“I’m not going to see you in my establishment for the rest of the weekend. On Monday, you’re going to work behind the bar with a good attitude. You will never again run out of here after servicing a client, then disappear for days without talking to me. And when you need help, you’re going to come ask me for it nicely. You’re not going to make yourself miserable by fuckingevery man in the city just for some cash. You’re better than that. Understood?”
He nodded, not sure what else to do.
“Good. Now say thank you and get the fuck out of my sight.”
17
Phones rang around him,more jarring than his old school’s blaring bell that signaled the end of recess—which he’d always spent reading and hiding away from other kids—and grated on his nerves. The hum of conversation was usually easy enough to ignore once Jensen got into a flow of working, but not today. Though he was physically back at work, his thoughts were over a thousand miles away.
What was Daniel doing? Was he all right? Had anything changed since he’d last texted Jensen an anguishing four minutes ago? Maybe Jensen should take a break and call him. Even better, perhaps he could reserve one of the conference rooms and sludge through his to-do list while on a video call with Daniel. The seven hours he had left to endure of his workday would be easier to get through with Daniel’s face a glance away and his voice in Jensen’s ear.
“Jensen.” His boss’s brusque shout and the hand that slammed down on the top of the cubicle had him jolting in his chair. “What are you working on?”
He turned his attention from Mendes’s hand to the firm’s logo that was bouncing around his screen. He couldn’t remember what he was working on before he’d starteddaydreaming about Daniel. Or how long he’d been daydreaming. He used his pointer finger to push the mouse a few inches, hoping the documents would pop up. Evidently it had been longer than a few moments since the screen had gone to sleep and the log-in screen stared back at him. “Just thinking through some possible complications with the floor plan for the Garner project.”
“The thinking stage should have passed months ago. The client is getting worried because they haven’t seen a revision in a month and a half. It should have been on their desk weeks already.”
Jensen scratched his jaw, finding he really didn’t care that he was behind. He’d been adding and deleting little details from the lobby’s floor plan for a couple of weeks now, completely ignoring the three floors of offices, break rooms, bathrooms, and utility rooms he was supposed to be designing.
Wyatt had been able to ward off all the other departments that needed his input and updates on the designs so they could do their job, but Jensen knew they were getting impatient. It wasn’t like he didn’t know he was missing deadlines. The emails from the client, project manager, and procurement department wouldn’t let him forget. And still, he couldn’t muster up an ounce of motivation to design the bank’s new headquarters.
In hindsight, he should have shoved the whole thing off to one of their teams of junior associates or interns weeks ago, but this was the only thing he had to work on. He hadn’t been working on it though. It’d sat on his desk without any progress, and now it was too late to bring anyone else on without the entire office knowing not a single piece of the floor plan was done.
“The latest revision is almost ready for the client, right, Jensen?” Wyatt cut in, trying to save his ass like always. “We’re a little bit behind, but Jensen always pulls through and gets itdone on time. We won the bid due to our quality, and I’m sure the executives will appreciate it not being rushed.”
“I’ll appreciate it when I don’t have them calling my personal line to ask what’s happening,” Mendes said with a hard edge in his tone. Most of the typing and chatter had quieted in the open office, further amplifying the loudness of his words. “You have thirty minutes to gather all the work you’ve done and present it to me in the conference room.”
The weight of the situation would usually have Jensen’s stomach swirling and his shoulders pressed against his ears. A few months ago, Jensen would have broken out in hives and scrambled to meet the demands of his boss. Jensen wasn’t that person anymore.
He sat back in his chair, finally making eye contact with Mendes, whose light-brown skin was reddened. Picking up his coffee mug, Jensen took a long sip while he watched his boss’s eye twitch. After carefully setting it back down on his coaster, he said, “No.”
Wyatt’s inhale was audible even over the bark of a laugh Mendes let out.
“This is your job; you can’t say no.”
“You say no all the time,” Jensen pointed out. “How many years have I worked here? And how many times have you promised I’d be working on historic projects, and not just to tear them down?”
Besides a printer slugging out a ream of paper, the office was silent.
“Look around you, Jensen. This is an architecture firm that does office buildings. We have to be competitive in order to stay in business, and there isn’t a single company in San Francisco that wants a dated building.”
“What about the project you promised to assign me to after the Garner one was finished?” he asked, already knowing in his gut what the answer was.
Mendes looked around the floor, no doubt clocking that everyone had stopped working to listen in. “We can discuss this later. You now have twenty-eight minutes to get your notes in order.”
Jensen stood, his chair slamming into the cubicle wall behind his desk. “What about the other project?”
“How about we focus on your current project before getting ahead of ourselves?” It wasn’t a question.
“All right, let’s go. You don’t need to wait; I can tell you right now I haven’t done any revisions since the conference, and I don’t plan on doing anymore. When can I start working on the other project?”
With clenched teeth and a pulsing vein on his forehead, Mendes looked like he was about to explode. “There never was another project.”
Though his voice was quiet, it held no regret or guilt for lying to Jensen. And why would it? Jensen had allowed his boss to lie to him year after year, and he just went along with it. He allowed himself to be led around like a show dog, doing tricks whenever asked, and getting awards that were shoved in the faces of potential clients. Jensen had signed off on his own exploitation for so long that it wasn’t even surprising that Mendes would take advantage. It was just sad.
But Jensen could grieve for the years he lost and the frustrations he’d allowed later.
“I think I came back from PTO too early. I’m going to take the rest of the day off.” Without waiting for permission, he grabbed his phone off the desk and left, abandoning his laptop, his very pissed-off boss, and a shocked Wyatt.
