“I can—”
“No, get set up for the day. You’re going to go through the quarterly budget for the office and find places we’re wasting money.” I pointed to an ominous pile of paper I’d set in his usual spot, complete with a fresh package of yellow highlighters.
He blinked at me. “I’m not… stapling?”
“Don’t thank me.” I forced a smile. “The budget is worse than stapling.”
He gave me the smallest pout, something he probably wouldn’t have done a month ago. I swept out the door toward the elevator to go in search of items we didn’t actually need for the office, simply to give myself time to shove all the things I wanted to do with Max—but couldn’t—deep down into the back of my mind. I had to stop thinking about him so I could get through this day. Tomorrow I’d do the same thing. The next day, too. Until I could actually stop giving a shit about Maxwell Kalinski.
I’d worried about the possibility of Max being upset with seeing me each day after all that had happened between us, but he seemed content to come to work and sit beside me. It was me who was close to having a breakdown, and that just couldn’t fucking stand. What kind of Daddy couldn’t keep his shit together? I stepped into the elevators and smoothed my hands down my sides. I stared at my distorted reflection in the shiny silver of the elevator ceiling and briefly considered not going back upstairs. I’d worried about my job when I started things with Max, but now I was half considering asking to switch spots with Mark—not that he would—because I couldn’t stand to see Max sohappywithout me.
Talk about childish. I had to contain myself.
Sighing, I quickly went about being productive as the elevator doors opened, and hustled to the downstairs supply closet near the intern locker rooms where the extra boxes of paper were kept. One boy—whose name I couldn’t recall, but had helped us at a couple of events—gave me a bewildered look as I went in to gather supplies, as if he couldn’t fathom me doing this job. We could almost always use supplies, so at least this wouldn’t be a wasted trip. I had my arms full of two boxes and a bag with ink hooked over my wrist by the time I made my way back to the elevator and found Jaxson standing there waiting for it to come down to the main floor. He beamed at me, and I had a pang.
“On your way to visit Vane before work?” I asked.
“Yes. He forgot his reading glasses at home.” Jaxson was smooth, I’d give him that. He was a little too excited as he flashed me another toothy grin.
“Vane doesn’t wear reading glasses,” I murmured as the elevator doors opened, and he let me step in ahead of him. He slid in next to me and hit the button for the fifth floor. “Try again.”
“Phone charger?” Jaxson asked on a chuckle. He slipped his hands into his pockets, and I’d bet my last dollar it was to hide wood.
“Whatever you’re planning to do, just make sure the door is shut the whole way this time.” I glanced at the numbers above the door as they lit up and we ascended.
He gaped at me and let out an outraged sound that was quite honestly adorable. “We never left the door open!”
I lifted an eyebrow at him, and he frowned so hard I was worried he’d hurt himself.
“Fine, you never left the door open.”
“Ha!”
“But the fact that you were that concerned about it is telling, hmm?”
His face tinged pink as the elevator doors opened, and I congratulated myself on rattling him. I stiffened as shouts hit my ears, and looked up to see that the way between us and my desk was packed with men holding signs. They all had on matching purple sweatshirts embossed with crosses on the back.
“For fuck’s sake,” I groaned.
“This office is poisoning the public against morality!”
Jaxson shared a look with me, and we raced forward. I dropped my boxes and ink beside the elevator doors, and Jaxson, being smaller and able to wriggle through tight spaces easier, was already inside the office by the time I was able to force myself through an unforgiving crowd made up of nothing but signs that jabbed my back and elbows that snagged me. There was some shouting of “Jesus lives!”
“Where the fuck is Vane,” I muttered. My heart raced faster and the stench of too many cheap colognes stuffing up the air had me fighting off a sneeze. “Max!”
There was a man shouting Bible verses punctuated by “what say you, brothers?” and then “Jesus lives” would echo in an eerie way from the men between me and Max. He seemed to be somewhere to the right of the desk because that was where the hubbub was focused. I couldn’t get around the men, so I started pushing my way through.
“Please, you can’t be in here.” Max’s voice was drowned out by the continued shouting.
Finally I was close enough to see what was happening, and my blood pressure skyrocketed. A large man with burly arms, who was wide enough I could barely see Max, had him backed against the wall beside Vane’s door. “I go to the Living Christ Church and I own the bakery across the street from Black Out. This office has contributed to New Gothenburg’s decay. I tried to stop it!”
There were loud shouts of agreement from the other men in the room, and I was ready to crack skulls to get Max away from that man. I wasn’t sure how they’d gotten up here without security noticing, or if they’d been let through for some stupid reason. I shoved my way through the last of the men, and after what felt like a monumental effort, reached my desk. I hit the red button on my landline phone that should alert security. Rage powered through my body as the man who had Max cornered leaned down and screamed in his face, “You’re all going to burn. That’s why God has given us this plague of crime in our city, to kill the unworthy and sort them from the rest of us.”
“Hey!” I said, but no one turned to look at me, and there were shouts of encouragement toward the ringleader. The man who stood closest to me waved his sign like there might be someone with a camera around to see him, but what snagged my attention was a crucifix necklace he wore that was also a rape whistle, for some bizarre reason. I didn’t think. I snatched the whistle from him, pulling hard enough that the beads snapped from around his neck, and blew it as hard as I could. Everyone around me winced at the loud, high-pitched racket, and some people cringed and covered their ears.
“Enough! You must have an appointment to torture the deputy mayor with Bible quotes and bad haircuts. Out now or the police will be involved,” I thundered.
Vane peeked his head out of his door, and the man in charge of this crusade swung toward him, but I walked around the desk, right up to the leader, and then hauled him away from Max by the arm. I was pleased to see we were about the same height, and he backed off the instant he realized he had someone in front of him he couldn’t bully with his size alone.
