Grumpy Boss

“It’s pretty here,” Millie said, frowning at the house. “I can see why someone might want to stay.”

“Better in the day than it is at night,” I said, and reached out to take her hand. I felt like some barrier had broken between us, and what was unspoken and hidden was out in the open now and acknowledged. It felt good, like I’d taken the bricks of myself and recast them, then put myself together again. “Maybe we can try having sex before we go in.”

Millie snorted and squinted at the old ladies with their poofy white hair. “I doubt they’ll like it,” she said.

“Ah, come on, they were young once, and who knows. Maybe they’d enjoy the show.”

She gave me a look and opened the door. She stepped out onto the sidewalk and I hesitated, and some weak part of me wanted to stay in the car and hide out.

But I was too angry, and Desmond had done too much to try and break me. I stepped out into the comfortable sunlight and took Millie’s hand as we crossed the street. She looked good in a pair of black slacks and a navy-blue button down with white polka dots, her hair up in a messy bun, lips colored a very subtle pink. Made up or unmade, she always left me wanting more.

I walked up the porch steps, testing them to make sure they wouldn’t give out. Millie followed, but waited back by the railing as I rung the bell.

Noting happened at first. I glanced back at her and she shrugged. “It’s the middle of the day,” she said. “Maybe he’s not home.”

“He’s home,” I said, and rung the bell again. Desmond was a cliché, through and through, and if he was even remotely like the man I knew, he’d have been up late the night before, and likely just woke up.

I rang again, and again, and soon I heard footsteps inside, creaking floorboards, someone coughing. I felt a spike and I thought I recognized the sound—and a second later, the door opened, and Desmond stood there in a long, ratty gray robe, his once-black hair gone gray and thinning, his white t-shirt pit stained and threadbare, and his eyes widened as I tilted my head, and leaned against the door frame.

“Hello, Des,” I said. “Invite me inside.”

“What the hell,” he said, and started to shut the door, but I stepped forward and shoved against it. “What the hell are you doing here?” he gasped, trying to shove me back, but he’d lost weight in the years since I last saw him, his cheeks sunken, his chin covered in a thin, ugly beard. He was a haunted version of the man I knew a long time ago, and this only confirmed that my old friend was dead, buried by time and distance and too many things we couldn’t take back.

I rammed my shoulder into the door and it flew open with a bang. He grunted as he stumbled back and tripped over the end of a recliner. I stepped inside and looked around—the place was a wreck. Newspapers were stacked on the coffee table, and more than a few empty vodka bottles were lined up against the wall, each of them plastic, with peeling labels. The television was ten years out of style and chipped on the sides, and the walls were marked by fingers and smudged.

Desmond stared up at me from the floor, the carpet brown and mottled with stains. “You shouldn’t be here,” he said.

“And you should’ve left me alone.” I stepped closer and he crab-crawled backwards, before stumbling to his feet. He staggered over toward the couch, but didn’t sit, and paced back and forward, agitated. Millie stepped in behind me and made a face around her.

“Nice,” she said softly. “This explains a lot.” She pulled the door shut behind us.

“Desmond,” I said. “This is Millie. You know about her, right?”

He looked up, glaring at me. “Of course I know.” He rubbed his hands together and grinned huge. “I know all about your girlfriends. I know what you did to Giana, and I know what you did to Lady Fluke. She’s pregnant with your child, isn’t she, you monster?”

I gaped at him, not sure what to make of this, and he began to pace again, mumbling to himself—and it hit me, all at once, like a sudden flood. I stepped sideways and put my hand against the wall for support, taking a deep breath, and staring at the bottles, at the newspapers, at a stack of Car and Driver magazine.

“You believe it all, don’t you?” I asked, blinking up at him.

He paused and glowered. “Of course. It’s all the truth, isn’t it?”

I looked at Millie, and I saw horror in her eyes—likely mirroring my own.

He wasn’t some genius nemesis out to get me. Desmond was a full-on raving alcoholic, living at rock bottom, and likely had been for a long time. I couldn’t guess how he survived at all—likely took some IT security clients and was coherent enough to do his simple work for them, and probably still had money saved from investments he’d made when we still worked together.