When I first started working for Mack, I quickly discovered he was paying suppliers for products they weren’t sending and also underpaying some of the staff. Not that he appreciated the second revelation.
Right now, I’m tearing my hair out because, yet again, he’s handed me a pile of invoices and asked me to check them against the figures he inputted while drunk.
And of course he’s transposed figures all over the place, so it’s a goddamn mess.
To make matters even worse, he keeps his accounting software on a computer so old it’s practically a Jurassic relic. The stupid thing freezes every ten minutes and routinely crashes if I try to open a web page alongside the accounting software.
It’s a fucking nightmare, but a step up from the crusty paper ledger and plastic bag of receipts he gave me on day one of my new role.
I’ve tried to persuade him to upgrade his shitty computer more than once, but the man is a die-hard technophobe convinced Big Tech is out to harvest all his data.
To be fair, they are, but as I went to great lengths to point out, he’s in more danger from the IRS getting nosy than Mark Zuckerberg giving two fucks about which weird porno sites he likes to visit.
Spoiler alert: orc porn is a thing.
I know this after logging in one evening to find a video paused on a particularly disturbing scene. I bleached my eyeballs that night.
“Mack! You’re an idiot!” I holler through the open door after fixing his latest mess.
“I should sack you, you ungrateful bitch,” he grumbles when he sticks his head around the door.
“Yeah, but who would sort this crap out?” I grin and take the coffee he hands me, noting he’s forgotten the creamer…again.
There isn’t much he can say, and we both know it. Not that I want him to sack me. The guy’s done me a solid. I arrived with hardly any cash, and he gave me a job, no questions asked.
“I try my best. It’s not my fault I have dyslexia, Toni.”
He pretends to look affronted as I snort with amusement. “Drunk more like.”
“When you’re done, can you help behind the bar? Tasha’s called in sick.”
“Again? She’s the one that needs sacking, not me,” I point out. Tasha always calls in sick after a hot date. Fucking her latest boy toy is more fun than working here. Not that I blame her. It’s been so long since I got laid that my vagina doesn’t remember what an actual dick feels like.
My dear husband probably assumes I’m dead.
“I’ll be there in a minute. Just need to finish this.”
Mack scratches his ample belly, nods, and heads back into the bar.
The place is moderately busy tonight. There’s a big NFL game on, so all the sports fans huddle around the gigantic flat-screen on the wall, eagerly watching the action. I scan the bar as I always do, alert for anyone who looks suspicious, but the only faces I see are the regulars.
An hour in, I’m partway through a sudoku puzzle when a tall guy in a puffer jacket and plaid shirt walks through the door. He strolls to the end of the bar and orders a beer from Lorrainewhile I tap my pencil thoughtfully. I watch as she flirts with him and he smiles back.
At first glance, he’s just another good-time guy with his tight jeans, broad chest, and a chiseled jaw. When he slips his jacket off, rolled-up shirt sleeves reveal corded forearms decorated with ink.
Definitely my type.
The type I’d love to take home to my shitty apartment and ride all night long.
But I pause because even though my vagina is keen to get to know his dick, something’s triggering my danger alarm. His gaze slides in my direction just as I finish my puzzle. Our eyes meet, and there’s a spark.
The Black Dog Sports Bar attracts a certain type. Men and women who like cheap beer, a decent game on the flat-screen, and the chance of indulging in a fight on a Friday night.
The floor is stone, making it easy to mop up spilled beer and blood, and the bar staff give no shits if someone drinks and drives.
Mr. Hot Stuff is not a regular. I’d have remembered him. So why’s a guy like him slumming it in a shithole like this?
From the way he’s built, he can handle himself. No doubt about that. But the watch on his wrist tells me he’s not dirt poor, and the shiny new leather cowboy boots he’s sporting look like he purchased them yesterday.
