Executive Engagement

I get out of bed and walk to the shower.

“Hey,” he calls out. “What about me?”

Crap. This is the part I always hate. Not because of what I’m about to say. But because he’s going to be so damn childish about it.

I turn around.

“Sorry, hon,” I say, trying to act sympathetic. “I have an early morning meeting; can you take care of it yourself?”

“You what?” he asks, incredulous.

“Yeah,” I say. “I’m in a rush, but if your feelings are hurt, I can say I have a headache, or whatever,” I reply, not really talking to him anymore but walking to the intercom next to my bed. I push it and the building concierge comes on the speaker. Because I live in the penthouse, I have a dedicated concierge downstairs in reception. That’s luxury in New York City for you.

“Sammy,” I say into the speaker, “Can you please call me an Uber? Maybe have it here in ten minutes?” I ask.

“Sure thing, Ms. H!” Sammy says into the speaker.

I hang up and turn to Barry. He’s looking at me like I smacked him with a dead fish.

“The car’s on its way,” I tell him. “I’ll give you a call when I’m free, okay?”

I head to bed quickly and give him a quick kiss on the lips.

“It was nice to meet you, Barry,” I say and get off the bed heading to the shower.

The last thing I hear as I walk into my shower is Barry saying, as if in a daze, “It’s Bill.”

Fuck. I should have gone with my gut. But I shrug.

Plenty of fish in the sea.

An hour later my limo pulls up to the Meadowlands stadium and offices of the New York Nailers. It’s 8 am. I’m half an hour late and not happy.

For one, I usually spend the first half hour of the day from 7:30 am to 8 am centering myself for the day ahead.

But the bigger reason is that I’m going to have a meeting at 8 am with the head coach for the Nailers. Coach Karl.

The man who replaced my father.

That’s right. My father who gave thirty years of his life coaching the New York Nailers in some capacity or another. Who started from the bottom and eventually became Head Coach. And at the twilight of his career who was replaced by his best friend, Karl Stoffer. Who died watching his team going to the Super Bowl that same year. The same coach who never had a Super Bowl title and then built the greatest team in his career only to see his dreams snatched away from him.

So what did his daughter do?

When she grew old enough, and wealthy enough, she bought the team.

I didn’t fire Coach Karl. I wanted to slowly torture him, day by day. For now, that meant putting up with him. But I wasn't going to make life easy for the fucker either.

I call my secretary, Trudy, and tell her to move my meeting with Coach Karl to later on in the day. I don’t care when she tells me that the Coach is waiting outside my office or that he came in early from home just for this meeting that I insisted be in the morning.

I don’t value his time.

I don’t value him.

Instead, I decide to plow into some work for the next three hours until the most exciting set of meetings that I have that day.

A face to face sit down with Colt Stackford and then Ethan Blake.

I can’t wait.