Keaton sighed and leaned over my desk to grab it.His hand brushed close by my arm where I rested on the desk.I felt a light gust of air as he breathed out to reach further.
He smelled like fresh linen.
“Hello, you’ve reached the Harvey Agency.Oliver Harvey’s desk.How may I direct your call?”Keaton said into the receiver.He stood up straight again and looked away from me as he listened.The sound of my name on his lips made my eyes shoot straight to them.He nodded silently and then his eyes widened in alarm.“There’s a fight in the lobby?”he repeated.“… Ace Park?”
It was my turn to widen my eyes.Within the course of a second, I already knew what I had to do.I sprang to my feet and burst through the doors of my office.There was no time to hesitate.Waiting for the elevator would take too long.I ran for the stairs.
I could hear Keaton’s dress shoes clattering across the steps behind me as I plummeted downwards.
Three dizzying stairwell turns deposited us out into the lobby.The problem was immediately obvious.Ace and Brody Driver were on the floor.Ace was straddling Brody.His fist was raised in the air.Both of them already had bloody faces.Bloody knuckles.
“No!”I thundered.I marched across and caught Ace’s arm just as he intended to make his downswing.He looked up at me in outraged surprise.
“Harvey,” he hissed.“He said –”
“I don’t care what he said,” I told him coldly.“Get up off the floor and go back to your office.Now.”
Ace resisted.I saw it in his eyes.He wasn’t even paying attention to me.I was no longer his boss.No longer someone who could tell him what to do.
He was too angry.Brody was his target and he wasn’t going to let him out of his sights.Not before he had a chance to pull the trigger.
I hauled him up by his arm.He found himself in the air with a shout of surprise.I deposited him on his feet single-handed.There was a moment of scrabbling before he found his balance again.I shoved him towards the elevator.“Go!”
Ace stumbled a couple of steps in the right direction.His eyes remained on the floor.On Brody.He reached up to smear the back of his hand across the cut in his split lip.I watched the message pass through his eyes.This isn’t over.
He squared his shoulders and walked away straight and tall.
I turned my attention to the object of offense.There was a cut and swelling above Brody’s eye that was quite obviously going to leave him with a nice shiner tomorrow.He scrambled backward slightly when he saw me looking at him.It seemed like most of the fight had gone out of him with Ace’s exit.
“Get off my floor,” I snarled at him.
He huffed and got up as if it was a great imposition for me to ask that of him.He was less submissive when he was back on his feet.A surly look dropped over his face.
“Whatever,” he said.“This place is for losers, anyway.”
I snorted.Maybe Ace and I were a good fit to work together.We must have had something in common – because I couldn’t resist getting one jab in.“Doesn’t look to me like you’re any kind of winner.”
He wanted to retort something back at me.I could see it in the way his mouth worked for a second.He must have decided I was more of a risk to antagonize than Ace.He closed his mouth and stalked out of the lobby and back onto the street.
The tension audibly and visibly drained from the people who had come to watch.I waved a dismissive hand in a circle above my head and made direct eye contact with a few of the key personnel.Within seconds they were dissipating back to their proper departments.
All except one.
Keaton Dunbar.
He had seen all of it.He must have been right behind me.He saw how strong and powerful I was.How I was the only person able to wade in between them.How I could lift Ace with one hand.
I was not a vain man.But at this moment I was proud of my body.Proud that I continued to work on it even after my sports career was over.Proud that I could show it off right there in front of the one man I wanted to impress.
And when had that happened?
“I can’t believe they fought,” Keaton said.He cleared his throat a little and pushed his glasses up his nose.
I felt myself deflate just slightly.I was holding out for awowor athat was amazing.Maybe even aMr.Harvey you’re so strong do you think you could lift me like that?
Yes, Keaton Dunbar.I could lift you like that and fuck you with one hand around your waist and carry you around the room.Would you like to see me try?
I cleared my own throat.“Back to work,” I said.I didn’t care how abrupt it sounded.The elevator was full so I turned back towards the stairs.
