Home Sweet Home - II
1283 Words
“Speaking of food, your aunt’s Christmas feature down at the diner is maple meatloaf.”
“Why?” she shuddered.
“I don’t know but people are actually buying it and liking it.”
“Did you try it?” She asked her sister.
“As if. Meatloaf should either have gravy or tomato sauce. That’s it.” Twila was clearly unimpressed.
“Nick would definitely like the maple one,” she considered her boss. “I don’t know if I’ve seen him go a full day without eating candy of some kind. His dentist’s bills must be astronomical.”
“You’ve been talking of him all morning.”
“He threw me for a loop this weekend.” She took a deep breath. “I even told him about Kash and Candy.”
“What did he think? I’m curious to know the prick’s opinion,” Twila grinned.
“He offered to send Kash a case of candy cum.”
“Kash was in the bakery yesterday asking when you were coming home. He tries to do it casual, but you can tell he’s still interested.”
“He can f**k off.” Grier ducked away from her mother’s slap. “He boned my cousin and got her pregnant.”
“Thirteen years ago!”
“Mom,” she rolled her eyes at her mother’s words, “the following weekend, he gave me a promise ring at the place where we lost our virginities together only two months before.”
“You were barely seventeen. Shouldn’t have been having s*x anyway.” Her mother insisted.
“Right. Its why you and Twila are barely eighteen years apart.” She mocked her mother. “In a town this small when the winters are this cold, you only have a few activities you can engage in and there is only so many hayrides drinking hot chocolate a girl can take before she needs other ways to stay warm.”
“Ain’t this the truth,” Twila winked at her husband who was coming back from down the hall. “What took you so long?”
He tossed a phone at Grier, “this was going off like crazy in the bottom of your laptop bag. Took me forever to find it. I figured it must be important since it wouldn’t stop.”
“It’s my work cell and I should have turned it off.” She groaned with impatience as she looked at the number of missed calls from both Meg and Nick.
“Don’t answer it.” Twila urged her with wide eyes.
“If Dad was calling you on vacation and you knew it was work?”
“I’d answer it,” Twila flopped resignedly backwards against the sofa. “But I wouldn’t like it.”
She tried calling Meg first, but the call was immediately sent to voice mail. With her mother, sister and brother-in-law looking on, she called Nick on speaker phone. They’d never met her boss. They’d never even heard his voice. She crossed her fingers and prayed he wasn’t his total dickface self.
“Jesus Christ, how god damned long was your flight you couldn’t answer the phone?”
And there he was in all his prick glory. Grier rolled her eyes.
“My laptop bag was in the back of the truck, and I didn’t hear the phone ringing because it’s where I put my work phone. I’m on holiday, Mr. Santos,” she gritted through her teeth, “which means I’m using my personal cell phone.”
“Is it still on airplane mode because you aren’t answering it either?”
“Actually,” she gave a snort, “it is. What do you want?”
“Meg’s appendix ruptured. Right here in the damn office.”
She closed her eyes and fell back against the sofa cushions the way her sister did, “no.”
“Yeah. She had pain in her abdomen but was too damn scared to tell me and she dropped right in front of my desk while bringing me a coffee. Coffee everywhere and it’s mixed with puke because when she came to, she started vomiting. Then the paramedics stomped their dirty slushy boots all over the f*****g place. My office looks like a before scene in a vacuum cleaner commercial. I’ve been trying to go through your contacts to find the speciality cleaners you hired the time the pregnant lady’s waters ruptured in my office. I think I’d rather see that again than Meg’s puking and spasming.”
“How is Meg?” she reminded him there was a person involved.
“Undergoing surgery. I already paid all the bills and told the surgeon if she died, I’d pay the family’s legal fees to sue him. She’ll be fine.”
Her mother’s mouth formed an o shape as her eyebrows arched high at the callous way Grier’s boss was discussing his employee.
“I will call the hospital and check in on her. I’ll arrange for the cleaning company but you will need to be out of the office so they can do their job because they’re terrified of you. Work in the boardroom until it’s done. I’ll also call HR and see if there is someone who can cover my desk.” She was already sending a text while they chatted to the girl she’d commiserated with over Nick’s attitude at the cleaning company. She offered to double the regular fee. The woman asked for triple. Done. “Cleaning company is on it’s way.”
“Grier, I barely tolerate Meg for s**t’s sake. I don’t want one of those other airheads HR sends me.”
His words registered and she surfaced from her thoughts. “No! I’m not coming back. It’s Christmas and I’m spending it with my family!”
“Fine. I’ll come to you. I can work out of anywhere. I need my right hand. Remember what we talked about yesterday?”
“I’m on holiday. I don’t want to work.”
“You’ll get your time off back in the New Year.”
“No.”
“Ten grand bonus.”
Grier saw Twila’s eyes widen incredulously and her mother gripped her arm.
“Forty.”
“Twenty-five.”
“You’re insane. You do realize this town is a Christmas destination town, right? Like people come from miles around to spend the holidays here because of the tree farm, the ski hill, the lake which is completely frozen over and so there is skating and ice fishing. It’s exactly what those Hallmark movies depict on television. There is no way you’ll find a place to stay here in Coldreach.” She was already missing the twenty-five grand in bonus money. She told herself it was the money she was thinking of, and she wasn’t weirdly addicted to his dastardly demeanor and wanting him around to distract her from the way her heart was hurting over Hazel.
“Actually, we have a room not yet booked,” Twila spoke up. “It’s the smallest room and it’s at the top of the B&B so there are like four flights of stairs but –”
Grier shot her sister a look which should have killed her on the spot, but her sister was grinning like a maniac. Her mother was bouncing excitedly on the sofa. Et tu, Bruté?
“I’ll take it. I don’t need much. I need my damn assistant. I’m arranging my flight now. See you in a few hours.”
The call ended and she turned to her sister accusingly despite the flutter in her heart, “What did you just do?”
- Writer
