“I think your boyyyyyyfriend sent them for you, Mia,” Dyta, the secretary says. Even after only being here two days, I can tell she’s the kind of woman who lives for juicy gossip. She’d probably have a field day if she knew half my story. I can’t help but like her, though. She always has the right thing to say, and even though we all wear the same ‘uniform’ here, black dresses with matching high heels, her personal style stands out with her streak of pink in her hair and big chunky silver jewelry dotted with gemstones of every color. “What did he do? Run over your dog or something?”
“He didn’t do anything,” I say. Technically, he didn’t come home last night, at least not before I was fast asleep. Chef Tymon caught me in the kitchen foraging for snacks at around nine, and nobody else in the house had heard from him at that point. You’d think I’d be a little more perturbed considering it was the first time we hooked up, but honestly, I didn’t expect anything else from him, and I have enough stuff going on in my brain right now, I don’t need to read into whatever happened between us. “And he’s not my boyfriend.”
Maybe at the end of the day, we just needed to get it out of our system, even though the delicious pain between my thighs is making it hard to forget.
“So what are you then?” she taunts. “His mistress.”
I shrug and give her a wink. “Sure.” She bursts into laughter, and the office door swings open. Fillip, the biggest rockstar in all of Poland, the lead singer of Onyks, comes walking in, his cowboy boots clanking off the marble floor. He’s got on a fur coat that hangs to the ground and a pair of rhinestone studded sunglasses. I met him the other night at the casino, when he looked like he was going to drag Janka up to a hotel room and devour her alive, and I got a bad feeling about him that day. I guess he’s used to being doted on, and I guess he probably deserves it for how talented and successful he is, but I can’t help but shake the feeling he’s not exactly a nice guy.
“Well, we meet again,” he says, lowering his sunglasses down his nose. His eyes are so bloodshot, it looks like he spent the night puking so hard he burst all the capillaries in his face. “Where’s your friend?”
“That’s the million dollar question,” I mumble. “Do you have an appointment with Jakub?”
Dyta is sitting behind her desk pretending like she doesn’t hear anything, tapping away on her keyboard. Apparently she’s put up with enough of his shit over the years that she doesn’t even acknowledge him.
“I don’t. I was just stopping by to talk about some shit with him, but while I’m here, why don’t we go out and grab some lunch. I think I know exactly what I want for dessert.” He licks his lips and I try not to gag. I’m sure he’s used that line on a million women before and it’s probably worked 99% of the time.
Dyta clears her throat.
“You can come too, Dyta,” he says. “I’m sure I can handle you both.”
“Get bent, Fillip. And you better watch how you talk to Mia. You see these?” she asks, pointing at the big vase of roses. “Her boyfriend just sent them for her.”
“Oh big fucking deal. Any guy can send someone flowers.”
“Well, that boyfriend is Serafin Mazur,” she says with a smug smile. I just nod, biting my lip.
“Sorry, ma’am,” he says, backing away with his hands in the air. “I had no idea. No disrespect to you or the gentleman. Please tell him I send my warmest regards.”
He takes off running out the front door and I burst into laughter. “Apparently he didn’t need to talk to Jakub so badly after all.”
“He’s a sleaze bag. Most of the time he just comes around looking for trouble, I think. Nobody here is willing to put up with his shit.”
“Really?” I ask. I could name a ton of women who would give anything to be with a rockstar, even for a night. Janka comes to mind the most.
“You didn’t deny it,” she teases in a sing song voice. “Serafin is your boyfriend!”
“That was just a matter of convenience.” I say. The phone on my desk starts ringing. I’m surprised but not really when his voice is on the other end of the line.
“Mia, I’m sorry about last night. I’ll make it up to you,” he says.
“You already did,” I say. I debate whether or not to tell him about Fillip, but I get a weird feeling in my stomach. Filip was obviously really afraid of him. It takes me back to a time when we were younger and doors just seemed to open for me. That look on Filip’s face reminds me of the night Mr. Zeilinski gave me a raise at the bakery. I’ve seen that face a hundred times before, and I never really gave it much thought until now. “The flowers. They’re beautiful,” I stammer.
“They’re stupid,” he says. “I just wanted you to know I was thinking about you and I didn’t know how else to do it.”
“A phone call is fine. This is nice. You don’t have to send me things. Plus, we can hang out tonight.”
There’s a long pause on the phone. He blows out a sigh and I wonder if he’s smoking again.
“I’m going to be out of town for the rest of the day. I have some things that need tied up.”
I don’t know why that statement digs under my skin. What does he mean by tied up? Is he going to tie up and torture somebody? Is he going to use those handcuffs on some other woman and he thinks he’s being coy? I try to remind myself that every time we’re in the same room together it feels like nobody else exists, but I keep coming back to the only thing that ever really kept us apart, his life outside of me. And now, I have a life outside of him, a life he’ll never understand because he hasn’t spent any time in my shoes.
“I understand,” I say.
“I don’t expect you to. I wish I could just drop everything and spend every second with you, Mia. You’re all I can think about. I wish you were here with me right now.”
“Yeah, well… one of these days, I guess,” I say. I don’t want to sound needy or desperate. I don’t to let him know how much I’ve been looking forward to another night with him, or how bad it hurts to be away from him. “Be safe. I’ll see when I see you.”
I hang up the phone before I can say anything else. I don’t want my coworkers to think I’m just some weak gold digger who will let a man unravel her entire day. I’ve already lived that life, and this is the first honest chance I’ve had to escape it. I know even after a couple days Jakub will keep me around if I do a good job. Crying over a guy on the floor is definitely not a good look.
“What happened?” Dyta asks. “Are you ok?”
“Oh, I’m fine,” I say, my voice wavering as I try to choke back the mixture of sadness and anger building in my belly. “I just found out I’m free tonight. Want to go grab some drinks after work?”
“You’re speaking my love language, sister,” she says with a laugh. “I know a place where we can get margaritas as big as a fishbowl.”
“Well, I’m ready to drown myself, so that works out well,” I giggle. If he can’t even make a few hours for me, I’m allowed to go out and spend my time as I choose.