Jimmy

I started looking out over the expanse of Miami as I waited for the knock on my door. I had woken up to a text message from Nina saying she needed money for another one of her vacations. I told her if she wanted the money, she would have to come over and talk and that we would have to resolve the things that happened at the client meeting this past week if she wanted to go on this vacation using my dime. She wasn't happy about it. She called me complaining about how I was holding her up from her plans and how she was too wound up with things in her life. She kept droning on about how she needed to get away and how it was my responsibility to make sure that was possible for her so she could do the best possible job for me.

I told her to think of it as an employer-employee meeting and that she needed to come over and talk if she was going to get the money.

I drew in a deep breath as I raised my coffee to my lips. I really wanted to have a whiskey neat in my hand, but it was only ten in the morning. Miami was bustling down below, unaware of the argument that was about to take place. And I knew Nina would make it an argument.

She seemed to be doing a lot of that lately.

There was a furious knock on the door, and I drew in a deep breath. I needed to stay as calm and collected as possible in order to keep this conversation controlled. It had the potential to spiral out of control and create a lot of backlash. I smoothed my hands down my shirt to give myself a second to compose my thoughts, and then I went over to the door and opened it.

Before me stood the angry demeanor of Nina Black.

“You summoned me, your highness?”

“Come in and sit. Are you thirsty?” I asked.

“Do I have permission to drink in your presence?”

“For the record, you’re the one tossing the attitude around so don’t get bent out of shape if this blows up in your face.”

“All I did was give you a courtesy call to let you know I was going on vacation, and suddenly, I have to come over and check up with Daddy. What is it, Jimmy?”

“We need to talk,” I said. “I take it you aren’t thirsty.”

“No, I am not.”

She sat gracefully on the edge of my couch like she thought she had the upper hand. She crossed one leg over the other and leaned into the cushions, her eyes never leaving mine. If she put half as much energy into some sort of passion as she did pissing me off and running me around the block, she could be a shrewd businesswoman. I knew men who would crumble to their knees with one look of her eyes in their direction.

Such wasted potential.

“Where are you headed for vacation?” I asked.

“London. There’s a show in town I want to see. I heard it’s fabulous,” Nina said.

“Nina, we need to talk about that dinner.”

“Oh, that client thing? Jimmy, I did you a favor. That man is a pig.”

“That’s not your call. As you stated, you do not work for my company. Who I take on as clients shouldn’t be of any importance to you.”

“You should care,” she said. “All these boring social movements are governing business nowadays. You think I don’t pay attention to them? That man we sat down with is a known womanizer, a pig to his very core. You could’ve done business with him only for women to come out of the woodworks and call him a harasser or something.”

“And you know this because why?”

“I looked at him.”

“You looked at him,” I said.

“Yes. I can tell these things about men simply by looking at them. It’s my talent.”

“Hardly,” I said.

“Jimmy, I did you a favor. And when that man is another name in the news being dragged through the mud because he’s a disgusting manwhore, you’re going to thank me,” she said.

“I highly doubt that,” I said.

“It isn’t my fault you can’t see my worth. And besides. Didn’t you and Ross nail that other client?”

I stared at her blankly, wondering how in the hell she knew that.

“What? You don’t think I have ways of figuring things out?” she asked with a grin.

“I’m not funding your trip to London,” I said.

“Oh, come on, Jimmy. This is how this works. I come with you to all these boring functions and save you when you flounder, and you jet me off around the world.”

“I’m tired of you, and your growing antics, Nina. I’m not doing this with you any longer.”

Her eyes narrowed at me as she slowly stood from the couch.

“I don’t need your money to fly me around the world. You know that, right?” Nina asked.

“I’m not sure that’s true, but even if it isn’t, I don’t care. If this was an employer-employee meeting, you would be fired. You cost me a massive client, you threw a childlike fit about it in the car, and then because of that, I couldn't trust you with another client and had to take my COO instead,” I said.

“If this was one of those meetings. Okay, so you think you can put your big boy pants on without me around and still climb your company to the top?”

“It succeeded before you, and it’ll succeed after you,” I said. “Your attitude is growing tiresome. You’re acting like a spoiled brat. You’re kicking back at me for an arrangement we’ve had for well over a year, and then you demand compensation when you do nothing.”

“I sit around and wait for your phone calls, Jimmy!”

“Before telling me you can’t reschedule plans to make them.”

“Well, if you didn’t book so many things so close together, maybe it wouldn’t happen. Maybe I wouldn’t have to reschedule four separate times after you fell off the face of the planet for three months.”

“Is that what this is about? I went three months without a social event or a client meeting, so you get pissed? Nina, you still got paid. That money dropped into your account at the beginning of every month. I shoved you off on a cruise, paid for two weeks in New York, and sent you on a damn shopping spree.”

“Then you call out of the blue several times in one week and expect me to keep up.”

“Then maybe I should find someone else to have this arrangement with,” I said. “Someone who has the brass to keep up.”

My chest was panting as I loomed over her. I watched her eyes dance between mine. She backed away from me, snatched her things off the couch, and then strode to my door with her heels knocking against my floor.

“I don’t need your money to go to London. Despite what you might think of me, I’m not some woman who sits in her ivory tower backstroking in the money you send me. I have wants and needs and passions and desires. Things I’ve put on hold to do this with you. And you think a monthly allowance somehow replaces that?”

Her hand ripped open my door before she looked back my way.

“You’re an idiot, Jimmy, a spineless idiot.”

She slammed the door behind her as I slumped down into my chair. It wasn’t pretty, but it was done. I felt a massive weight lifting from my shoulders as a smile crept across my cheeks.

That woman was a basket case, and she was finally gone.

I stood from my chair and made my way over to the bar in the corner. I didn’t care if it was before noon. This called for a celebration. I poured myself a whiskey over a ball of ice and stood, basking in the Miami sun that streamed through my windows. I closed my eyes and took a large sip, feeling the alcohol slide down my throat.

I was a single man.

And I was ready to let the games begin.