.

“Mother, I told you not to come here anymore.”

Mother? Oh, shit.

“Go upstairs,” he snapped at me.

I raised an eyebrow. Oh, really? So much for secret kisses and special in-game meets or whatever I had convinced myself this week would hold. At least he didn’t snap his fingers. I took my time getting into the elevator, shamelessly eavesdropping.

“Are you going to get a restraining order against me?” his mother asked. “Maybe you can put me in prison like you did your father. We could share a cell.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re overreacting.”

“I still own shares in this company and you are still my son.”

“You do not work here and while I appreciate you coming to visit your sons, you need to make an appointment. You taught us that business comes before family, after all.”

That was all I caught before the elevator doors closed and I shot up to the tenth floor. Holy moly, that was one hell of an argument. Dropping my purse off at my desk, I headed over to Simon’s office. I should probably give him the heads-up. My hand was raised to knock when I heard a deep moan. It didn’t sound like he was hurt.

“Yeah, suck it like that. You know what I like.”

Holy crap. I did not want any part of that either. I backed away and sped to my cubicle. It was barely seven o’clock in the morning. I had wanted to get a jump on the day, but apparently the Wentworths were early risers. I logged on to my computer and saw that Curtis had already left me three messages. He was in California. I wasn’t sure he slept. Even though it was only four a.m. there, I called his cellphone.

“You’re in early,” he said, answering immediately.

“You’re up late,” I countered.

“Got a few more hours in me. Did you read my emails?”

“I just got in, but I saw the subject lines. I was working with the new equipment in the beta a bit this weekend. As we predicted, the pet got a lot of attention. I was able to generate some interest.”

“Now who’s the workaholic? Speaking of which, what’s going on with Mick? We were in the middle of a conversation and he had to hang up. It was rather abrupt. Is the place on fire?”

I gave a half laugh. “Yeah, something like that. His mother showed up and I guess there’s some bad blood there.”

“That whole family is a nightmare,” Curtis said.

“What do you mean?” I knew this was office gossip and not very professional, but it wasn’t as if Mick talked to me about these things.

“We almost didn’t go with the Wentworth Agency. They’re a great marketing group with a fantastic professional reputation. However, personally they’re a wreck. Mick threw his father in jail for stealing over a million dollars from the company.”

“Oh.” Mick had left out the part that his father had been embezzling from the Wentworth Agency.

“His brother can’t keep it in his pants. He’s had a string of girlfriends cherry-picked from the agency. He hasn’t been bothering you, has he?”

“No, he’s been a perfect gentleman.” Except for the person giving him a BJ in his office. I thought guiltily that I shouldn’t be so surprised. After all, that could have been me and Mick last Friday.

“But Simon gets it from his mother. Mick had her fired because her assistant filed sexual harassment charges against the old broad.”

I frowned at his term, but she hadn’t seemed like a pleasant person so I didn’t say anything about it to Curtis.

“Wow,” was the only thing I could say. No wonder Mick had been so adamant about not fooling around with me. Shit.

“Anyway, if you see him, tell him I would like to finish our conversation about GameCon. I hear you’re coming out to see us.”

“Just for the weekend, but I’m really looking forward to it.”

“All right, I’ll give you some time to read my emails and get settled. I’ll probably talk with you tomorrow about them. Happy Monday.”

I made an appropriate noise of agreement and hung up. I managed to avoid both brothers until the afternoon. I was headed out to take Billy to his appointment that he missed on Friday.

Mick was on a tear. I could hear him berating some poor SOB for leaving some drives out on the table instead of locking them up. I had made it to the elevator and thought I was home free.

“Where are you off to?” Simon said, stepping into the elevator with me.

I tried not to blush. “I’ve got to take my brother to the doctor.”

“Or are you avoiding the wrath of Mick?”

“Two birds. One stone.”

“I heard you saw our mother today.”

I nodded, hoping he’d let the subject drop. That wasn’t all I saw, or rather heard in his case. I wondered who he had been with. One of the interns? I frowned. I hoped it wasn’t the young one from the Midwest. She was a little naïve for the big city. I wasn’t sure how I would broach the subject with her, though.

Are you sucking on the owner’s dick?

Just curious, because I was considering doing the same thing with his brother.

“She’s a little high-strung,” Simon said, breaking me out of my thoughts. “Might have been hitting the bottle a little early, you know?” Simon tilted an imaginary bottle to his lips.

Giving him a sympathetic smile, I faced forward. Why did the elevator take so long when you were talking and go too quick when you were fucking? I caught myself blushing in the reflection of the doors as I remembered Mick holding my hips while he thrust inside of me.

I wiped a thin sheen of perspiration from my forehead. It was getting hot in here.

“We’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention that little scene you witnessed this morning to anyone.”

Which one?

“My lips are sealed,” I said and then had to repress a shudder when he looked at my lips and grinned. If his brother had done that, I’d be aroused. From him, it was a little gross. Especially after knowing he had been getting his knob shined this morning from someone else in the company. He was like one of those Tinder jerks who set up a date at five, eight, and another at eleven, hoping to get lucky on each one.

“Once your contract is up, I’d like to consider you for a permanent hire,” Simon said.

What would have thrilled me last week now made me wonder if he was coming on to me after hearing what Curtis said. I also wondered how he wanted me to earn that. On my knees or with hard work? I could see why Mick was so nervous about office relationships.

“Thanks.”

“Let’s go out to lunch again tomorrow. Luigi’s at noon?”

“I can’t,” I said, thinking fast. “I’ve got a working lunch with Mick and Lemmingware.”

“Well, stop by after. I wanted to get your opinion on the social media posts that Janet did.”

“Will do.”

He didn’t get out of the elevator at the ground floor with me. He just waved and took it back up.

Billy didn’t look good to me. He was tired, his face stretched and wan. He hadn’t shaved in a few days and I saw the dotted gray in his whiskers. He wasn’t old enough to look so old. He was only ten years older than me but looked twice my age. The doctor had upped his pain medications last week, but I didn’t think Billy was taking them. While we waited for the test results to come back, I shook the nearly full pill bottle at Billy.

“I don’t like how they make me feel,” he said. “It feels like I’m floating over my own body and I can’t concentrate.”

“You can take a few days off from studying when the pain is bad.”

Billy was trying to get his degree in computer science. He chose not to go to college, because the landscaping business he worked for paid a shit ton of money. And he liked working outside and with his hands. It killed him to be inside and it was worse when he didn’t have anything else to do but play videogames. He found an online college that had a good reputation and based on the coursework I’ve seen from them, it was warranted. He wanted to design videogames and I think he’d be great. Maybe I could get him an internship at Lemmingware, if they allowed telecommuting.

“I’m fine.”

Stubborn asshole.

The doctor came back in and his face looked grim. Panic flared through me. “I’m going to recommend a wheelchair.”

Billy was already shaking his head.

“You got lucky with the fall. Next time you could break a hip.”

“I told you. I got up too fast. I got lightheaded and I lost my balance. I don’t need a fucking wheelchair.” Billy shouted the last word. He struggled to get up, but his legs refused to move. “Fuck,” he sobbed.

I put my arm around him, but he shrugged me away.

“Doctor, isn’t there another way of handling this? Our house isn’t set for a ramp and the bathrooms aren’t…”—I swallowed hard—“…handicap accessible.”

“You’re going to have to make some arrangements,” the doctor acknowledged. “But this isn’t going away and it isn’t going to get better. I know this isn’t news we wanted to hear. Maybe once you start the trials, if you aren’t in the placebo group, we’ll see some progress. However, until that time, you need to think of your safety, William.”

“I’ll be fine,” Billy said, clearing his throat.

The doctor motioned and a nurse brought in a wheelchair. “From now on, you are going to come and go to your appointments in a wheelchair. Let’s practice how to get in and out of it.”

For a moment, I thought he would refuse. But he gritted his teeth and let the doctor instruct him. Meanwhile the nurse and I talked about the types of wheelchairs. For the immediate future, we could pick up a basic transport model at the local hospital supply store for under two hundred bucks.

“You need to look ahead and consider a motorized one,” she said.

“How much do they run?” I asked, looking at the catalog she showed me.

“You can get a basic model for about fourteen hundred dollars. Your insurance should cover some of that.”

I winced. “Yeah, we don’t have any.”

She looked uncomfortable. “I can look into seeing if there are any secondhand chairs being offered. Sometimes we get lucky.”

“Thanks.” All of these treatments were out of pocket. Billy was rapidly running out of savings and I didn’t have diddly-squat to my name.

It was a subdued ride home. “You want to run through a dungeon or something?” I asked.

“You should get back to work,” Billy said. “I’ll call around for contractors and see what quotes I can get for ramps and redoing the bathroom.”

I bit my lip. “You know, instead of putting money into that, maybe we should sell the house.”

He was already shaking his head at me, but I continued talking, pretending I didn’t see him getting pissed off out of the corner of my eye.

“For the right price, we could find a two-bedroom apartment in Westchester County or around there. One that’s already got all the equipment we need.”

“Our house is paid for. I’m not going to take on another mortgage or a monthly rent. At least if something happens to me, you’ll have a place to live.”

“Nothing is going to happen to you,” I snapped. I could hear the hysteria in my own voice.

“We’re going to have to prepare for the inevitable. I’ve got my will already made up.”

Now I was shaking my head, while he was talking over me. “I don’t want to discuss this now.” I didn’t want to discuss this ever.

“There isn’t a cure for my disease.”

“Yet. We don’t even know what your disease is.”

“It’s close enough to ALS that we know it’s just a matter of time before my muscles become too weak to support me. Eventually, I’ll go into respiratory arrest when my lungs succumb.”

Wiping tears away with the back of my hand, I stared at the road. “That’s not happening yet. It’s just in your legs. It hasn’t spread to your arms. Has it?” I darted a quick look at him.

“No,” he confessed with a sigh.

“It may never happen.”

“Terri…”

“Or they could find a cure or new medicine. You can’t give up.” My voice rose to a shout and I sounded shrill to my own ears.

“I’m not.” Billy put his hand on my arm. “But when—

“If,” I stressed.

“If it comes down to it. I don’t want a feeding tube. I don’t want to be resuscitated and I don’t want to be put on a ventilator.”

“But all of those would help prolong your life.” I banged my palm on the steering wheel.

“Not the life I want, honey. And you know that.”

“But they could buy us some time.” I was crying freely now. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to get us home before having to pull over.

“If it gets to that point, there is no more time.” He rubbed my shoulder. “But I’m not giving up. I’m going to fight this. We just needed to be clear about the future, the possible future,” Billy corrected himself before I interrupted.

I took in a shuddering breath. “Okay.”

“You need to start living your life again. I’m glad you took this new job. And I’m glad you’re going to GameCon without me.”

“No you’re not.” I snorted.

“Okay, that last part was bullshit. You better bring me back a signed picture of Felicia Day.”

I would, even if I had to wait in line all day for it.