Chapter Text
"I just don't think anybody listens to me anymore." Mr. Davison puts his hand on his chin squinting his eyes at Melissa. She was on her phone thanking her roommate for getting her some new noise-canceling headphones. Definitely not listening to whatever he was saying. "Melissa?"
"What?"
"Do you have any idea how to get your colleagues to listen to what I, their boss, would have to say?" she thought for a moment. She did need a reason to give her new headphones a try.
"You play an instrument?"
Davidson pondered for a second. "Why it's been ages since I touched my old trumpet."
"Perfect." she put down her phone. "Bring it tomorrow. Everyone would love to hear you play." Mr. Davidson looked out of his office window thoughtfully. Everyone in the office doing what they were supposed to. But not a single of them listens to me.
"Thank you, Melissa. You may leave now."
He looked back up at her but she was gone.
"Bill! Does your daughter play Roblox?" Ted called out to his coworker.
"Yes she does." he responded hesitantly.
"They have these things called Robux and this email says that you could get some for free." he looked happy and pointed at his emails.
"I think that's a scam." Paul replied looking over for a second. Seeing as the email address was [email protected], his statement could be justified. "Melissa?" he called out. But she was wearing her new headphones today. They were big, black, and pretty clunky as they were almost the size of her head. But most of all, they were working pretty well.
"Melissa?!"
No response.
"Me-"
He was interrupted by an ear-splitting trumpet rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner in the key of F Major that could wake even the dead.
"Hello everyone!" Mr. Davidson stepped out of his office with his trumpet in one hand. Everyone was looking quite shaken. Charlotte has even fallen out of her chair. "We have a fire drill later, thanks!"
As he left, Charlotte scrambled up her chair Ted helping her up.
"Hey." he whispered.
"What?"
"You know that grandmother who's funeral I brought you to?"
"Yeah?" she tried to get back to work. But she couldn't.
"Turns out she's alive and got a massive fortune in Guadalupe and with my personal information, I could get half of her money which is around five million dollars if I recall correctly."
"Ted that's a scam." she turned her chair to look at him. She recalled the funeral. It was clearly not a good time for either of them.
"We could finally run away. We could meet her in Guadalupe and start our lives over together." he was kneeling on the ground looking up at her on her chair, presumably to hide from his other coworkers. His eyes pleading in a way.
"But Sam...?"
"Forget him."
"Ted, it's a scam. Could you quiet down a bit?" Bill yelled from a cubicle away.
"Well, why don't you-"
WEEE WOOO WEEE WOOO WEEE WOOO
Everyone stood up hurriedly and started booking it out of the office. Ted feeling interrupted plopped down and refused to move. This drill was stupid anyway.
"Paul!" Charlotte called out for Paul who is almost out the door pointing at Ted on the floor sitting cross-legged like an annoyed toddler. He ran to her and pulled him up and practically dragged him out refusing to speak to him or anyone else in the room.
The second they all reached the parking lot, they all stood bewildered since nobody knew if this was merely a drill.
But then Baby Shark for Trumpet in C Major rang through the company parking lot followed by Mr. Davidson running towards them at full speed. Everyone covered their ears at soon as they heard. But it was no use.
"Everyone don't panic!" he bellowed. Everyone's ears were still covered. "This is not a drill. Something is actually on fire but the fire department is on the way in around half an hour." Paul seemed to have realized something as his eyes fled across the room.
"Where's Melissa?" Paul asked feeling his breathing speed up and everything was getting blurry. Bill approached him and patted him on the back to ease his breathing.
"It's okay, Paul."
"H- Half an hour? She'd be dead!" he shook Bill around. Bill returned the shaking and shook Paul back.
"She's probably in the bathroom. She'll be fine." Bill reassured Paul.
"Why in the world is the office on fire anyway?!" Ted yelled at Mr. Davidson who right now was hiding a guilty face.
"Well, it all happened a little while ago..."
A Little While Ago
"Melissa, no one seems to be listening to me even if I brought my trumpet in." He looked at her. She had removed her headphones since she just came back from the bathroom. "In fact, they seem to be covering their ears more."
"You know what? Scared people are listening people."
"But what makes your little friends scared?"
"I don't know." she looked out to the little office cubicles. "Paul is scared of fire. I remember when we were kids, he almost ate a raw burger because the grill was too spooky."
"Perfect, Melissa."
"No problemo, amigo." she left his office shooting finger guns the whole way out.
Mr. Davidson opened his desk drawer to reveal a zippo lighter. He went to a trash can and figured that burning the paper would do nothing but open up more space for their trash. But what he didn't expect was for the trash can to set a box of trash next to the trash can to catch fire as well.
Back to the Parking Lot
"You set your trash on fire? Melissa's desk is right next to that!" Paul stood up pulling Mr. Davidson up by the collar by an inch.
"Woah! No!" Bill tried to pull Paul off of Mr. Davidson. But he was too weak so he had to enlist the help of Charlotte which somehow gave them enough combined strength to pull him off.
Luckily, the fire department arrived and put out the fire before it even left Mr. Davidson's office. All that was destroyed was the trash can and a plant pot full of soil. They were then allowed to return to work before the firefighter told Mr. Davidson how to prevent fire in the office.
"Melissa?!" Paul ran into the office to see Melissa still working on her computer with her clunky noise-canceling headphones oblivious to Paul's absolute fear.
"Yeah?" she took out her headphones for the first time all day.
"Oh my God. I thought you died" he pulled her into a hug. She patted him on the back.
"There there, baby boy." his discomfort making him pull out of the hug.
"Melissa?" Bill asked from across the room.
"Yeah?" She responded.
"Ted's got a couple more scam emails recently. Can you block them?"
"Yeah, in a minute." she went to look at what emails he was being sent and what he was sending. Her eyes widened.
"What?" Paul asked.
"They're pretty bad." she said before Paul returned to his cubicle.
"I'm telling you, they're legitimate this time." Ted pleaded with Charlotte in the break room. He was fixing up coffee for the two of them. He was currently stirring up an Americano for himself since Charlotte was already drinker hers.
"I think we need a little more time to think this through." Charlotte said leaving the room leaving Ted alone with his coffee. He gave it a little sip and returned to his desk. He saw Melissa with an envelope in one hand.
"What is this?"
"That person was not your grandmother." he shook his head in disbelief. "He is a 23-year-old man in Michigan. I reported him to the police and this is the police report. I also removed him off your email list. Don't worry about it."
"But she came..."
"I'm sorry, Ted." Charlotte entered his cubicle. "I knew how much this meant to you." she gave him a little hug as Melissa left the two to deal with their obvious issues.
"Don't worry about it. I was the stupid one." he sighed and went back to work. "Please go back to work."
"But Ted...?" she couldn't help herself but feel sorry for the guy. He was still shaking trying to recover from whatever the heck that was.
"I'm okay. It's fine."
"I brought you a little something." she opened her purse and gave him a little piece of sugar cane.
"What's this?"
"It's one of Guadalupe's biggest exports."
"Thank you for this." Ted pulled her into a deep hug before she returned to her cubicle.
"You actually thought I died?" Melissa giggled as Paul recounted the day's events in the elevator on the way home.
"Yeah, I came pretty close to killing Davidson a little while ago."
The elevator door then opened revealing Mr. Davidson, trumpet in hand.
"I brought it just like you told me." Mr. Davidson proudly showed off his trumpet.
"Yeah, it sounded really great." Melissa complimented him despite not hearing a single note from his trumpet all day.
"How would you feel about Jingle Bells?" Mr. Davidson eyed Paul almost forcing him to respond.
"Of course." he sighed and got off at the next floor leaving Mr. Davidson and Melissa alone in the elevator for the rest of the ride.
"Damn you Matthews!" was all Melissa could muster as Mr. Davidson played the rest of his repertoire by memory.