Overtime Read online

  Contents

  Copyright

  Disclaimer

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Mailing List

  More from Roxie

  1

  2

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  About Roxie

  Overtime Copyright © 2014 Roxie Noir

  All rights reserved.

  This book is intended for audiences 18 and over only.

  Overtime

  Roxie Noir

  Chapter One

  Valerie’s phone buzzed again. Two quick ones: a text message. She looked around the open-plan office, at the other admins and junior copywriters, all looking intently at their own screens. Half of them were probably on Facebook, but she didn’t care.

  The text was not from Ethan. It was from Adrienne, her best friend. Valerie tried not to be disappointed.

  Don’t you dare call him. You’ll just feel pathetic. Cut contact. Be strong.

  Valerie sighed. She hated it when she knew Adrienne was right. The phone buzzed again in her hand.

  Are we still on for for ice cream & True Blood tonight?

  Fuck yeah, Valerie wrote. Eight?

  Sounds good.

  “I need you to schedule a lunch meeting with Jason and Amanda for Thursday at the Park Grill,” said a voice behind her.

  Valerie’s heart dropped into her stomach. She froze, then tried to act nonchalant, like she’d been using her phone for work, not to text her friend about her stupid breakup, and put it down and casually reached for her mouse.

  “You’ve got noon until three free. Do you have a time preference?”

  “Make it twelve-thirty to two. Do you have those letters for me to sign?”

  “Right here,” she said. The manila envelope was on her right, and she took it and spun in her office chair, meeting his eyes as she handed it to him.

  Behind her, on the desk, her phone buzzed again.

  “Anything else?” she asked, acting as though she hadn’t heard anything.

  “That’s all for now,” he said. Jasper Declan, her boss, walked back into his office and shut the door. Valerie turned around and stuffed her phone in her purse without even looking at the screen.

  Three months into her new job, Valerie still had no idea what to make of Jasper. When she told others who she worked for, there was a face they made, a face that said, I am trying very hard not to make a face. A face with a hint of surprise, a dash of pity, and a pinch of you poor thing. Once she had asked another assistant at Declan & Soames what the deal with Jasper was, and the other girl looked down at the floor and said something about how he made his last assistant cry all the time, but it was no big deal because she was kind of a crier anyway.

  “He’s just not the warm fuzzy type,” the girl had said.

  Despite the general buzz surrounding Jasper, Valerie didn’t think he was so hard to work for. He told her what he wanted her to do and she did it. If she could do it better than he expected, she did. What was so hard about that?

  Besides, his last assistant was on the copywriting staff now. Both the senior copywriters and the head of the art department had started there as his assistant, years and years ago. Being Jasper’s assistant was the way up.

  In her purse, her phone buzzed again, insistently. Valerie ignored it and picked up her desk phone to call Amanda’s assistant. She had a lunch to schedule.

  Six hours later she wore blue pajama pants with sheep on them, fuzzy slippers, no bra, and her Hudson State sweatshirt. On the ikea coffee table of her studio apartment sat two empty ice cream bowls, a mostly-empty champagne bottle, and a laptop. The champagne had an orange price sticker that said $4.99, and the table also functioned as her desk, her dining table, and her entertainment center. Frankly, she was amazed that she’d found an apartment in her budget big enough for her bed and and a couch and a coffee table.

  On the laptop screen, a man tore his shirt off, transformed into a wolf, and ran off.

  “You deserve abs like that,” said Adrienne, sitting next to Valerie. She also wore pajama pants, though hers were blue flannel. “Look at those. Sculpted from goddamn marble.”

  Valerie sighed. Onscreen, a slim brunette showered, the camera getting a good ogle at her small, perky breasts, her flat stomach.

  “They’re all after those girls,” she said.

  “Bullshit,” said Adrienne. “That’s just the media. Men want something they can grab onto.”

  Valerie rolled her eyes and took another drink of champagne.

  “I’m just saying, you could do better than Ethan.”

  Valerie watched the werewolf turn back into a man, now in the shower with the brunette, as they made out frantically.

  “We never made out in the shower like that,” Valerie admitted.

  “You see?”

  “Our sex life wasn’t great,” Valerie said. The champagne was starting to do the talking for her.

  “No?”

  “I mean, he always wanted to do it. Super eager. Like a labrador puppy. God, he tried so hard.”

  “And?”

  “And, how often can you lie there and get poked?”

  Adrienne burst out laughing, snorted, started laughing again.

  “You can do other stuff, you know,” she said.

  “I tried, girl,” Valerie said. She poured more champagne into the empty jam jar she used as a glass. “I tried so hard, and he was just not into it. Vibrators, lingerie, handcuffs. Butt sex. I offered him butt sex and he wasn’t interested.”

  “Inhuman,” said Adrienne. She held her jam jar glass out and Valerie upended the last drops of champagne into it. “That’s it, Ethan’s either an alien or asexual.” She took a long sip. “I mean, look at that ass. I kind of want to do you in the butt, and I’m straight. Who would say no to that?”

  Valerie gulped her drink, and then pointed to her ass with one hand. “This thing is phenomenal,” she declared.

  “Absolutely.”

  “And he wanted nothing to do with it. Lights out, missionary, hump hump hump and sploosh.”

  “That’s insane,” said Adrienne. She said it with authority, thumping her own jam jar down on the table, as though it were the absolute last word on the matter.

  “Guess what else,” said Valerie.

  “What else?”

  “When he dumped me he said I was frigid.”

  Adrienne stared and took a sip of champagne. “I don’t even know where to start with that.”

  “Right?”

  “Do people still say frigid? Did he time travel here from 1950?”

  Valerie laughed.

  “I’m almost serious,” said Adrienne. “First he humps like fuckin’ Leave it to Beaver even though you’re totally willing to wear latex and tie him up, and then he calls you frigid?”

  “Fuck him,” said Valerie. She took a long swig of her champagne and pointed at the laptop screen, where a blond vampire was making sex-eyes at a brunette. “I’m gonna find me a mister-marble-abs, and I’m going to have a hot fling.”

  Adrienne picked up her glass and clinked Val
erie’s with it.

  “Here’s to that,” she said.

  The next morning, Valerie woke up on her bed — which was really just a full-size mattress on the floor, she hadn’t been able to find a cheap enough bed frame yet — and Adrienne was curled on her two-person couch, the laptop still open in front of her.

  It was one in the afternoon.

  “There’s champagne left,” Adrienne mumbled from the couch, one eye partway open.

  “How can that be,” said Valerie. “I feel like I drank three bottles myself, not three-quarters of a bottle.”

  “Lightweight.”

  “The world’s chubbiest lightweight, apparently.”

  “Stop it.”

  “Want to order in Chinese food?”

  Adrienne was quiet for a moment, considering the bottle on the coffee table. “As long as it’s cheap,” she said. “I got a budget.”

  “I hear that,” said Valerie, and she grabbed a Chinese menu off the floor without getting out of bed.

  On Sunday night, after a weekend-long marathon of wine and Chinese delivery, Adrienne went back to her own little apartment, and Valerie was left, looking around her place, and she thought: maybe being an adult isn’t so bad. I can do this, and no one can stop me.

  Chapter Two

  The next morning Valerie really did feel better. She woke up earlier than usual, feeling oddly refreshed. She made coffee in her single-serving french press, ate Lucky Charms while checking her email standing at her kitchen counter. Then she washed her mug, her bowl, her spoon and put them in her tiny dish drain, humming to herself. She showered the weekend away, and for work she picked out a bright red pencil skirt and a blouse with vertical black-and-white stripes, then checked herself out in the mirror.

  I look like Beetlejuice, she thought.

  She swapped the shirt out for a simple white shell and a black blazer she’d had since high school. She called it the Magic Blazer because it hit her in all the right places, making her waist look tiny, accentuating her hourglass figure. The skirt was tight-ish and made it obvious that she was more bootylicious than svelte. She almost changed out of it into an A-line skirt she also had, but thought the better of it.

  I AM bootylicious, she thought to herself. Come and get it, boys.

  She put black pumps in her bag and tossed on flip-flops for the subway ride, carefully applied one coat of Bombshell Red lipstick, and was out the door.

  Up until three, her day went as usual. Schedule meetings, proofread letters, stuff envelopes, pick up lunch from downstairs.

  Then, Jasper opened his office door. Valerie turned her head around, fingers still held over the keyboard.

  “Valerie,” Jasper said. He stood with one hand still on the inside of the door, as if he was ready to close it at any moment. “Could I see you for a moment?”

  Fuck, she thought. She immediately went to every mistake she could have made: a meeting she forgot to schedule? Had she sent the wrong thing to a big client, used the wrong phrase and gotten them in trouble?

  “Of course,” she said. She stood, pulled her pencil skirt down, grabbed a notepad and walked into his office, sat in one of the leather chairs facing his desk. Jasper sat behind the desk, both hands on the table in front of him.

  Valerie crossed her legs and folded her hands in her lap, trying her best not to look nervous. Please don’t fire me, she thought.

  “We’ve just won a very big project with a very tight deadline,” Jasper said. Valerie blinked in surprise. “Starbucks is going to be launching a sit-down restaurant chain, and they’ve asked us to put in a bid for it.”

  “That’s huge,” said Valerie, surprised.

  “We would stand to make quite a bit of money,” said Jasper. “But they want a full mock-up by close of business Friday for their print ads. I’m going to need you to do a lot of overtime this week.”

  “Of course,” said Valerie. She didn’t think twice about it.

  Jasper nodded.

  “Set up a meeting for me with the head of copywriting and the head of the art department for this afternoon. Whatever they have going on now, they can reschedule. Tell their assistants it’s urgent, and that this is coming directly from me, but don’t tell them why. I hate starting rumors.”

  Valerie scribbled and nodded.

  “And please cancel all of my dinner engagements for this week. I believe there’s one tonight and one Wednesday.”

  “Lunches?”

  “Those can stay for now.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Not right now.”

  Valerie stood from her chair, moved toward the door of his office.

  “Valerie,” he said. She turned. He sat still at his desk, hands clasped, bright blue eyes boring into her, and Valerie felt a single pang of something that was a lot like nervousness.

  “Yes?”

  “You’ve been doing an excellent job so far. Thank you.”

  Valerie blushed and her eyes flicked to the ground.

  “Thanks,” she said, and left his office.

  Chapter Three

  The week went by in a blur. Monday she was there until eight, just letting the right people know about the project. Tuesday she was there until ten, eating salad out of a takeout container for both lunch and dinner. Wednesday the head of the art department started yelling at her when she told him to drop his projects, do the Starbucks ad, and that no, they were not using Helvetica. Jasper had to step in to calm the man down. Thursday she was at the office until almost eleven, proofing and double-checking and talking to printers. She took the subway home every night, only to show up at the office again at seven in the morning.

  Valerie began to suspect that Jasper was sleeping on the couch in his office, just because of the little things. He was always there before her in the morning, and while he never looked rumpled, a few of his gray hairs would be out of place, just a little, his shirt sleeves not pulled quite all the way down.

  Hoes does he do that? she wondered every morning. Does he keep those suits in his office?

  At seven-thirty on Friday evening, Jasper sent everyone home. As they were leaving, giddy and talking about what they were going to drink, she went into his office one last time, just to make sure. He was looking at the finished print campaign on a huge TV screen mounted on the wall beside his desk. Out of his windows, Manhattan glimmered back, lights blinking on in the summer’s late sunset.

  “Do you need anything else?” Valerie asked.

  “No,” he said. “I’m about to hit send. It’s four-thirty in Seattle.”

  Valerie nodded and looked at the screen. She heard the last of her co-workers shut the office door, and then it was silent outside Jasper’s office.

  “I always get nervous right before this,” Jasper said. “That I’ve forgotten something or that it’ll offend them in some way.”

  Valerie looked over at him, surprised. He’d never been so informal with her. He’d never admitted to any sorts of feeling, either.

  “We’ve checked and double-checked,” she said, unsure how to soothe him.

  “We have,” Jasper said. He focused on his computer for a moment, clicking, clicking again, and then going still.

  “Done,” he said, and leaned back in his office chair.

  The long week was finally over, Valerie thought, and suddenly the exhaustion she’d been holding at bay all caught up with her. Suddenly her feet hurt, her shoulders sagged, and her eyes felt like she’d rubbed sand in them, and all she wanted was to get home, put on her PJs and watch some trash TV. Hadn’t a new season of The Bachelorette started not long ago?

  Still sitting in the big leather chair behind his desk, Jasper was watching her. He’d barely moved since hitting the “send” button but all of a sudden, Valerie could feel his eyes on her, lingering on her, slowly moving over her breasts and ass. He hadn’t moved a muscle on his face but suddenly he looked lascivious, almost feral, like a lion about to pounce.

  For a moment, Valerie was totally baf
fled. Jasper wasn’t married, and between his fastidiousness and his incredibly private personal life, she’d always just assumed he was gay. He didn’t act particularly gay, really, she’d just always assumed that was the case.

  Now, caught in his gaze, she began to rethink that assumption.

  She blinked and shook her head just a little. Jasper went back to his normal, human self. Had she imagined that? She told herself she had, but deep, deep down, she thought maybe she hadn’t.

  Jasper leaned down and opened a low drawer in his desk. “This is technically against company policy,” he said, “but would you like a drink?” He sat a bottle and two glasses on the top of his desk. “18-year-old Laphroaig. I keep it for special occasions.”

  “I shouldn’t,” said Valerie. She wondered how much that bottle cost: seventy dollars? A hundred? More? The most she’d ever spent on liquor had been thirty dollars, once, on an entire handle of Jose Cuervo, and that expense had seemed outrageous.

  “I promise not to tell your boss,” Jasper said. A tiny smile played around the corners of his eyes, the corners of his mouth and Valerie didn’t know what to think. Had Jasper, the steely, no-nonsense part-owner of the company, known to make assistants cry, just made a joke?

  Besides, when was the next time she was going to get to try alcohol this expensive? Never, that was when.

  “Just a little,” Valerie said, and watched him pour two fingers of the brown liquid into a glass. Then he held his up and Valerie followed suit.

  “Here’s to Starbucks,” he said, and they both sipped.

  Act like you drink this all the time, Valerie thought desperately as the strong, smoky liquid went between her lips, then down her throat. She didn’t cough.

  “I do like a peaty Scotch,” Jasper said. He swirled the liquid in his glass and took another sip, and Valerie followed suit. She sat in one of the chairs opposite his desk, not entirely sure what to do. They were the only two in the office, and here they were, drinking scotch together.