The idea of working closely with Justin is probably the most horrifying thing I’ve ever considered… but I know it’s the right thing to do.

I could hear it in Blair’s tone. I know she comes off like a weirdo, like a witchy robot or something, but there’s more going on beneath the surface with her. I got a taste of it in that moment. She was asking for help.

I don’t know why she’s obsessed with that movie enough to force me to work with Justin, but I’ll do it. I’m sure she believes it’s the best thing for her and her company, like my hatred for him will inspire great work or some crap.

Really, I’m going to ignore him. I’m only doing this because I feel sorry for Blair. That’s all there is to it. I’m not trying to help Justin, I don’t even want to be anywhere near him.

It occurs to me, hours later, that I could’ve easily refused. If I had, Blair would’ve walked away, and Justin would’ve looked bad… very bad. And they might’ve hired me….

That’s a lot of uncertainty. I’m not that kind of person, fortunately for Justin.

Unlike him and his fucking dad.

After work, I head right home. I live in a two-bedroom apartment not far from the office. It’s more space than I need but it’s in a nice, historic old building right by a park and a bunch of cool shops, so I love the location. And anyway, it worked with my budget before, but my salary covers it even more easily now that I got a ten percent raise.

I toss my bag on the counter and grab a glass of wine from the kitchen. My post-work wine is basically all that keeps me going every single day, and I look forward to it more than I like to admit.

I head into my office and sit down at my computer. This is where I spend most of my time, which is actually kind of funny. I go from one office to another, although this office is way nicer. I have all my things in here, pictures from my past, paintings I love, gifts from friends, anything that reminds me life is about more than just working all the time.

And then I work all the time.

I can’t help myself. I’m the kind of person that gets so incredibly bored sitting around for too long. I can barely watch TV, I almost never watch movies, and the idea of paying attention to a single book for more than like ten-minute stretches makes me want to vomit.

So I have an office, and a million little side projects I’m working on all the time.

Agency work is fun. I hate to admit it, but I get a thrill working at the agency, building brands, doing all the creative work. The clients are always the worst part, watering down the vision, making it way worse before it actually makes it out into the public, but I love the work anyway. I love building things, creating things, and it’s pretty much all I ever do.

While it’s fun, it’s not exactly fulfilling. I need something else for that, something else to make me feel like I have a real purpose in this world and I’m not just some body constantly trying to make money to survive.

That’s where my game comes into the picture.

I pull up the latest bit I’ve been working on. The game is about a narwhal trying to get back to her family. It’s a little pixel platformer with some cool twists, and right now I’m just working on the art before I actually get deep into the programming.

If I ever get that far. Truth is, I’m not exactly great at that stuff. There’s a ton of open source video game creation software out there, I just have to pick something and actually learn it.

For now though, I’m having a blast painting the backgrounds and designing the characters.

I can lose myself for hours doing this. I sip my wine and work, tweaking the sprite for one of the narwhal’s enemies, a little evil seahorse. I spend twenty minutes obsessing about its eyes, which I admit is a little excessive.

I almost don’t hear the phone ring. I get up and hurry into the kitchen to grab it from my bag. I’m in a rush, so I don’t bother looking at the screen before I answer.

“Hello?”

“Remi.” The voice is familiar, but I can’t place it right away. “Listen, I could use some help. I’m at this bar, I think it’s called King Leo’s, and I’m working on the Spine project—”

Realization hits. “Justin?”

He pauses. “Yeah, it’s Justin. Sorry, I guess I didn’t say.”

I frown and look at the clock on the stove. It’s after nine. My stomach rumbles, reminding me that the only thing I’ve had tonight is wine. “What do you want?”

He starts over. “I’m at a bar working on the Spine stuff. I was hoping you could come by and have a drink, let me run some ideas past you.”

I frown a little. I could probably use another drink. And something to eat. “Why are you working on Spine?” I ask. “I thought it was my project.”

“I know, it is your project, I just have some ideas. Can’t help myself, I get bored if I’m not working on something.”

“I can relate,” I mutter. “Look, just stop, okay? We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

“I’m on a roll here,” he says. “I’m gonna be up for a while still if you change your mind.”

I sigh and glance at the clock again. I’m normally in bed by ten, eleven at the latest…

“Fine,” I say. “Where are you again?”

“King Leo’s.”

“I know where it is. I’ll be there soon.” I hang up the phone.

I should probably just stay home. There’s no part of me that actually wants to spend any time with Justin Hayes, let alone my free time outside of work. I should be getting some dinner and heading to bed soon, or doing a million other more productive things, but instead I’m going to schlepp my ass out to some random bar to hang out with the one guy I despise most in this world.

All because I don’t trust him.

It seems counterintuitive. If I don’t trust him, I should stay home and stay away, right?

Diane taught me to do the opposite, and despite the way things ended for her, she spent thirty years in this industry and knows her stuff.

I can’t let him work on this project alone. I don’t know what kinds of decisions he’s going to make, and at the end of the day, he’s the CD. He’s my freaking boss. So if I let him sit at that bar alone and do all this brainstorming, I could come into work tomorrow and find that the whole brand has a vision that I didn’t sign off on and maybe even hate. If I let him work on this without me, it could run away from me entirely.

Obviously, I’m not going to let that happen.

I put on a clean pair of jeans, an old band t-shirt, and pull my hair up in a loose, messy bun. On the way out the door, I grab a pair of glasses to round off the dumpy librarian look I’ve got going on as I head out into the night.

Fortunately, the bar’s actually close to my place, although I don’t plan on telling him that. I walk five blocks and head inside, annoyed that I’m not in the warm embrace of some mac’n’cheese with a side of more wine.

Justin’s sitting at the far end of the bar. The place isn’t crowded, which doesn’t surprise me. King Leon’s is a dump, one of the crappiest bars in the whole damn city. It’s sticky and gross and everything’s rotting away. Only the most hardcore of hardcore drinkers come here, and as I pull out the stool next to him and make a face at the gunky mess I feel under my fingers, I realize that I’m not getting anything to eat tonight. There’s no way this rathole has a kitchen.

Justin looks at me as I ask the bartender for a glass of wine. He grunts without asking me what kind, which is a bad sign.

“You came,” he says.

“Here I am.”

“Awesome.” He grins at me. There’s a stack of napkins and papers in front of him, and it looks like he was feverishly sketching out a logo over and over again. There’s a half empty beer growing warm next to his elbow, water rolling down the glass and making a wet ring on the bar, one among thousands.

“Couldn’t let you do this stuff without me.” I grab the napkin he was using to draw the logo and look it over. “What’s this?”

“Just some ideas.” He shrugs a little and takes a sip of his beer. He’s still wearing the same dark blue suit he wore to work, although it’s a little rumpled now, and the top button of his dress shirt is undone.

“It’s shit.” I throw the napkin down onto the bar top.

His face falls and for a second, he looks pissed. I arch an eyebrow, relishing this moment, and he slowly takes a breath.

“Okay, you’re the boss.”

I nod once and slide over the glass of red wine that the bartender places in front of me. I sip it and have to force myself not to make a face. It tastes like old grape juice mixed with cheap plastic bottle vodka. It’s basically paint thinner dyed red.

“That’s right,” I finally manage to say. “Glad you’re admitting it.”

I feel like an asshole, but only for a second. I know he deserves this and so much more.

I glance down at the napkin again. We aren’t going to use any of these designs, but some of them are actually pretty decent. I know it’s petty and it’s spiteful and I’m a shitty person, but whatever. He did worse to me back then and now he’s just getting a taste of his own medicine.

“I was coming up with some other stuff, too.” He slides the papers in front of him toward me, and I take them gingerly, like they might be infected. “A couple slogans, some overall branding strategies and ideas. Rough stuff, but starting points.”

I flip through the paper. More logo ideas, some slogans, some other general ideas. It’s all pretty scattered, but there is some decent stuff in here. I can tell he has talent, and I suddenly understand why this guy is my boss.

But that doesn’t matter. Just because he’s talented, doesn’t mean he deserves this job. I’m talented and I was passed over for political reasons.

“Look, Justin.” I put the pages back down on the bar and force myself to take another sip of my cough medicine wine. “You’re my boss, so I don’t really want to piss you off.”

“But you hate it all.” He’s smirking at me now, and I want to slap that smile from his lips. It’s too handsome, too charming.

“Pretty much.”

“Okay then.” He leans back and stretches. “That’s fine, I get it.”

“Do you?”

“Sure. You’re not going to use anything I come up with, no matter how good it is.”

I purse my lips. “That’s not true,” I say, even if it is.

“Fine, sure, whatever. Pretend if you want. I could just force you to accept it, you know.”

“You couldn’t,” I say, meeting his eyes. “Or I’d walk.”

“Guess we’re at an impasse.”

“No, we aren’t. You need me more than I need you, remember.”

He sighs. “Okay, I get it. You hate me. You hate that I have this job. Can we get past it and get to work?”

“Probably not.” I sip my wine and wince. I forgot how bad it was for a second. “Not right now at least.”

He sighs again. I know I’m pissing him off and probably being unreasonable, but he has to know what the score is or else he’ll just walk all over me.

That’s another thing I learned from Diane. Men will do whatever they want unless you stand up to them, and when you do, they’ll label you a bitch. Embrace it, but don’t stoop to their level.

“You know what I think?” Justin asks me, leaning closer. I think I see a hint of anger in his eyes.

He’s going to say it. He’ll say the “B” word right now, like it’ll somehow defeat me. That it doesn’t change anything won’t matter. He’ll think he won something, but really, he’ll just be proving how petty he is.

“What do you think?” I ask, almost languidly, inviting it.

Go ahead, call me a bitch. Please, I’m begging you.

Instead, he smiles, almost warmly. “I think you missed me.”

I sit there for a second, almost stunned. I sip my laundry detergent wine and am actually thankful for how disgusting it is. It snaps me out of my surprise.

“Not in the slightest.”

“I think you did. Oh, I know, we have our issues, our families are feuding, blah blah, but you missed me. You’re happy I’m back.”

“If I could make you go away, I would, believe me.”

“I don’t. Why else would you be here?”

“Because otherwise you’d walk all over me with these awful ideas.” I glare at him, daring him to argue.

He just laughs, shaking his head, and finishes his beer.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Remi,” he says. “Come in with some ideas of your own. I’m looking forward to hearing them.”

I watch as he walks away, angry as hell. I want to yell at him, but I’m not about to make a scene.

Plus, he’s still my boss. Even if I don’t care about getting fired, I have to play the game if I want to stay on this project. And for some reason, I really do.

The bartender comes over as I finish my wine. “He didn’t pay his tab,” the guy grunts.

I groan and hand him my card. He nods and walks off to run it.

“Freaking asshole,” I mutter to myself. I guess Justin really did get the last word tonight, that arrogant bastard.