He shook his iced coffee, and it annoyed the fuck right out of me. I wanted to knock the cup out of his hand. Just totakesomething—however insignificant—ofhis.
I considered it for a moment, and then hated myself for giving life to the thought. What kind of bastarddidthat?
Oh, yeah. This kind. I wasthatkind ofbastard.
Patrick dropped his elbows on the table and rubbed his brows. "I never want to see another intern as long as I live," he said. "Children are not allowed in this office everagain."
"Okay, let me update the list," Andy murmured, flipping open her notebook. "Is it children in general, or only extensively vetted interns whom you considerchildren?"
A lot of people gave my oldest brother shit. He deserved it. But no one gave it with Andy's unflinching ease. It wasbeautiful.
"Asani," Patrick warned. "Not inthemood."
"It's worth noting that you did not have an intern with you this summer as you've been objecting to this venture for eleven months," she continued. She was right about that. Shannon was always scouting new talent, and had cooked up a plan to bring on interns for the summer. To say the experiment had met with mixed results would be too generous. "Your aggravation is tangential at best,Patrick."
"Enough with that bullshit. We're getting more interns, and you'll just need to deal," Shannon said as she unwrapped her tacos. She glanced at me. "Hotsauce?"
I dug in my messenger bag for the small bottle of sriracha I kept handy. "Here you go, boss," I said, passing ittoher.
Her taste for spice was new with this pregnancy, but I wasn't complaining. As long as she wasn't eating yogurt next to me, I'd share all of my snacks with her. I fucking detested yogurt. I mean, what exactly wasthatshit?
"While I don't often agree with Patrick, I do think we should steer clear of undergrad interns in the future," Sam said. "It was a fascinating endeavor, although I would've appreciated someone a little lessgreen."
Matt rapped his knuckles on the tabletop and pointed at Sam. "Precisely," he said. I was still a bastard, and as such, required great restraint to eat my breakfast burrito without glowering at my brother. "They all learned a lot, but they weren't ready for this level of practical application. For purely selfish reasons, I'd rather see a more advanced pool and I don't have an issue with spending more toacquireone."
Shannon plucked cilantro from her taco—not cured of the picky eating in full—and shot a glance at me. "You haven't weighed in,"shesaid.
I laughed into my burrito. That I'd been gifted an intern for the past ten weeks was equal parts awesome and odd. Awesome because I had someone to organize everything in my office, unjam the printer, and run out for coffee whenever I needed a refill. And she baked cookies. Odd because I couldn't help thinking it was a mistake to give me an intern. Most days, I was certain that I didn't know enough about what I was doing to explain any of it toanyoneelse.
"Bergman was, uh," I started, shrugging. "She was fine. Asked good questions. Did some…useful stuff." I reached for the sriracha. I didn't want to criticize my intern for not knowing what was going on around her when I rarely knew what was going on. "Although Sam has validpoints."
"Bergman left a DVD in the laptop we issued her," Tom said. "I wiped the devices on Saturday morning and came acrossitthen."
"Why were you working Saturday morning?" Shannon asked him. "Balance. We've talkedaboutit."
"Torsion," Matt added. If anyone else had registered his wonky engineering quip, itdidn'tshow.
"I wasn't going to be able to enjoy the weekend until I got it done," he replied with a hint of defensiveness. "Not that it matters but it was porn. The DVD. In Bergman's laptop. She left porn in herlaptop."
"Didn't expectthat,"Shannonsaid.
"All right. I'm done," Patrick said. He pointed at Andy. "Put that on your goddamn list. We're finished with interns. Allofthem."
"People still watch porn on DVD?" I asked. "Why? Why would you do that when the internetexists?"
"What kind?" Shannon asked. She wiggled her fingers at me for the sriracha. This babyreallyliked the heat. Pre-pregnancy, my sister was known to complain about gingersnaps being toospicy.
"There was planning involved," Sam murmured. "DVD porn is only necessary when it's a set piece. She was probably watching it with Edwards or Pierson. Or both. Maybe they had an intern threesome thing going on. Withvisualaids."
"You're the worst," Shannon said to him. "The actualworst."
"Let's not shame her," Patrick said. "We have enough issues in the water this morning, and we don't need her suing us for…whatever we're doing right now. She's probably going to die of embarrassment when sherealizesit."
"Or not," Shannon replied. "Women don't have to be embarrassed byenjoyingsex."
"She probably left it for you to find, RISD," Matt said, pointing that goddamn iced coffee at me. I took no issue with my alma mater nickname, but he couldn't breathe without drawing my ire this morning. "She had a thingforyou."
"Erroneous," I said, sparing him a brief glance. I couldn't look at him without seeing his wife naked. Or, what I imagined her to look like without the constraints ofclothing.
