Chapter Text
Charles woke up to last night's hook-up scrolling through Tinder in bed next to him.
“What time is it?” He asked, sleepily, in his ‘morning after mediocre sex’ voice.
“Almost eight, I think.”
“Oh,” Charles gasped, mouth hanging open. “I’m going to be late for work. No, no, no, no.” He fell out of the bed and immediately slammed his face into the nightstand, because he was smooth like that. “I have to get to work.”
“Damn. I can make breakfast if you want. I have toaster waffles.” The hook-up sounded like he’d rather be taken out back and shot than heat up an Eggo for Charles. “And you’re bleeding. You want a band-aid?”
“I’m okay,” Charles stepped into the closet and tugged the first shirt he saw from its hanger. It hung from his shoulders and he had to roll up the sleeves, but it looked passable. “It looks okay?”
“It looks like you just stole your hook-up’s shirt,” the man said flatly, nodding anyway. Charles squinted at him. “Bathroom’s the second door on the right.”
“Thank you.” The bathroom, like everything else in the apartment, was sleek and impersonal. There were no handles on the drawers, or anything else, for that matter, so Charles scratched at it and kicked it pretty ineffectively until it opened. While swishing some mouthwash and simultaneously applying cologne, he mentally berated last-night-Charles for going home with this guy. The apartment had the homeliness of a dentist's office. Nothing was labeled: everything was in identical clear glass bottles with dropper tops or spray nozzles. He had a rusty smear of blood across the bridge of his nose from where he’d split it on the corner of the nightstand, so he wiped it off and sprayed what he hoped was hydrogen peroxide onto it. He looked acceptable, even if his hair was pretty wild and his wrists had fading handprints. As long as he kept his sleeves down, he was pretty sure it would be fine. He needed to leave, first of all, then he could figure everything else out.
“Last night was baller,” the hook-up called after him as the door slammed, and Charles winced so hard he nearly fell down the stairs. He needed to ask Pierre to vet people next time he went out. Drunk-Charles made weird selections when it came to potential hook-ups. His current cast-list included the following:
a man who insisted that Charles called him ‘dad’
woman who did NOT warn Charles that she was very into choking people
woman who spoke some sort of fantasy language (klingon? elvish?) the entire night and refused to translate any of it
man who did not believe in aftercare other than slapping Charles’ ass and saying ‘good game, sport’ like they were roleplaying The Great Gatsby
his boss (unsuccessful, and ended with Max carrying him up to Daniel’s apartment while Charles tried to drunkenly explain his feelings)
woman (dental hygienist? he hopes?) who would not stop asking to see his teeth
He supposed he had to add this guy to the list, too. In the taxi to work, he started a notes app document and didn’t look up from his phone until he was in the elevator up to the office.
Maybe Max didn’t notice he was gone. Maybe Max finally took the day off, and Charles wouldn’t get fired. Then again, nothing was ever that easy.
INT. MANHATTAN WEST BUILDING, 32ND FLOOR. CHARLES HAS JUST EXITED THE ELEVATOR, CLINGING TO A THREAD OF HOPE THAT MAX HAS NOT YET NOTICED HIS ABSENCE]
[GEORGE, doing SOMETHING INSINUATIVE with his BRITISH EYEBROWS] You’re late because you got laid?
[VALTTERI, respecting EMPLOYEE CONFIDENTIALITY RIGHTS] It’s none of our business.
[GEORGE, argumentatively] Well, he’s late. I think that makes it our business.
[VALTTERI, very generously giving CHARLES the BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT] Maybe he had a good reason.
[GEORGE] He got laid.
[this FACTUALLY ACCURATE STATEMENT has sparked an argument loud enough to catch the attention of SEBASTIAN, who had generously been IGNORING THE SITUATION]
[CHARLES] hey i don’t think we should
[VALTTERI, interrupting him] none of your business whether Charles is getting laid
[GEORGE, interrupting VALTTERI] if he’s going to be late every morning
[VALTTERI, interrupting GEORGE] just mad because nobody wants to
[CHARLES, trying to hide from SEBASTIAN behind VALTTERI] hey guys maybe we should stop talking about
[GEORGE, defensive] i actually get laid a lot, and i’m not late because of it so
[VALTTERI] don’t want that image in my mind jesus chr
[GEORGE] so you’re fine with the notion that charles is getting some but as soon as i
[CHARLES] maybe we should be a little more quiet
[VALTTERI, who has MADE IT HIS LIFE’S MISSION to defend CHARLES, not because he is PARTICULARLY FOND of CHARLES but because of his SEETHING HATRED AND INSTINCTIVE DISTRUST of GEORGE] never pictured charles getting laid because it’s none of my business and none of yours either so
[KEVIN, from THE ADJACENT CUBICLE] STOP TALKING ABOUT CHARLES GETTING LAID IN THE MIDDLE OF THE OFFICE.
[VALTTERI] thats exactly what i’m trying to say but geor
[LANDO, who cannot KEEP HIS NOSE OUT OF OTHER PEOPLE’S BUSINESS and also has VERY BAD LISTENING COMPREHENSION] Charles got laid in the middle of the office?
[GEORGE, spinning IMPERIOUSLY in his office chair] Not inside the office… that I know of.
[GEORGE gives CHARLES another STUPID BRITISH EYEBROW RAISE. CHARLES is too confused to respond.]
[LANDO, AUDIBLY DISAPPOINTED] Damn.
[SEBASTIAN, standing up and GLARING at the three of them with the HEAT OF A THOUSAND SUNS and speaking in a DEEPLY UNSETTLING HR REPRESENTATIVE VOICE] This is not an appropriate workplace conversation. Get back to work, please.
[CHARLES smiles apologetically at SEBASTIAN, who is still frowning. Probably because he, like everyone else in the office, has a mental image of CHARLES getting laid.]
[VALTTERI] Tuck in the back of your shirt. You look like you just got laid.
Charles tucked in the back of his shirt, cowed, and shuffled to his own desk. He loved his job, theoretically, but only for the little things, like filling in excel documents and seeing Max walking around in a suit all the time. Pierre liked to tell him that he got into the accounting business for the wrong reasons (i.e. objectifying men in suits and watching Daniel type all day), but Pierre was a ‘fitness influencer,’ so his opinion was invalid in almost every matter.
Lewis was sketching some kind of architectural plan, completely unbothered. His desk was constantly full of sketches, fortune cookie slips, starbucks receipts, and manila folders with mysterious, confidential contents. They were stamped ‘CONFIDENTIAL’ in big, red, smeared ink, which only made Charles want to look inside even more.
“Morning, Charlie,” he greeted, grinning. His nose piercing glinted in the lamplight. “Late night, I heard.” Charles frowned at him and dropped his head onto his desk, listening to the start-up sequence of his computer. It sounded like there was a tiny jet engine inside. He stared longingly at the Confidential folder and hypothesized as to what was inside.
“Not going to text him back, then?” Charles shook his head morosely, ignoring the fact that Fernando and Lance were very obviously eavesdropping.
“He was on Tinder as soon as I woke up.” Fernando, behind him, made a judgemental grunt of acknowledgement.
Fernando sat directly behind Charles. His desk was basically empty, save for a single pen and a generic motivational poster. He referred to himself as ‘the lone wolf’ of the office, occasionally gave advice on Charles’ love life, and drank black coffee. Nobody was 100% certain whether he had a wife or not. He periodically referred to someone named Raquel, but it was unclear as of yet whether she was his partner or just a pet, and Fernando would refuse to answer any clarifying questions. Charles was pretty sure he was only doing it to bother them.
Lance got his own cubicle across from them, and his decoration varied drastically from Lewis’. His girlfriend was going through a Rae Dunn phase and making it his problem, so his entire desk was covered in cutesy labeled office supplies. His pencil holder said ‘boss lady,’ which was an easy source of torment. He rarely spoke to either of them beyond surface level conversation about sports or how much he hated his job, which had led to an office-wide theory that he was an NPC.
“Did you like him?” Lewis asked.
“No,” Charles admitted, “but it was still poor hook-up etiquette. Like, at least wait until I leave.”
“You need to find better men,” Fernando clicked his tongue.
“I’m starting to think there aren’t any better men.”
“Charles.” Lando stuck his head over the cubicle wall. “Max has requested to see you in his office. Immediately.” This announcement was met with a chorus of ooh-ing, because apparently nobody in the entire office had anything better to do than live in Charles’ personal business. Daniel gave him a pitying look and a high-five for moral support on his way. Yuki held Max’s door open and grinned maniacally, because he enjoyed listening to Max yelling at people the same way that a toddler goes mental for an episode of Paw Patrol. Charles brushed past him, avoiding eye contact, and only took one step into Max’s office before pressing himself to the wall and doing a pretty convincing piece of performance art in which he pretended to be a houseplant. He hadn’t spoken to, made eye contact, or texted Max since the Valentine’s Day Mission Failure, and would much rather be euthanized than have to look him in the eye ever again.
“...You can sit down,” Max said, sounding confused. He gestured to the chair across his desk, which was colloquially called the unemployment throne, because anyone who sat in it had unemployment in their immediate future.
“Am I getting fired?”
“No,” Max said, sounding even more confused, “I was just going to ask about why you were late this morning, and how we can avoid that in the future.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah… did you think I was going to fire you?”
“A little bit,” Charles said, still not sitting down. “Most people get fired when they come in here.”
“Well, you’re not most people, and I’m not going to fire you,” Max said, as if it was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard, and Charles inched closer to the unemployment chair. “Why were you late this morning?”
“Uhhhhhhhhm,” Charles said, staring at the reinforced windows and wondering how much of a running start he would need to break through it and fall to the street a dozen floors below, “I kind of assumed you heard.”
“I didn’t.”
“Personal reasons,” Charles rushed out, feeling himself blushing.
“Is everything okay?”
“It’s okay. It won’t happen again, I promise,” He stammered, and Max raised his eyebrows.
“Do you want to sit down?” He asked again, not in a questioning tone so much as a ‘we’re going to have an uncomfortable conversation about workplace romance’ tone. Charles sat down. “Valentine’s Day–” Max was talking, probably, but Charles could only focus on physically restraining himself from curling into a tiny ball and crying. He could really only grasp a few of Max’s talking points while he contemplated faking his death and moving to Cuba.
MAX’S VERY BOSS-LIKE AND MATURE SPEECH
- I’m not talking to you as your boss I’m talking to you as your friend
- I regret how I acted on Valentine’s Day
- I apologize for my reaction and I wanted to make sure nothing was going to be funky between us
- Because I noticed you’ve been avoiding me
- And I understand
- Mistakenly confessing when you’re drunk on champagne is pretty rough
- But it’s kind of throwing off the rest of the office
- And I think I make you uncomfortable now
- Because you’ve just been leaving my coffee and bagel outside my office like a Doordash driver and then running away
- Sometimes it gets cold which is mildly inconvenient because then I have to get up and microwave it
- That’s not the point of this conversation
- I’m trying to say I’m sorry and I hope nothing is weird between us
- There’s no weirdness on my part and I don’t want there to be any weirdness on your part
- Charles
- You’re not fired, Charles, I swear
- I’m not going to fire you
- Please stop looking at me like that it’s starting to bother me
“I’m not getting fired?” Charles asked, quietly, probably making a weird face. He could feel his right eye twitching.
“No, I’m not firing you.”
“Oh. Can I go, then?”
“Yeah, you can go. I have to call Seb, since I probably violated, like, every employer-employee relation conduct regulation there is.” Max dropped his head into his hands and blindly pushed a button on his phone. A few seconds later, Sebastian stood in the doorway, making it painfully obvious that he was not amped to deal with this. Charles ducked around him and fled to the furthest corner of the office, where the data entry interns worked. Oscar smiled at him as soon as he rounded the corner, but Logan just scowled.
“Do you need something?” He asked suspiciously. Oscar kicked him under their desk. Charles mentally thanked God he wasn’t an intern anymore.
“No, I just… thought I’d say hi.” Charles scuffed the toe of his shoe along the carpet. Oscar started to frown, too.
“You’re just hiding from Max.”
“I’m not!”
“That’s the only reason anyone ever comes back here,” Logan said, matter-of-fact.
“Nobody except for Lando and Alex says hi. Everyone else just gives us their coffee orders.”
“I’ll come by more often, I swear.” Evaluating their workspace, Charles could feel it actively sapping his hopes and dreams away. Empty coffee cups littered the floor, and the laptop that Oscar was actively using had a shattered screen that only displayed fragments of what he was typing. It was intern purgatory.
“Hide in the bathrooms like the rest of us.” Logan waved him off and went back to what he had been doing, which appeared to be hot-gluing keys back onto his keyboard.
Charles backed off and returned to his own desk. He was met with a distinct air of curiosity, which only grew more tangible when he didn’t start packing up his things.
“You’re not fired.” Lance observed.
“Wow, thanks for that, captain obvious.”
“What did you do to manage that, suck his dick?” Fernando asked.
“Fernando.” Lewis shot him a glare. Fernando shrugged.
“Wouldn’t be the first time someone got out of being fired like that.”
“What-- Have you done that?”
“Trade secret,” Fernando said, as if that made it any clearer.
Max’s office door stayed pointedly shut. Charles stayed even more pointedly hunched behind his computer. His eyes stung from staring at the screen, but he knew that if he so much as glanced away from it he’d have to make eye contact with Lance, who was staring, unblinkingly and pretty lizard-like, over the top of his own monitor.
“Lance,” Fernando said, with an oddly disappointed tone. Lance frowned. Charles assumed he was about to be told off for staring, like a toddler in a grocery store gaping at an amputee. “Charles will tell all of us at lunch. Do not waste energy on this.” Lance disappeared behind the monitor again, satisfied.
“I will?” Charles asked, finally rubbing at his eyes.
“Yes.” Fernando glared at him before turning back to his own work, which looked a lot like online solitaire in the reflection of his glasses.
“Want to go out for lunch, actually?” Lewis asked. Charles nodded gratefully and mouthed ‘thank you.’
“Hey,” Lance leaned at a precarious angle to fix Charles with a furious glare, “you can’t get out of this.”
“Unless you’re paying for lunch,” Fernando added, giving Lance a nod. Charles looked between them, dreading the mentor-apprentice thing they had going on. Fernando was set to retire in a few years, and had obviously selected Lance as his protégé of office shenanigans.
“I’m not paying for your lunch.” Charles sniffed and went back to work (actual work. not solitaire).
“Then I hope you’re ready to fill us in on how you and Max are ramoning every night.”
“What the fuck is ramoning?” Lewis wrinkled up his entire face in confusion, and Fernando smashed his hands together in a crude depiction of whatever he thought Charles and Max got up to in the office suite. “Ah, understood.”
“I do not ramone Max.” When Lance opened his mouth as if he was about to say something, he clarified. “And Max does not ramone me.”
“No action?” Fernando pouted.
“I get action!” Charles huffed.
“Just not with Max,” Lance added unnecessarily. Charles narrowed his eyes at him. “I was just clarifying the situation.”
“No shagging?” Fernando asked.
“No South Carolina, buddy?”
“No banging?”
“I am not having intercourse with my boss,” Charles hissed through gritted teeth, leaning in as close as humanly possible to his monitor screen. Out of the corner of his eye, Lewis looked as though he was going to pop a blood vessel trying not to laugh. Fernando and Lance executed some kind of air-high-five over his head.
“So are we still on for lunch?” Lewis asked, irritatingly goodnaturedly. Charles fixed him with a glare that could’ve burned his irritatingly perfect eyebrows off. “Jesus, man, I was just asking.”
Charles already had set lunch plans. He microwaved his Amy’s Pad Thai in the breakroom, then retreated to the handicapped stall in the lobby bathroom of the accounting firm on the floor below theirs. As he sat cross-legged on the floor, which was almost crossing his line of being too grimy to sit on, he thought about the logistics of ramoning Max in the office suite. Not like, in a fantasizing way, of course. Just out of curiosity.
LIST OF REASONS WHY SHAGGING IN THE OFFICE SUITE WOULD NOT WORK
- too chilly (A/C is always on high)
This seemed like a commonly overlooked issue with the men in Charles’ life. Their bedroom thermostats were always a frigid 60 degrees, which had led Charles to force himself into longer and more complex foreplay in the living room to pass the time while he preheated the bedroom. His partners were unaware of this system, so he used the bathroom as an excuse to sneak in and adjust the temperature to a perfect 69 degrees (nice. He deserves a pat on the back for that one).
- smells like burned ink from the copy machine
- the decades worth of employee of the month plaques hanging on the wall
There was nothing that could ruin a mood quite like Kimi Raikkonen’s dead-eyed stare watching him from the tacky, gold-plated frame.
- too many thumbtacks in potentially lethal places
Charles had found this out the hard way. When working in an office, one has to watch where they put their ass. And hand. And any other loose extremities. To make matters worse, Max used the industrial gold thumbtacks that blended in with the rest of his psychopathic, monochromatic gold theme. Maybe that would be exciting if you were in a risky mood, but Charles preferred comfort rather than being unexpectedly shanked in the bare ass while shagging. Maybe some people were into it, though.
He supposes this should’ve been higher up on his list. Maybe he’s just very particular about the way he shags, and Sebastian came second to his preferences. Sebastian, for as long as he’d been in the HR profession, had historically never been amped or even somewhat neutral about his job. On second thought, Charles didn’t think of anything that Sebastian would be amped about other than, like, a crisp W-2 form or a Subaru Ascent (he currently drove a Forester, but thirsted over the new SUV with a passion that Charles had never seen before). He approached every case as if it was his last. Charles admired his work ethic and pure dedication to show up every single day to a job that obviously made him want to snap, and generally tried to avoid any situation that would necessitate Sebastian’s involvement in any capacity. Boning in the workplace would most definitely require intervention, and probably a psychological assessment on Charles’ part. His pad thai was cold by this point, which for some reason made him feel almost incapacitated with trivial frustration.
“What am I even doing?” He huffed, tilting his head back against the wall and frowning at a spot on the ceiling that looked suspiciously like black mold. Maybe he should report that. However, if he didn’t report it, then caught a gnarly respiratory infection from breathing it in, he could sue the building. It sounded like a pretty solid retirement plan.
“You eat lunch here, too?” Someone asked, from a different stall. Charles froze. “Dude! It’s okay, I’m not going to judge you.”
Charles stayed very, very, very still. If he didn’t move, or talk, or give any indication that he heard the temp, he would be safe. Temps, especially of the accounting variety, could smell fear. He got to his feet and tiptoed out of the stall, wincing at the creaking of the door. The plastic fork from his pad thai slipped out of his hand and fell to the floor with a clatter. He gave up on sneaking at that point. The receptionist at the accounting office frowned at him as he hurried through the lobby and into the stairwell. He didn’t want to risk waiting for the elevators.
As soon as he reached his floor again, he slammed the door to the stairwell and leaned against it, huffing for air and considering Pierre’s sponsored 30-day ‘get fit’ program. He was dreadfully out of shape.
“Charles.” Sebastian appeared in front of him, arms crossed. Not amped. “Come see me in the pit of intern misery when you’ve got a minute.”
Charles attempted to lie to Sebastian. He’s not proud of it.
“I, uhm, actually. I’m, like, super booked today. I’ve got… a meeting. Like, right now.” He tried to make a timely, extremely well-executed escape back down the stairs, but Sebastian hooked his arm and dragged him to the interns.
“Hey, guys!” Oscar greeted, but was immediately shut down by a scathing look from Seb. Logan didn’t bother looking up from his fractured, life-support laptop screen.
“You and Max,” Sebastian said flatly. Charles waited for an awkward moment, expecting there to be a second half to the statement. Maybe a verb. Or a question.
“...No?” Charles looked at his feet. His ill-fitting pleather loafers were somehow sinking into the thinning carpet, which felt suspiciously sticky under him. Non-Newtonian carpeting, he thought, wildly.
“Yes. Tell me right now.”
“They’re here!” Charles waved a hand at the interns.
“They don’t count,” Sebastian said, as if it was obvious. Logan and Oscar, unsurprisingly, didn’t look hurt.
“Yes, they do,” Charles frowned, “they have ears, and they talk. A lot, actually.”
“Yeah, to each other. They’re too scared to even talk to Esteban.”
“We’re not scared,” Logan hissed, “he’s just an unapproachable guy. He looks like Gumby and Roddy from Flushed Away had a love child. Plus, he’s French,” he sniffed.
“Who’s Roddy?” Oscar asked, peering over a pile of loose papers.
“Dude,” Logan said emphatically, “we’re watching Flushed Away. Literally right now. Like, this very moment.” Oscar shrugged. Sebastian and Charles just stood there, shoes sinking into the carpet at a frankly alarming rate, until the intro credits started to roll and they snapped out of it.
“You and Max.”
“Nothing happened between Max and me.”
“Nothing?” Sebastian raised an eyebrow and leaned in closer. Charles could physically feel the pores on his forehead start to sweat.
“Yes. Wait, no. Nothing.” Sebastian made a face and started producing a highly dubious sound.
[SEBASTIAN, slowly increasing in pitch] mmmmmmmmmmm
[CHARLES] please stop
[SEBASTIAN, at a pitch that CHARLES was not aware that he could reach] mmmmmmmmmmmm
[CHARLES, sort of IMPRESSED] you should consider a career in opera or something
[SEBASTIAN, flatly and in a tone that implies NO FURTHER ELABORATION under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES] i did
[CHARLES, who is UNCERTAIN of how to react to this groundbreaking mind blowing information] hmm
[‘DANCING WITH MYSELF,’ the 1981 HIT by BILLY IDOL starts to play in the background as FLUSHED AWAY begins]
[CHARLES] seriously nothing happened i swear to god sebastian i’m telling you
[BILLY IDOL] on the floors of tokyo-oh!
[SEBASTIAN] fine
[CHARLES, hopeful] so you believe me?
[SEBASTIAN, laughing like CHARLES just told a GREAT JOKE. CHARLES knows that this SPELLS DISASTER because he very rarely tells GREAT JOKES.] oh fuck no
[CHARLES] i want to go home
[BILLY IDOL, soulfully] i’m dancing with myself ah oh oh
[OSCAR] damn he does look like roddy
[SEBASTIAN] you’re dismissed.
[CHARLES NODS GRATEFULLY, UNSTICKS HIS SHOES, AND FLEES THE SCENE. SEBASTIAN WATCHES HIM LEAVE]
“Afternoon,” Lewis greeted kindly.
“Good afternoon,” Fernando greeted, significantly less kindly.
“Great afternoon,” Lance greeted maliciously, never to be outdone.
“Bad afternoon,” Charles muttered.
“Awful afternoon?” Lewis asked.
“Positively vile afternoon,” Charles confirmed, kind of feeling like he was going to throw up.
“Did you recently get punched in the face?” Lance asked, out of seemingly nowhere. Charles gave him A Look, and Lance gestured at his nose.
“It’s bleeding. I wasn’t going to ask earlier, because I thought it was, like, a sex thing.”
“It is NOT a sex thing,” Charles hissed. A few desks over, Kevin stopped typing for a second, glancing at him with those stupid beautiful blue eyes and murderous expression.
“If I have to hear about anyone else’s sex life while I’m at work, I’m telling Sebastian.”
“Do not care,” Fernando waved a dismissive hand, “put earplugs in.” Kevin gave him a frankly impressive triple middle finger, which Charles hadn’t thought to be possible, before returning to whatever Kevin did.* Kevin was never actually seen doing anything remotely productive during work hours.
“So it’s “not” a “sex thing,”’ Lance said dubiously, using a stupid amount of air quotes. “You just hooked up with some dude on Tinder and then bashed your own face in.”
“Yes,” Charles muttered through gritted teeth. “I whacked it on his nightstand.”
“Hey, at least he has a nightstand!” Lewis said. “Didn’t the last guy just have a bare mattress on the floor and a gaming setup?”
“Bedroom furniture is good.” Fernando nodded pensively.
“Oh, well, I’m glad you approve,” Charles said, voice thick with sarcasm. “It means a lot to me.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Hey guys,” Alex popped his head over the cubicle wall, “I know you guys want to have a nice conversation, but can we maybe get back to work? That way, we can all get our work done on time, then we can have our conversations.”
“Don’t gentle-parent me.” Lance frowned, then attempted to give him the triple middle finger. Alex looked vaguely disturbed.
“Just a friendly suggestion. We don’t want anyone getting sent to Max.”
“And quit saying ‘we,’ loser.” Lance spun around in his chair. Alex disappeared behind the cubicle again.
“What did Alex ever do to you?” Lewis asked.
“I don’t know. He has a sinister energy. Bad vibes. It’s inexplicable.” Lance waved his hands around as if he could wave away Alex’s presence.
“Ooooookay,” Lewis said.
“Don’t tell me you can’t feel it.”
“I don’t feel anything.” Charles shrugged.
“You feel Max’s big-”
“None of that,” Lewis piped up, and Charles felt a glimmer of hope. Maybe someone was on his side. Lewis immediately doused that kindling, though, when he said, “besides, we don’t even know if it’s big or not.” Charles flushed.
“I can neither confirm nor deny,” he muttered, and the surrounding cubicles flew into chaos.
“That’s DISGUSTING, and I never want to hear about that shit EVER AGAIN,” Lance said, sounding genuinely offended. Charles stared at him. “I’m just joshing, you guys.”
“I think it’s average. Who wants to bet on average?”
“Ten bucks on bigger than average,” Sergio said, not turning away from the copier machine.
“How do we even confirm this?” Alex asked.
“I don’t know, fuckwit, why don’t we just ask him?” Lance snapped.
“I’m not asking my boss how long his dick is.”
“Coward.”
“We could just stand really close to him at the urinals.” Sergio said, and Charles’ suspicions that he was a fiend in public bathrooms was as good as confirmed.
“Cop a feel?” Fernando asked, then everyone went silent.
“No,” Lewis said, slowly, “I think he meant peek over the divider.”
“I guess that’s fine, too.”
“What the fuck, man,” Lance snorted, shaking his head in disappointment.
“I’m a hands-on learner, okay?”
“That was fucked up.” Lance wrinkled his nose.
“You know what else is fucked up?” Fernando said, deviously, “that every morning, when you wake up, you get a ruler out of your nightstand and--”
“Shut the FUCK up.” Lance said, in his unsettlingly serious voice.
“You shut the fuck up,” Kevin interjected, “and I’ve got twenty bucks on bigger than average.”
“Can we stop betting on this?” Charles asked pointlessly.
“No,” Lance, Fernando, and Kevin said in sync. Charles dropped his head onto his keyboard, then decided he needed a pick-me-up, so he turned his head to watch Daniel across the office. He had his serious, actually-doing-work face on, which was pretty hot. Daydreaming, Charles imagined Daniel sitting in an open-concept farmhouse kitchen somewhere, working at the pristine marble island while Charles cooked dinner. They would have a tasteful pair of tuxedo cats, and Charles would put up with Daniel’s dumb EDM as long as Daniel put up with Charles’ piano practice at night.
“Stop indulging your housewife fantasy again.” Lewis elbowed him.
“I am not,” Charles lied, adamant.
“You were making the face again.”
“I was not,” Charles lied again, although he was still making the face.
“Get back to work,” Kevin snapped, “we only have three more hours of this hell before I can go home and hold a baby.”
“I wish I could go home and hold a baby. That must be pretty therapeutic.” Lance sighed.
“Until she shits everywhere, it is,” Kevin shrugged.
“Nevermind.”
“Let’s just finish the day strong, yeah?”
*the author thinks triple middle fingers are verifiably rad, even if she can’t do one :(