Alphahole (Alphahole Roommates 1)

“Excellent sir, thank you. I’m still finding my feet, but yeah. It’s good.”

I barely get ‘good’ out of my mouth when Aiden cuts in.

“Great. Have you had a chance to look over last month’s reports on our paid Adwords campaigns?”

“A little, yes.”

“And?”

“And…” I swallow. I needed more coffee than the one sip I’ve had. “And I think we could do much better.”

“Really? How?” Mr. C asks, crossing one ankle over the other knee and smoothing out his pants.

“Sorry, sir. I’m not exactly on the ball yet this morning. I could use an IV drip bag filled with coffee. Still a little, uh, jetlagged.”

He’s studying me with concern.

“Don’t you mean wine-lagged?” Aiden grumbles and my face burns hot.

I roll my eyes and laugh like Aiden’s joking and then I start to ramble to tell them both what’s wrong with the way they’re doing things, but I’m fumbling a little through my words.

Mr. C gives me an amused smile. I see Aiden glaring at me and realize I might have been less than diplomatic here about stuff his department has been responsible for before me. I blame the lack of coffee. I try to backtrack a bit and talk about what they’re doing right, but I’m stuttering now.

“Well, the algorithms Aiden set up to automate all that might need a bit of tweaking. I’m sure you’ll work closely with Aiden to show him the way.” Mr. C. winks. “I like the re-targeting idea. Why aren’t we doing that already, Aiden?”

Oh shit. Obviously, I’ve just taken a poo-poo all over Aiden’s thing.

“We are, Dad.”

I tilt my head. “It didn’t look like it.”

His eyes narrow at me. “I’ll show you from my dashboard. We’ll have a one-on-one.”

“Good, good. Now, next week, New York. Let’s talk strategy,” Mr. C says.

“New York?” I ask.

“Eastmark, the East Coast marketing show and conference?”

“Oh?” I say.

“Have you been before?”

I shake my head. “My bosses went when I was back home, but I didn’t get to go.”

“Well, now you will.”

“Oh.” I’m a little surprised. That’s only days away.

“You and Aiden fly out Monday night, I believe. So, you’ve got a few days to get up to speed before you go. Did you not get the email with the itinerary?”

“I… don’t think so.”

“Hm.” He looks at Aiden.

Aiden clicks through his email. “You’re cc’d on the email, Carly.” Aiden looks at me disapprovingly.

I feel like I’m in the principal’s office. The jerky hot alphahole principal. And his dad.