Ransome’s phone has been blowing up nonstop. He’s been avoiding it, but I can still hear it. “You should get that,” I mumble.
Instead of answering, he plops down in the chair next to me, lets out a decompressive sigh, and pinches the bridge of his nose.
“Work going okay?” I ask. It’s a stupid question. I know the answer.
“Work is on fire,” he says without opening his eyes.
“More than usual?” I try to joke. He’s not smiling, not that I’m shocked.
Instead, he looks at me, sitting up straight and talking with his hands. “So much more than usual. It’s bad enough that Tristan is on the loose, clearly up to something, but every day that I walk into the office it’s like a new and improved shitshow. Do you have any idea how many assistants I have gone through since you left?”
“You mean since you fired me?”
Probably not the best question to ask, but he did fire me. He can vent about his work misfortunes all he wants, but I’m done feeding the narrative that he didn’t bring it upon himself.
Still. Maybe not the best place and time to address that.
I shoot him an apologetic look. “Sorry. Go on. How many?”
His jaw works for a moment. “Five,” he says. “At least five. And I just fired the new one without a replacement, which means I’m fucked. So Janine is running around like a headless chicken trying to figure out how to do two jobs.”
“Who’s Janine?” I ask, and he throws his hands up.
“Exactly! I need someone competent. Someone who knows how I like things and can do them right the first time. I need?—”
“Me,” I tell him. “You need me.”
He stops. Looks right at me. “That’s out of the question.”
I sit up straight—well, straighter. “Why? Think about it. Being back in the office would get me out of the house. It would give me purpose.”
“It would be stressful,” he argues.
And I laugh. “Oh, please. Being your assistant isn’t that bad. It’s just a coffee order, a detailed daily schedule with room to breathe, and an organized dry-cleaning schedule. I could do it in my sleep.”
Ransome stares at me, his mouth slack and his eyebrows furrowed. He’s annoyed. Because he knows I’m right. He knows it would be good for me.
But more than that, he knows he’s not going to find anyone else that can handle it.
“Nobody knows you like I do,” I say. It’s an understatement and he knows it.
After a long moment of him biting a hard bullet, he sniffs and holds a leveled hand out to me. “If you come back to the office?—”
I perk up.
“Hold on. I saidif. Ifyou come back to the office, it will be for Apex only. No more digging around in my other affairs,” he says, keeping his voice low. “And no worrying about things that don’t concern you. I will keep you safe. I will make sure that end of my life is running smoothly. You will assist with Apex work and Apex work only.”
“Done,” I say, clapping my hands before melting back into the bed again. “Oh. One other thing,” I say. “I want to join a gym.”
“No. You have a gym at home.”
“I want to do yoga.”
“You can do yoga at home. There’s a screen and mirrors. You don’t need to go to a studio for that.”
“I do if I want to make sure I’m doing it correctly. I need to be spotted if I am doing prenatal yoga. It’s safest for me and the baby.”
Ransome bites the inside of his cheek and his jaw flexes. He knows I’m right. “Fine,” he says. “With a driver.”
