Hard Rider

“No, ma’am. Mr. Eason hasn’t missed a beat. I believe he’ll make it through without a problem. We’ve helped him with his apartment and he’s working a full-time job. All of his hours have been verified and he’s never missed a check-in.”

“Oh, he’s also involved in that awful fighting business, isn’t he?” she asked.

“Yes. We didn’t discuss that much in our meeting but I believe it’s a positive for him.”

“Nonsense,” she said, pushing away from the table. “See if you can get him to give that up. It has trouble written all over it and if he re-offends it’s going to hurt our stats.”

I weaved my fingers together and cracked my knuckles. I had a habit of doing that when I was frustrated. Mrs. Hemlock looked at me and made a little “tsk, tsk,” sound under her breath.

“I’ll see what I can do,” I lied.

“What else came out of your meeting with him? It was just the other day, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, on Monday. To be honest with you, he’s not the most repentant of our clients. He seems to look at it like it’s a bit of a farce. Still, he takes his commitments seriously. Like I said, he hasn’t failed to meet any of his requirements.”

I thought about the way his strong jaw moved when he sipped his coffee and it made me question all over again whether I was being honest about the situation. What kind of professional was I if I let a client get away with more just because he wore a fitted t-shirt and he was so ruggedly handsome that I took phantom sips out of an empty coffee cup out of sheer nervousness?

“Be that as it may, keep a close watch over Mr. Eason. He’s just the type of person who can screw up the entire program with his antics. Remember, Ms. Beckett, we have to take a hard stance with these people. If they don’t follow our rules to the letter, then we have every right to drop them.”

“I understand.”

We breezed through the last few clients on the agenda and then Mrs. Hemlock hustled me out of her office so that she could go to lunch. The woman kept a more regimented schedule than Eisenhower.

I wandered out into the hallway and thought about what the rest of my day looked like. I’d be lucky to get out of here before eight.

“Hey Riley, what’s up?”

Casey was pushing a mail cart down the hallway. She teasingly nudged it against my butt when I didn’t immediately turn around.

“Oh… hey.”

“What’s with you? I was calling your name like…forever?”

“You were? Sorry, I guess I was lost in thought. Why are you on the mail cart?”

She rolled her eyes. “Mrs. Hemlock fired the mail guy, so she said I should do it until we found a replacement.”

“Really? Why’d she fire him?”

“Ugh. I guess she saw him smoking a cigarette in from of the building on his lunch break and she deemed it ‘unbecoming behavior’ that she said made Fitting In look bad. Can you believe it? The poor guy got fired for smoking a cigarette when he wasn’t even technically on the clock.”

“That’s horrible.”

“I know, right? She’s been on the war path lately.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s especially unfair when you see what some of the other staff gets away with around here. Some of the other consultants act like they’re on the show Mad Men half the time.”

“That reminds me,” she said. “What time are we leaving for the banquet?”

Damnit.

I’d completely forgotten about the Board Member’s Banquet. “Shit. I spaced out on that.”

Casey stuck her bottom lip out. “You don’t want to go?”

I shrugged. “It’s not that. It’s more like I have a thousand things to do and tonight I was gonna try to play catch up.”

“What if I help?”

“You don’t have to do that. I know how busy Hemlock keeps you.”

“Are you kidding? As long as I’m standing at my post with a smile on my face, she doesn’t care what I do.”

“Other than deliver the mail,” I corrected.

“Yeah, right, the mail. But other than that, all I have to do is be there to greet guests. She always tells me ‘Casey, your number one priority is to make sure our guests are welcomed.’ So, that’s what I do. It wouldn’t hurt anything if I say… did some filing for you in the meantime.”

“Oh, my God, Casey that would be amazing. If you could help me get organized I could go tonight without having any stress hanging over me.”

She grabbed the hem of the cute little dress she was wearing and took a bow. “Anything for you girl. Besides, I need you to have my back when I talk to Curtis tonight.”

“Curtis, who’s that?”

“C’mon, he’s that new guy with the accounting department. The one who kind of looks like Bradley Cooper.”

“Oh yeah,” I said. “I’ve seen him. Not bad, but Bradley Cooper might be a stretch.”

Casey frowned so hard I thought her face might actually freeze that way. “Aww, he’s cute. Don’t rain on my parade.”

“Like I said, not bad,” I giggled. “Maybe he’s Bradly Cooper after a rough couple of years.”

She couldn’t hold her frown and started laughing with me. “What about you? I know Kyle Steven’s has been finding every excuse he can to bother you in your office.”

“Ew,” I said trying to hold back a gag. “He’s probably the slimiest guy here. No thanks, beautiful. You’re my date tonight.”

“I’m a good date,” she said. “You’re lucky to have me.”

“Don’t think I don’t know that.”

“Good. Now go get those files so we can kill it tonight.”

Troy

An overstuffed sack landed at my feet with a thud. The trailer floor creaked under its weight and my boots were coated with dust. Bags on top of bags full of heavy newspaper were stacked ceiling high in the back of the thirty-foot trailer.

Our company did industrial shipping and we sent everything from newspapers to refrigerators through our channels. Most of it got to where it was going only after it was carried on my back for a spell. Tonight, though, the workload was light and I figured I’d be clocked out by eight-thirty at the latest.

“Yeah, man, and then all you gotta do is flip it to some sucker for twice what it cost you.”

I was working with two other guys that were relatively new to the job. Newer than me, even.

“So, what’s up then? How do you make your money so fast?”

“That’s the thing. When it ‘falls off the truck’ you don’t gotta worry about startup costs. It’s all profit.”

The two of them slapped hands and laughed like they were the smartest guys in the world. Neither one of

them could have been older than nineteen and it showed in their decision making—not that I was one who should be judging other’s skills in that department.

They were talking about fencing stolen goods—probably stuff they planned to take from our warehouse. I hadn’t said a word the whole time they went over their plan, but I couldn’t hold my tongue any longer.

“That’s a pretty fuckin’ stupid idea,” I said.

“Huh?”

I hadn’t bothered learning either one of their names. In my head, I just thought of them as Dickhead One and Dickhead Two.

“Yeah, you think you’re gonna steal a bunch of shit from here and nobody’s gonna even notice? Neither one of you guys know anything about the inventory intake system. They’ll figure you out in half a day.”

“What the fuck do you know about it, man?” asked Dickhead Two.

“I know that if shit starts disappearing off the lot the first place they’re gonna go sniffing around is with the two new guys who don’t even have the good sense to wear gloves when they’re loading product.”

“Shit, I don’t remember anybody asking your opinion, anyway.”

Dickhead One was wearing a short-sleeved shirt that left his arms vulnerable to all the rough materials we worked with. He was scratching furiously while we talked.

“Besides,” I said. “Why would you want to do that dumb shit anyway? Both of you guys have a job where you’re making good money. I wish I could have been making eighteen bucks an hour when I was your age. Maybe then, I wouldn’t have had to work a hustle on the side. And God knows I was way better at than you two geniuses are.”

“I don’t wipe my ass with eighteen bucks an hour,” Number Two said. One chuckled and they high-fived one more time.

“Fine, do whatever the fuck you want; just make sure I don’t get mixed up in it. If you guys do any sneaky shit, make sure it’s when I’m off the clock. I don’t want to get sucked in to the tornado that is your stupidity.”

“Yeah, we don’t need permission from you to do what we want. We’ll do it when we feel like it.”

I bit down hard on my gum and felt the rage build inside of me. When I took my first step toward them, they both flinched. I’d beaten the shit out of guys twice their size and ten times as tough, and I think they were catching on to the fact by the look in my eye.