One Helluva Job - Read Sample

Chapter 1

“Thanks for the morning blow job,” Dale murmured, stroking Jessie’s mop of almost-black hair, the long fringe tickling Jessie’s eyelids.

He looked at Jessie fondly, and the younger guy hoped this year would finally be the one where Dale proposed. Jessie had hinted at it often enough. They’d been together for five years now, and even his parents had asked when they’d take the next step. Granted, meeting the parents and moving in together would probably have to happen first, but Jessie felt confident he could juggle planning a move and a small but memorable wedding.

He rested his hands on Dale’s chest and smiled. “You’re welcome. You said you have an important meeting today. I hope it helps later.”

Dale frowned, and for a moment, he looked like he wasn’t feeling well, but the lines smoothed out fast before he nodded. “Sure. Jessie, I…”

“Yeah?”

Was it too much to get excited? It was right before the holidays. They’d planned to pack up tomorrow and leave the day after to visit Jessie’s parents for Christmas. Sure, he hated his aunt, and his cousin tended to make obnoxious comments about his relationship, and he always held back tremendously because his mother asked him to, but it was just two days. He’d suffer gracefully. As gracefully as his nerves would allow. And maybe they’d back off in the presence of his boyfriend. Dale had an aura that made people stand still and hold their breath while waiting for his evaluation of their very existence.

“Let’s break up. I think it’s better if we end this.”

Jessie sat up, his mismatched eyes comically wide and his mouth agape. “What?”

Dale leant back against the headboard and looked at him solemnly, hands folded. “Let’s break up.”

Five years. He’d given the motherfucker his best years. Jessie spluttered, his brain still trying to catch up. “But… why?”

“I’m turning forty next year and need to think about the future, and you’re only twenty-five. You’re so young, too young to make final decisions. I don't want to bore you with investment talk and schmoozing business partners when you could be out partying. You still have dreams and hopes, and I have a set plan for my future. I feel like these don’t mutually align,” Dale said, matter-of-factly.

Jessie blinked back tears before grabbing a pillow and smacking him in the face. Hard. He wished he had one of those antique Japanese headrests instead. The wooden ones. Dale grunted, and Jessie held up his hand, pointing at his ring finger.

“This was my future plan, you wanker! Your ring on my finger, Dale. Because I love you, and I thought you felt the same. I was twenty when you picked me up at the club. I drank fucking water! You’ve fucked the ‘too young’ for five years now!”

He scrambled out of the bed and put on his boxer briefs, almost ripping the seams when he dragged them up.

“Fuck you, Dale!”

Dale sighed and dragged his hand through his still thick and dark blonde hair. “See, this is what I am talking about. You want to get a ring but still act like a child when you’re upset.”

Excuse me for having an emotional breakdown when you break up with me. Because really, what the fuck did Dale expect?

Jessie stared at him in disbelief. “When did you decide to end this? Be honest.”

Dale shrugged. “When you started making plans for Christmas and New Year's Eve. It sounded like you expected some kind of further commitment, and I realised that I wouldn't be open to it.”

Jessie laughed; the sound similar to that of a drowning cat. “That was four months ago!”

Dale padded around like he owned the place, slowly putting on his trousers, unbothered by the briefs he’d tossed somewhere. “And my decision hasn't changed. Thank you for the five years, Jessie. I appreciate that you gave them to me.”

Jessie didn't know what to say.

He’s been fucking you like a whore on call for four months while you made plans to move in together. While you deflected all the bad mouthing your mother did.

“He’s almost my age, Jessie.”

“He never bothered to show up at family gatherings. Nobody can be that busy.”

“Wearing a nice jacket won't make you a grown-up.”

Okay, so maybe she had been right with the second one. Still…

Jessie looked at the concrete vase Dale had randomly shown up with on their second anniversary. To give the bedroom a more distinguished look. Something grey and… boring. Absolutely not his taste and very ugly. The poor coffee table which it was situated on, constantly groaned.

“I will send my PA to pick up any personal belongings. If you could put them in a box, I’d appreciate it.” Dale paused. “And maybe un-tag me in your posts.”

Jessie’s blue eye twitched. His right eye — the one that was an almost-boring light brown — never acted up when he got nervous.

He looked at Dale, who casually tied his silk tie. The one he had gifted him two years ago for Christmas. A Christmas Dale hadn’t bothered to join him for. Another event he’d been too busy to make time for.

“Why were we even together?” he whispered.

Dale scrunched up his face, something almost like pity flitting over his features, before the prominent jaw set a hard line again. “You are very easy on the eyes, Jessie. And you're a good shag. And for a while, I thought that would be enough.” He grabbed his jacket and his mobile, frowning at the screen for too long, before pocketing it. “I need somebody with an elite mindset. And that's not you. Not right now, and maybe never. You're too soft, and sometimes quite irrational.”

A tear dripped onto Jessie’s bare foot, and he knew the skin would itch later. He always hated swimming in salt water. He was soft. Indeed.

But he was also an absolute lunatic when hurt. And right now, he hurt a lot.

Jessie nodded, opened the French balcony window and looked down at the car park in front of the tenement block. Several cars were still parked, while other neighbours had already left for work. Dale’s car, a Porsche in almost unassuming light grey, stood out. It had the price tag that usually didn’t make it into his quaint neighbourhood.

Oh yeah, I can do that. Watch me being irrational as hell.

He'd been in the university's boule team. An old man's hobby-slash-sport. Dale had teased him for it, but he always forgot that it meant Jessie had trained to throw very heavy things at very small targets.

“You should have picked golf. That’d be of use later.”

Before Dale could predict, or even process what was happening, Jessie picked up the ugly vase and dropped it with a calculated swing out of the window.

Dale screamed. And the alarm of his now-slightly-less-immaculate Porsche blared.

Jessie looked down, pleased that he managed to hit exactly where the hood met the front window, effectively destroying both. Granted, it was a cliché move. But Jessie didn't care. The scream was worth the effort, uncreative as it was. He’d think of other fun ways to destroy the rest of Dale’s belongings later.

“Oh,” he breathed. “My irrational hand slipped. You can keep the vase. It was yours anyway.”

Dale stared at him, furious and hands balled into fists. He wouldn't hit him, though. Jessie knew he was never physical. That would be beneath him.

The older man grunted angrily, turned around and left.

Jessie waited until the door closed.

Then he broke down and wailed into his comforter that smelt of Dale’s expensive cologne and their lovemaking from the previous night.

Fucking. It's just been fucking for him.

Jessie peered at the clock through his teary, blurry vision. He'd need to be at work in an hour, and he had no idea how to survive the office while looking like a goldfish with bubble eyes.

***

Jessie looked down at the coffee he’d got at the cute little café close to the metro station and the office. The barista had examined him critically, handed over a cookie and waved him off when he’d attempted to pay.

“Girl, I know those eyes. I’ve been there. Enjoy the cookie,” the guy said and scrunched up his face in empathy.

Jessie had almost defended himself, then thought about it, and instead simply trudged out, nibbled at the sweet, slightly crunchy baked good and wondered how things could go downhill so fast.

People rushed by, trying to get to their destinations on time or do last-minute shopping, and the stress was making them rambunctious. Every single store was decked out with festive decorations, and romantic lights twinkled in the windows. For the last few years, Jessie had opted out of turning his apartment into the regular decorative Christmas vomit he enjoyed because Dale didn’t like it.

Fuck you, Dale. He had to bite off a big chunk of cookie to fend off his tears. He didn’t care about the crumbs that fell on his jacket.

Jessie hated ties anyway. He shouldn’t have to strangle himself with a tie at only twenty-five.

Too young, too naive… and in one of the most boring jobs ever. “It’s unusual to see young and pretty faces in accounting. It’s like you chose to stand out in a sea of old and tired middle-aged men and women juggling numbers all day,” Dale had said when he’d learned about Jessie’s profession.

Jessie wondered if being a barista in a hipster café, barely making ends meet every month, or working in marketing, would have got him more approval.

He liked the safety of the numbers, though. The predictable outcome. Numbers were easier than relationships, at least. They didn’t question him or his age.

He looked up, not realising he’d been standing in front of the tall glass building where he worked for quite some time. From the outside, it looked just like any other building in the city centre, and at first, he’d had to make a conscious effort to remember which entrance to use, because the whole bloody block looked exactly the same.

Somebody bumped into him, and he almost lost the coffee cup, but it snapped Jessie out of the mental funk he was about to get stuck in. He sighed and rushed after some colleagues from other departments, ones he had never spoken to. They were excited about the upcoming holiday and bemoaned their dwindling savings and the irrational splurging; every obliviously happy utterance was another small stab in the fresh wound that was hidden in his chest. Jessie started to feel the impending pressure in his eyes.

He glared grimly, his eyes narrowed to slits, at the floor number on the lift display as it slowly rose. He wondered if the paperwork he was about to tackle would be enough to keep his mind busy until the end of the day. Technically, he could start preparing the January accounts. Some people had already sent in their bills and invoices, and there were regular deposits and withdrawals. His boss might appreciate it. He would celebrate surviving today with takeout and a romantic movie, then bawl his eyes out later. Just eight hours of tedious paperwork between him and Pad Thai. Not even Dale could stop him from enjoying that.

The lift stopped, and somebody awkwardly muttered, “Happy Holidays,” before leaving. He stared at the display, daydreaming about leaving the office, until the door finally opened on his floor. He stepped out, already in front of the row of desks that housed his own. The team consisted of eight people — six of them older ladies, one boss whom nobody particularly liked, and Jessie himself. But he was a junior and had to be nice to everybody, and the ladies didn’t mind that he never participated in the quiet bitching they unleashed when Garret, the team leader, was being a dick for no reason.

Before he’d even had a chance to put his bag on the table, one of his teammates stormed past him, fuming.

“A bunch of arseholes, every last one of them,” Abby muttered, and Jessie followed her with a puzzled look. She was mouthy, but she never swore. Not like that. Never that loud.

“Abby, what’s going on?” he hissed.

Abby grabbed her coat and her bag, turned around with a sigh and hugged him fiercely. It was an unusual gesture, as although they were teammates, they had never been close enough for physical contact like this. And that was precisely what made Jessie even more nervous. “Don’t cry. And good luck, darling.” She planted a kiss on his black hair, and her scent of Dior and cigarette smoke embraced him.

“Ahem. Miss Walters, please.” Somebody from HR stood beside them, clearing his throat and impatiently waiting out the bone-crushing hug. Abby harumphed with a fierce glare in the man’s direction, pinched Jessie’s cheeks and went to the lift. She didn’t look back, her shoulders squared like she was about to go into battle, but the HR guy wasn’t looking at her. He was giving Jessie a calculated look before both vanished to another level of the company’s office.

Oh shit, oh crap, oh no. It finally dawned on him what was about to happen.

Panic rose in his chest. Not the panic he’d felt just an hour ago, but the impending life crisis one. The timing sucked. Everything sucked. But the timing, especially. He liked his team; he didn’t want to go through the gruesome process of another job search. The market was terrible, with too many very experienced people washed up and not enough jobs left to feed the hungry mouths. And more and more processes getting automated didn’t exactly help.

“Jessie Talant?” somebody quietly said next to him. Another HR person whose name he’d forgotten. He’d handed her paperwork in the past. He moved his head like a possessed doll and stared at her with his goldfish eyes.

“Oh,” she said. “You don’t look so good. Would you come with me and sit down for a minute? I can get you a glass of water?”

He raised his eyebrows, silently asking if she was out of her mind. People were bustling around them, walking to the kitchen or the copy machine, talking and humming Christmas tunes in the most obnoxious way.

“Mr Talant, please,” she urged, not ready for the meltdown he was about to have. He could see she’d woken up to a bingo card she hadn’t anticipated. But so had he. And apparently, the day was about to get even more fucked up. She also pronounced his name the French way.

“It’s Talant. Like talent. Not Ta-Long,” he replied flatly, but followed her.

He was met with curious and concerned looks from colleagues in other teams, but everybody else from his own team was already on vacation. He and Abby had been the last ones, simply ignoring the habitual abandonment of accounting the last week before Christmas because Abby didn’t celebrate with her family and gave zero fucks, and Jessie had run out of days he could take off. Dale's fancy business-meetings-slash-short-holiday trips that had mostly left Jessie sunbathing and bored had eaten up everything.

The HR worker closed the door behind him, and he sat in the chair she’d already strategically positioned so his back faced the glass wall that looked out at the rest of the office. The meeting rooms were quaint and what the company called “a distraction-free zone”. A nice way to make the unhappy, naked and grey fish tank sound more appealing. He still looked around, searching for any detail he could focus on, but there were none.

The HR lady cleared her throat again to get his attention.

“I am very sorry about the bad timing, but the company was sold two weeks ago in a merger. The news should hit the papers after the New Year. Unfortunately, that means we have to let go of teams that won't fit into the new structure, and the new parent company has asked us to proceed with the restructuring before the year is over. For accounting, it means the cut is fully on our side.”

She made a pause, waiting for the information to sink in. Jessie felt the cogs turning in his head. Too slow to fully process. Her quiet droning voice added to the numbness that spread out and slogged through his veins like tar.

She took a stack of papers out of her folder and slid it over to his side. “You are on leave with effect from today. You will be paid in full for January and, provided you agree to the terms, Anderson Investment will pay you a very generous severance package. It is higher than the market rate.”

His eyes widened. “Anderson Investment? As in Dale Anderson’s company? Are you fucking with me? He bought this company?”

He got louder with every sentence, and she winced. He’d never gone with Dale to any company party because Dale didn’t do those things, but it hadn’t been a secret that Jessie had a rich boyfriend, and, given that Dale was plastered all over his social media in a not-so-subtle way, it was known. The accounting ladies had teased him for it all the time and complained that there wasn’t a pool boy looking their way.

He leant forward, glaring. “How long had the merger been in discussion?”

She folded her arms and shook her head. “I can’t tell you. That’s confidential.” But there was a tick in her left eye, and he knew he made people nervous when he stared. Her gaze flitted from one eye to the other, unable to concentrate on both. The stark contrast of the brown and the ice blue was too much.

“You already fired me, and there’s absolutely no chance of suing my way back into my job. I know that, you know that, and Dale Anderson knows it as well. So, how long has this been in the pipeline? Four months, perhaps?”

Her jaw worked, and she frowned before she tapped on the papers. “Sign this, and I will tell you. I’m leave this hellhole in three months anyway.”

He watched her warily and picked up the pen, squinting at the pages.

She sighed. “It’s just the standard blah-blah, no loopholes, no nothing. They want to get rid of you, not hand you a legal nightmare. You can try to take legal action against them, but the amount awarded will definitely be less than what’s on paper. And they’ll drag it out for ages. Just saying.” She reached over and tapped on the sum. “And I didn’t say any of that.”

He looked at the letters, the numbers and felt the undeserved kick in the arse. Only when he’d made his signature did she visibly relax. “You know, he just broke up with me this morning. How convenient. I should make a scene before I leave, don’t you think?”

The woman looked at him, the professional facade cracking and crumbling even more. He looked at her right hand, where a faint line suggested a ring had once been. He didn’t want to assume, but she saw him staring and huffed. “You know what? You probably should. But can I be frank?”

He nodded. Because why not? He’d been dumped and fired; he could use a well-meaning piece of advice from somebody who’d probably been disposed of as sheer inconvenience as well.

“Listen, Jessie… these old money-grubbing bastards? I’ve dealt with these people all my life. Privately and in my job. I was married to one. They are all pigs. And you shouldn’t get yourself in trouble for somebody like Dale Anderson, who already makes fake moony eyes at my boss's boss's boss—and her fake boobs. And yes, they've met and planned for the last four months. Now, he may think she’s smiling back, but she’s just calculating how she can eat him alive the fastest way possible, and he absolutely deserves it. He won’t change, he won’t take you back, and he won’t remember you, except when they are fucking, and he thinks about your arse being a tad tighter than her old fanny. Do you understand me?”

He nodded dumbly. He wished now that he remembered her name, but it was too late to ask.

She continued while packing up her folder and keycard, tapping away quickly on her phone. “Get out, get ice cream and celebrate. There won’t be anything left to be happy about in this place. I’m packing up, and you would have done so sooner or later, too. They just sweetened the deal for you, and I am a bit miffed that I don’t have the patience to wait long enough to get fired and claim a severance payment. I will bring you down to HR, get you a copy of the paperwork, ask for your keycard and accompany you to the door. And then do the same another forty-three times for all the others. It’s a fucked-up day for a lot of people, but you won the lottery by getting rid of that old fart. Remember that. Always. You can be angry, but don’t cry. Keep your head high, don’t let him break you.”

A tear rolled down his cheek, and she got angry.

“No, Jessie. No. Absolutely no. No tears. Suck the rest back in.” She shook her head and shoved a tissue his way.

He grabbed it and dabbed his eyes before he blew into it noisily.

The older woman looked mildly disgusted and grabbed the lone bin for him to drop it into. “I will wait by the lift for you. Don’t forget your plant. They always forget their office plants, and I can’t take them all in. It drives me crazy that people would abandon their plants. Like, who does that?”

Um… I didn’t even think about taking it home with me for Christmas. Oh shit.

He peeked at her with guilt, and she squared her shoulders. “Get the plant, Jessie. Take care of it at home. That plant actually deserves your love, okay?”

***

He got his plant, the paperwork and handed over his badge. It felt anticlimactic, and he wanted to drop everything and just flee, but then he looked down at his umbrella plant, which shook in the wind and looked like her flabby leaves were gasted for getting dragged out of the warmth of comfortably existing by the office window. She’d be freezing on their way home, and he wondered if he should try to fight for a taxi, but the thought of having to wrestle off some stressed shoppers didn’t appeal to him.

“Since we're moving in together, you need a name, don't you? You look like a Lucille,” he murmured and tucked her in closer. The steps down to the street didn’t feel as heavy as walking up just a mere thirty minutes ago. It still sucked, and he was already annoyed that he’d have to tell his parents.

But… maybe he didn’t have to? He could eat Chilly Crisp right out of the jar and get his nose running within seconds. His mother hated it when people sniffed loudly, and he could do it in the most obnoxious way possible. He had twenty-five years of training.

“Sorry, Mother. I got sick. Possibly something highly contagious. I felt fine yesterday, and then this morning, boom, fever and the worst sore throat possible. I can still come if you really want. I can probably take something to make it less obvious that I am super sick. Just maybe put Grandmother out of my coughing zone?” Followed by a really nasty dose of snot.

He could almost see her disgusted and horrified face.

Jessie took out his phone and checked for messages. There was one from Dale’s PA asking when he would be home. He deleted it because she could wait forever to be allowed into his apartment, and considered calling somebody from his old circle of friends, maybe Matthew. But they hadn’t talked in almost two years. In fact, these days, he only talked to people online, and that was all superficial. There was nobody left from before. He’d abandoned them all the moment Dale smiled his way. The rest was from the same bubble as Dale. And he was sure they’d run in the other direction the moment they realised they’d have to decide between him and their regular social circle.

I’ve massively fucked up. Holy shit…

He walked towards the bus stop, still looking down at his phone, when someone bumped into him, almost making him drop Lucille. He managed to hold on tight despite clammy fingers, the smooth glaze of her pot not helping at all, and grouched at the passer-by who’d already vanished into the thick molasses of pedestrians clogging the sidewalks in front of the shops.

The streetlight switched, and he walked. A familiar voice shouted his name behind him, but he just wanted to get home and away from the office. Whoever it was could call. And if they didn’t have his number, they weren’t important enough anyway.

Lucille’s leaves shook, giving his emotions a proper visual.