Oliver was in the middle of scrolling through the purchase history spreadsheet when Jyri had returned from wherever Jasper dragged him to.
“Can I ask you a question?” Jyri asked.
“When don’t you?”
“What does it mean to bang someone?”
Oliver swiveled in his chair, and stared at Jyri, who stared innocently back.
“Um..." Oliver rubbed the back of his neck, wondering how to answer that. If he even should answer that. "This isn’t the right time and place for that sort of talk.”
“I just want to know what it means. Jasper kept talking about banging girls.”
Oliver could feel his face turning red, and he buried it in his hands. “I can’t. Jasper said that to you?”
“He said I should forget about banging Jessica, and bang other girls.”
“Jasper said that? Our boss?”
Jyri nodded.
It shouldn’t have been as surprising as it was. Jasper was the kind of guy who would talk like that. Oliver shook his head. “So that’s all he wanted? To tell you to have sex with other girls?”
Jyri covered his mouth with widening eyes. “That’s what that means? Gross!”
Shawn walked up to Oliver’s cubicle in time to hear that last bit. “What’s gross?”
“Banging girls!” Jyri threw his hands up as he stalked off to his own cubicle.
“Cool, you and Jyri have something in common,” Shawn said to Oliver, taking a seat on his desk. “How long until you two start dating?”
“I wouldn’t date Jyri if he were the last man on earth,” Oliver said flatly. “What’s up?”
“I just wanted to check out the commotion. Looks like I missed a good one.”
“Not really. Just Jasper telling Jyri to bang other girls to keep his mind off Jessica. He didn’t know what that meant.”
“Poor thing.” Shawn’s phone chimed, and he pulled it out of his pocket to check it. His face fell as he let out a sigh.
“What’s wrong?”
“Valerie says she’s working late tonight, and to not bother making dinner. Again.” Shawn let out another sigh, then shrugged. “At least she’s letting me know in advance this time.”
Valerie being Shawn’s girlfriend whom he lived with. “Does she not usually tell you?” Oliver asked.
“Yeah. Sometimes she doesn’t know she’ll be late until last minute, and then she forgets to text me because she gets distracted.”
“She and you have that in common.” Jasper popped his head through the cubicle, startling them. “But it appears that, unlike you, she gets distracted by doing work. Whereas you get distracted by idle chit-chat instead of doing what I asked you to.”
Frowning, Shawn slid off the desk and to his feet. “You haven’t asked me to do anything.”
“Well, I’m asking you now.” Jasper studied Shawn intently for a moment, resting his chin on his fist. Oliver had a feeling he was struggling to come up with some ridiculous request on the spot. “One of the toilets in the men’s room keeps running.”
“So?”
“I need you to fix it.”
Shawn stared, slack-jawed. “What?”
“Fix the toilet in the men’s room. Make it not run so much. Our water bill is skyrocketing because of it.”
“I’m not a plumber! I don’t know how to fix a toilet.”
“You’re IT. You know how to Google it.” Jasper flicked his hand a few times as though to say, “run along now.” Shawn squeezed Oliver’s shoulder, and left.
Jasper turned his attention to Oliver. “As for you...”
“I’m in the middle of following up on open orders,” Oliver said quickly. Hopefully that would be enough to make Jasper walk away without dumping busy work on him.
“Finally, somebody here actually doing their job.” Jasper smiled at him, leaning against the doorway of his cubicle with folded arms. “You’re a good employee, did you know that?”
“Um, thanks?”
“Yes. One of these days, you and I are going out for drinks. Jyri too. And Tim. Tim’s always fun to get drunk with.”
“You’ve gotten drunk with Tim?”
“Several times. Why, I’d consider him my favorite drinking buddy at this point. And I think we should all have happy hour at Marty’s Bar sometime this week. Only us men though. I don’t want any women cramping my style. I mean, can you imagine Jessica coming with us? She’d ruin the evening. Then there’s Brittney. Don’t get me wrong, she’s smokin’ hot. But she’s a total SJW. A man can’t be himself around her, you know? And that Faye...” Jasper pointed his finger in his mouth, miming gagging.
Oliver didn’t know how to respond to any of that so he simply nodded.
“Thank God those are the only three women who work here.”
“Plenty of other women work here,” Oliver said.
“Yes, but they don’t play any important roles.”
“Our two engineers are women,” Oliver pointed out. “Along with our accounts payable, and our accounts receivable. And half the people in the warehouse-”
“Like I said, unimportant roles. No, it will be just us men. Minus Ran, unfortunately, since he’s only 19. And just us office workers. I don’t know any of our warehouse workers, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
Again, Oliver didn’t know what to say.
“Of course,” Jasper said, “drinks will all be on me because I am such a good boss. Aren’t I?”
“The very best,” Oliver said monotonously. He did a mental inventory of all the office men. Him, Shawn, Craig, Tim, Tyler, Jyri, and Jasper. The idea was unappealing. Maybe he could weasel his way out of it.
“You absolutely must come.” Jasper straightened. “I want you there so much, I’ll work around your personal schedule. Will you be available Friday night?”
Oliver let out a sigh. There was no way out of this. Might as well get it over with. “Sure.”
“Awesome. I’ll let the others know. But keep this from the women. I don’t want them getting butt hurt over not getting invited.”
As if anyone would ever be upset over missing the chance to drink with Jasper, Tim, Jyri, and Craig. This was going to be an absolute nightmare.
Oliver wandered into the restroom. Not because he had to use it. He only wanted to tell Shawn about Jasper’s drinking plans and couldn't find him at his desk.
A phone was on the sink counter, and both of the stall doors were partially open. Shawn was in one of them. He hovered over the toilet, messing with the inside of the water tank.
Oliver grimaced. He knew the water in the tank was technically clean, but the thought of digging around a public one still grossed him out. “You’re actually trying to fix it?”
“Yeah,” Shawn said, not turning away from his task. “Don’t ask me why.” He flushed the toilet. They both waited for the sound to fade away. It lasted longer than the average toilet.
“Is that the same as always or did I make it worse?” Shawn asked.
“I don’t know, but I have news you’re not gonna like.” Oliver leaned his back against the stall, while Shawn continued messing around the tank. “Jasper invited me out for drinks.”
“Gross. I assume you turned it down?”
“I was going to, but he asked me what day I could do it. I couldn’t avoid it.”
“Man, that sucks. Good luck with that.” Shawn flushed the toilet again. There was no difference in how long the sound lasted.
Oliver cleared his throat. “He said he’s going to invite all of the office men.”
Shawn whipped his head to look at Oliver. “What?”
“Yeah. Craig, Tim, Tyler, Jyri... You.”
“I’m not going to that shit!”
“You’re not seriously going to leave me alone with them?”
“And you’re not actually going to go?”
“If I don’t, Jasper will keep harassing me about it.”
“And he’ll eventually give up.”
Oliver wasn’t quite sure on that, and he’d rather get it over and done with. “It’ll only be for an hour.” He paused. “Maybe two.”
Shawn groaned and returned to the toilet. “When and where?”
“Marty’s Bar, Friday night.”
“Marty’s bar on a Friday night!” Shawn turned to gape at Oliver. “Do you know how crowded bars get on Friday nights?!”
Oliver didn’t, but he could believe it.
“You know how I feel about crowds! And I hate hanging out in bars. You can never hear what people are saying. Add that on top of having to spend our free time with Jasper and Tim, for God’s sake.”
“And Jyri, and Craig…”
Shawn winced, and returned to his task of fixing the toilet. “You’re not doing a good job of selling me on this. What’s in it for me?”
“Not being racked with guilt for making me go through this alone. And it’ll be an excuse for us to hang out.” Ever since they started working full time, and Shawn moved in with his girlfriend, they rarely did anything together outside of work. “When was the last time we’ve done that?”
“Fair point.” Shawn flushed the toilet. This time, the sound subsided quickly. “Would you look at that. I actually fixed it.”
“It’s a sign you should come.”
“Or a sign I should quit this job and become a plumber.” Shawn put the lid back on the tank, and walked over to the sink to wash his hands. “I guess I’ll go, but you’re gonna owe me big time.”65Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsAHrhDZian
and then Add to home screen.