“Nope. No, no cameras in the elevators, Mike. That’s part of the agreement, right?” There was a subtext here that made Mike very, very uncomfortable. He didn’t like being uncomfortable. It was a state he’d been in too much, too often lately and so he cut Jonah off at the knees.
“Get to the point or get out.”
All pretense of friendliness smeared off of Jonah’s face within seconds. “You need to follow the script more. You need to become a hardass with Lydia and crack the Don Draper look. That is the only thing that is going to get ratings up. Right now you look like mister new-agey funky shit and that, let me tell you – I’ve been doing enough of these shows to know – that doesn’t sell. Not among the core female audience.”
“And who is that?”
“Women 26 to 44.”
Lydia’s target. Hmm. “What do you want, specifically? Give me detailed behaviors that you’re looking for that you think will ping the audience, that you think will drive ratings up through the roof ,because that’s what I want. You said that production on this thing will be wrapped up in a total of six weeks and that the first episodes would be two weeks later. I am a man with very little time, so make this worth my while. We’re in week two now. Where is this going?”
The evil grin that spread across Jonah’s face soothed Mike on some level because it meant that they were getting back to business. This wasn’t about Lydia. This wasn’t about Matt Jones. This wasn’t about finding true love, or even, true sex. This was about money and they both wanted to make it, Jonah even more so than Mike.
He tabled that thought, for it troubled him. Jonah sat down, flipped through the script and pointed to a few key sections. Mike handed him a pen. “Just star the points that you want me to focus on.”
Furiously scribbling, Jonah did as instructed and then stood. “I’m glad we’re on the same page.”
“Oh, I was always on the same page,” Mike insisted. “You’re the one who was confused.”
A dark look passed over Jonah’s face, his brow furrowed. “I’m in this to have a show skyrocket to the top, to be carried by some of the shows that have become iconic crap, like American Idol, or The Voice, or The Bachelor.”
“If that crap,” Mike said, “can get me the boost in sales that you stressed, then bring on the crap.”
“Oh, you’ll get that boost. Ten percent is nothing to – ”
“Ten! Ten percent?” he interrupted Jonah. “You told me twenty.”
The weasley look on Jonah’s face made Mike groan inside. “Twenty – of course! That’s what I said. Twenty.”
“Jonah, you showed me demographic proof. You showed me statements from previous participants.”
“Of course I did. Whatever. It’s...you know.. ten, twenty – let’s not quibble over details.”
“Get out.”
Jonah looked as if he’d been slapped. “What?”
“Get out. Get out of my office. One day. You have one fucking day to prove to me that I need to waste the next four and a half weeks on this crap. One day. Show me today that it’s worth it. Go do a promo spot, go. – I don’t care what you do. Do something that’s going to get Bournham Industries out into the chattering masses. Make us hot on Twitter, make us hot on Facebook, get us on all of the gossip sites. I don’t care what you do. Just do it because right now I don’t have any reason to stay in this at all. Give me a reason.”
“Why should I give you a reason?” Jonah’s voice went up an octave. “You need us as much as I need you.”
“Because fuck you. Because. Fuck. You,” Mike repeated. “If you fudged those numbers and this is all a sham and you’ve been trying to pull one over on me, I will have your career so far in the shitter that you will be lucky if you can get a job changing VCR tapes at some ancient storage facility in the middle of buttfuck Indiana. And that’ll be the closest to a video camera that you ever get.”
Jonah cut his eyes away. Mike could still see the gears turning, the manipulative sociopath in the man trying to turn this around to his advantage. “Get out,” he repeated.
He was about three seconds away from standing up and shoving the guy out when Jonah did it on his own, quietly, without another word. He slammed the door shut and Mike gave him that. He needed to feel like he had a shred of a testicle left.
Mike’s heart pounded in his chest, not out of fear, but out of anger, and he took a few deep breaths to calm down. He grabbed the phone and texted Joanie:
Joanie, verify data on Meet the Hidden Boss profits for companies involved.
He knew she had done this in the beginning; he’d requested that information a long time ago. He never would have gotten involved in this mess without quantifiable evidence. And yet, now, here he stood, tongue rolling between his cheek and teeth as his body worked to release all that tension. Decent guy, huh? His decency kept getting in the way of his life’s goals. Being a hardass with Jonah hadn’t been difficult – in fact, it hadn’t even been a blip. The real test would come when Lydia walked in that door.
“Bring me a cup of coffee,” Matt ordered, not even bothering to gesture, as if he were so accustomed to ordering women around that he accepted it as second nature that she would be his little errand girl. Whatever happened to Mr. Decency? This guy blew hot and cold like a diva.
“Please,” he added, shooting her a glance that was as close to sheepish as he seemed capable, but that looked more like a man closing the deal than anything else. A perfunctory social nicety intended to secure his getting what he wanted.
Get your own damn coffee, she thought, and then she stopped and grinned, a tight flicker of a smile as she realized how she would interpret this to her own satisfaction. Week two and I'm coffee girl already? FML.
“I will be right back,” she said, as formally as she could stomach. Where was the guy so incensed that Dave made her get his precious lattes for him? Oh. That's right. Probably with her panties. Giving up so much of herself was turning out to be one of the biggest mistakes of her fucking life. Worse than dating Dave, even – because she actually cared about Matt. And that's why this hurt so much.
Clearly, he'd come to the same realization – they were competitors now. Career over clit, right? For him it would be career over cock. Ah, how she wanted to have her clit over his cock. No! Wait! That's not what she was supposed to be thinking. Down, girl.
Going down, girl.
Augh!
Coffee? You want coffee? I'll give you exactly what you asked for.
At the coffee counter in the tiny office kitchen she bent down, careful not to split her too-tight pantyhose as she bent down to the bottom of three shelves, dug and a bit and...ah. Yes. There it was. She stood, smoothed her skirt, and proceeded to open the jar, pouring half a coffee cup's worth of instant coffee into a paper cup.
He asked for a cup of coffee. And that is exactly what she would deliver.
The walk back to his office felt so light, like a giddy moment of fluff and air and freedom. What could he do? Fire her for delivering exactly what he asked for, with no creativity, no initiative, no extra ideas or inferences?
Here's your fucking cup of coffee, you smug asshole, she thought as she put the cup down in front of him and turned around to walk back out the door.
“Thank you,” he muttered, and she heard the cup scrape against the desk, the muffled sound of his lips closing over the cup, and then –
Gagging and sputtering. His shout of “What the hell?” came through the door, more a roar of indignation than a phrase of surprise. She smirked, glad to be turned away from him, and started to close the door.
“Lydia!” he thundered. She halted. Too slow. Might as well accept her punishment. Heh. Spinning on one heel, she faced him with a neutral expression.
“Yes, Matt?” he seemed piqued my her calling him by his name. She refused – adamantly refused – ever to call him Mr. Jones. Not that he had asked, but his unease whenever she called him Matt seemed to compound by the day. Something was not quite right, but she couldn't put a name to it.
Smirk. “I see. Coffee. I asked for a cup. Cute. A little beneath you, but cute.”
Beneath her? “Is that all? I have work to do.” She wasn't going to play this game by any rules but her own.
“No – that's not all.” Typing furiously, he hit the “Enter” key on his keyboard and looked up. Why, oh why, did he have to be so attractive? Intense and bold, his shoulders spread nice and wide as he stretched, the button-down oxford looking slightly out of place. He should be in runner's clothes, in soccer shorts, wearing something lightweight and form-fitting. Underneath his business casual attire she knew he had hot, sculpted abs, a washboard she wanted so desperately to scrub herself on.
He was staring at her as if he'd said something and was waiting for a response. “Lydia?”
“Yes?” Shit. Had he said something? Those green eyes peered at her, evaluating her, sizing her up.
“My trip? You'll book the travel arrangements.” A command. Reaching to the left, he plucked a piece of paper out of the printer. “Here.”
The words danced on the page, her heart thumping so hard it bounced her eyeballs. The guy was a middle management nobody, but he acted with the precision of a four-star general. In his mind, evidently, she would do exactly as he asked.
Right?
“Detroit?”
“Yes, one of our suppli – ” For the first time, he faltered. “Uh, there's a...” Slowing his speech, as if crafting the thought in real time, millisecond by millisecond, Matt seemed to spin in thin air, right before her eyes. He was clearly disturbed by his own behavior, a mix of ten different emotions – all of them some version of of cunning, frustration, or piquance – crossing his face.
“There's a company that is really strong with data mining,” he declared, the words coming faster, his voice deepening with confidence. “I need to meet with their owner to talk about some list buys.”
Blinking hard, she struggled to cover up her skepticism. “Don't we normally buy lists online, or just use calls and web conferencing for – ”
Rolling his tongue between his cheek and teeth, Matt barely concealed his annoyance at her question and interrupted her mid-sentence. “Just make the travel arrangements and remember we're trying to economize.”
Cold air slapped her lungs as she gasped from the sting of his manner. What a jackass. Narrowing her eyes, she forced herself to take two slow, deep breaths. He stared back, the look between them deepening uncomfortably, electricity crackling as it spread and strengthened.
“I'll go make the reservations right away, Matt.” Add a patronizing pat on the head, why doncha, Boss?
He scratched his cheek and averted his eyes, ignoring her in a way that made it clear she was dismissed. “Good.” As she turned, she swore his eyes looked up, surveying her body, but when she glanced back he looked away. The door was twelve football fields away, her legs tree trunks filled with lead as she left the room, feeling diminutive and pissed, needing to lash out.