“Miss Thomas, hello,” Tobias greets me. “Thanks for coming.”
“Nice to meet you,” I respond a little too loud over the pulse in my ears, giving his outstretched hand several vigorous pumps.
His brow furrows just like Rita’s did, and I try to dial it down a notch, but my dial is broken.
It can’t be normal that my lips tingle when I smile as Tobias introduces me to the two execs who will help decide my fate about whether or not I’ll be hired.
While the people I’m here to impress take a seat at the rectangular table, I chatter, uncontrollably, about my creations and with jittery hands remove the rich chocolate cake adorned with the Mayhem logo from its box.
“Looks delicious,” Tobias compliments me as I move closer at warp speed.
My feet walk faster than my heels can keep up, and instead of placing my showpiece in the center of the table, the cake somehow teeters amidst a chorus of gasps to end up a ganache mess... right in Tobias’ lap. All three layers.
“I’m so sorry,” I apologize, staring at the broken lump on his groin.
“Are you on drugs?” he asks with a pinched face, looking down at the red Mayhem logo smeared on his pristine white shirt.
“No,” I deny, “I can explain.” My eyes dart at a rapid pace to the shocked expressions on the other faces seated at the table.
“You get one shot here. That was yours. Thank you for coming in, Miss Thomas.”
“It was an energy drink—Max Energy—by that famous baseball player,” I tell him, because like he said, this is my one shot. “Listen, whoever marketed that as success in a can should be fired.”
As he removes a lump of cake from his soiled trousers into the garbage can Rita retrieved, he informs me, “We designed that campaign.”
The room is silent as I pack my things and go. All of my dreams follow me out the door. I'm too high on Max Energy to be depressed.
I have no one to blame but myself. And Maxwell Hunter, the man behind the drink.
When I get home, I drop my purse on the kitchen counter and beeline straight for the fridge. MyOn the top shelf, next to the milk, sit the remaining cans of Max Energy. I tilt one of the tall cylinders and read the tiny black font:
Max Energy will give you that extra you need to reach your goals. It’s winning in a can.
Share your success.
Leave a review.
The words taunt me before I toss it in the trash. The four cans left in my fridge follow it into the garbage before I move over to my laptop on the island in my kitchen. I type in the web address to the Nile site listed on the can and search for Max Energy, clicking on the tiny thumbnail, and then, scrolling through all the five star reviews.
Delicious! I finished a project for work that earned me a bonus.
Homerun. Finally, put together the bookshelf I’d been dreading.
Review after review raves about this drink.
7 stars!
I'd give it 100 if I could! I've never tasted anything like this or had so much energy. You will love it!
Seven out of five?
I can barely refrain from commenting to ReviewQueen that her rating is impossible. You can not give more than you have.
I click on ‘My Review’ and select one star. Annoyance flows through my veins and spills out from my fingertips as I type.
Let me share my story with you. It doesn’t have a happy ending, just like the book I had stayed up all night reading didn’t. I was tired the next morning, and my coworker had given me these from her PR package, so I thought, ‘Sure, I’ll try it.’ I drank one before the most important meeting of my life. Big mistake.
This is not success in a can. Don’t drink the kool aid, people. Or actually, do. Maybe you won’t bounce off the walls and lose your dream client. Thanks, Max. Thank you for my failure. I hope you have a losing season.
And then, I press the submit button. Take that, Maxwell Hunter.
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Sneak Peek of Cold Hearted Bastard
Olivia
Five Things. That’s the title of tonight’s video I’m watching. More like salivating over. Each day, a social media coordinator picks a fireman from the Hightower Hills Fire Department to interview and she asks him ‘five things’ about himself that the community may not know. There are nine other videos of different men on the playlist, but I keep rewinding back to the man of my desire—Corbin Carmack.
I’m watching these videos like he might let a secret slip out. Something special that could get me closer to him. Something that would whisper into my ears the key to unlocking his heart. Silly, right?
If you asked me five things about myself that people may not know, it would go a little something like this:
1. I love a man with brown eyes.
2. I’ve never wanted a stranger as much as I do him.
3. I’m going to extremes that could get me tossed in jail just to steal glimpses of him.
4. For the last two months I’ve blown off friends, family, and everything in between to stay up late at night and watch this video as I pleasure myself to sleep.
5. I set my house on fire to meet him.
Well wait, let me explain…
I first saw Corbin when he made national news, rescuing my neighbor’s baby boy from their burning house in the Cedar Crest subdivision where I live. Charlotte—said baby boy’s mom— screamed from their front lawn, while her husband, Thomas, clutched her in his arms as she begged for him to let her go, because their son was still trapped inside.
With the heat threatening to scorch my skin from where I stood behind the safety of the barricades, I watched in awe as Corbin leapt from the blaring fire engine and charged right into the flames of Hell without a second thought. Even with the protective gear he was wearing, I couldn’t imagine being that fearless, that daring. But he was.
After a few heart-stopping moments, Corbin emerged from the burning house with Benjamin clutched to him. His mask covered the baby’s face to give him oxygen, while he sucked smoke, and the selfless act hit me right in the heart. And the vagina.
Everyone stood in their pajamas and robes applauding his rescue, and I’m sure, afterward, like normal people, went back to sleep. Went back to living their lives.
I must be strange, or deranged, because the first thing I did that night was look up the heroic rescuer to find out his name. All the information was right there online. His name, phone number, address—hell, even his email address. The internet also told me his family member’s names, and while I had a lot of trouble finding anyyyyything about Corbin on Facebook, his mom has a penchant for posting every single thing about herself. Her name is Greta, and she loves cooking, fishing, and Jesus. From her numerous posts, it would appear in that exact order.
But then, I looked up the Hightower Hills Instagram account and was bombarded with videos, live feeds, and pictures galore. It was like my very own personal oasis of Corbin-candy. I devoured every video, deciding on the ‘five things’ one as my favorite, and saved every picture of Corbin to my phone. The word stalker has nothing on me.
And this is why I’m beginning to unravel. This is why I’m going to drastic measures to get close to him. I can’t take it anymore. He’s consuming my every single thought.