Paid to Rest: My Lazy Life System

Not Today Gordon

“I’ve called you eleven times, Hale,” Gordon snapped, striding down the aisle. “Do you know what kind of morning I’ve had?”

He dropped into the booth beside Tessa without asking. The cushion creaked under his weight, and Tessa slid toward the window until her shoulder hit the glass.

Gordon looked at her, and his eyebrows pulled together. “Why aren’t you at your desk?”

“Why are you here?” Tessa’s voice came out thin, and then her eyes widened. “You followed my car.”

Gordon didn’t answer her. He turned back to Evan and leaned his elbows on the table. A smear of red lipstick sat on his white collar, in the same shade Chloe always wore.

“I need the password to your backup folder,” Gordon barked, “and I need it now.”

Evan opened his mouth out of six years of habit, and then he closed it again himself. He had a plan, and the plan had no room for one word to this man.

“Smart,” Hammock murmured. “For the record, the bonus counts nodding, and it counts blinking in Morse code. But you already knew that.”

Evan picked up his fork and ate a piece of hash brown.

Gordon blinked. “Did you hear me?”

The hash brown was crispy on the outside and soft in the middle.

“Hale.” Gordon rapped his knuckles on the table next to Evan’s plate. “I am talking to you.”

Evan’s knee started bouncing under the table. Heat crawled up his neck, and every muscle in his shoulders wanted to turn and answer. He pressed his heel flat against the floor until the bouncing stopped.

He’s wearing her lipstick, Evan thought, staring at his eggs. And now he wants me to save him.

Ruth walked past with the coffee pot. Evan lifted his mug and caught her eye.

“Excuse me, Ruth.” Evan rubbed his arm with a polite little frown. “Is there a draft in here? I keep hearing a strange noise near my ear.”

Ruth looked at Gordon, then back at Evan. The corner of her mouth twitched. “It must be the vent, hon. It’s an old building.” She poured his coffee, filling the mug right to the top.

Gordon’s face went a darker shade of red. “Are you seriously ignoring me right now?”

Evan blew on his coffee.

“Fine.” Gordon sat back and folded his arms. “You want to play games? That backup folder is company property. If you don’t hand over that password, my lawyers will bury you. I’ll make one phone call, and you’ll never work in logistics again. You won’t work in this city or any other.”

The two old men at the counter swiveled around on their stools. One of them set down his newspaper.

“Hmm. I’d rate that threat a four out of ten. He used ‘bury you,’ which is very overdone. I’m also taking points off for the dramatic arm-fold.”

Evan coughed into his coffee and had to wipe his chin with a napkin.

Gordon stared at him for a long moment. Then his shoulders dropped, and his voice turned soft and slow.

“Look, Evan.” Gordon had never once called him Evan. “Maybe I came down too hard yesterday. Everyone makes mistakes. You can have your job back. I’ll give you a raise. You can be a senior analyst with your own office. Name what you want.”

Evan’s fork stopped halfway to his mouth. For one second, he pictured his name on an office door and a salary that could pay the rent.

Then he pictured the word G.Pratt on a log, twice, and the fork finished its trip to his mouth.

“And here we see the wild middle manager,” Hammock whispered, in the hushed voice of a nature show host. “Cornered and out of options, he abandons his threat display. He now offers shiny objects to lure his prey back into the cubicle.”

Evan’s shoulders shook once. He shoved a piece of bacon into his mouth before a laugh could escape.

While Gordon glared at him, Tessa turned her planner a few inches toward Evan under the edge of the table. She tapped one line with her pen. It was an email address, and beside it she had written Diane Cho, Hartwell counsel.

I booked his calls with them for two years, her eyes told him.

A soft chime sounded in Evan’s head.

“Thirty minutes,” Hammock announced. “The phone is yours again, Host. Please use it for something wonderful.”

Evan turned the phone over. Gordon was too busy glaring at the syrup bottle to notice.

His personal inbox showed one new message from his own work address, with the four-twelve report still attached. Under the table’s edge, he forwarded it to the address in Tessa’s planner, added a photo of the edit log, and typed a subject line with his thumbs.

Original Hartwell Q3 report, sent 4:12 a.m. Please compare to the version you received.

His thumb hovered over Send for one heartbeat. Then he pressed it.

“Is something funny?” Gordon demanded, because the corner of Evan’s mouth had lifted.

Evan chewed and looked out the window.

“Hartwell’s lawyers are coming to the office at two!” Gordon slapped his palm flat on the table. The syrup bottle tipped over, rolled across the table, and emptied itself onto the end of his tie. “I need your original numbers before they— oh, come on!”

He scrubbed at the tie with a napkin. The napkin stuck to the syrup and tore into little white shreds until his tie looked like a pancake rolled in snow.

At the counter, the old man with the newspaper leaned toward his friend. “Is this one of those hidden-camera shows?”

“It can’t be,” the friend snorted, squinting at Gordon. “Nobody would put that tie on television.”

Tessa made a small choking sound and pressed her fist against her mouth.

Sal came out from behind the register with a dish towel over his shoulder. He stopped at the end of the booth, right where he had stood half an hour earlier.

“Sir,” Sal rumbled, low and flat, “lower your voice or take it outside. You’re also getting syrup on my booth.”

Gordon looked up at him, then at the old men grinning at the counter. He tugged at his sticky collar.

He swung toward Tessa instead. “Tessa, get back to the office right now.”

Tessa didn’t move for a long moment before she stood up slowly. Her hands shook as she unclipped the work badge from the lanyard around her neck and laid it beside the puddle of syrup.

“I quit.” Her voice was quiet, and it didn’t shake at all.

Gordon’s mouth fell open. “You can’t quit. Who’s going to run my calendar?”

“Your phone has a calendar app.” Tessa lifted her chin. “It’s the little square with the numbers on it.”

Evan’s grip tightened on his fork until the thin metal bent at the neck. She had stood up for him twice now, and he couldn’t speak a word in front of this man without losing everything he had decided to win.

So he thumbed out a message instead, with the phone flat against his knee.

You just did the bravest thing anyone did today. Thank you.

Tessa’s phone buzzed once against her planner. She glanced down. Her lips pressed together hard, and her eyes went bright.

“I see that,” Hammock murmured, more gently than before. “Also, you just bent the diner’s fork. I’m adding it to your tab.”

A vein ticked at Gordon’s temple. “You two think you’re clever. I just need his original file before the lawyers see what I chang—”

He stopped.

Ruth froze with the coffee pot tilted in midair. The old man with the newspaper raised one gray eyebrow.

“Sounds like you changed ’em, pal,” he announced, loud enough for every booth to hear.

His friend snorted so hard that coffee came out of his nose.

Gordon’s face went from red to gray as he slid out of the booth so fast his knee banged the table. A strip of syrupy napkin trailed from his tie all the way to the door. The bell jingled hard behind him.

“And the wild middle manager retreats into the wilderness,” Hammock whispered. “He will not be missed. Back to you in the studio.”

Tessa dropped back into her seat across from him.

Evan finally lost it. He folded over the table and laughed into his arms until his ribs ached. Tessa was laughing too, wiping her eyes under her glasses with the heel of her hand.

Sal walked back over a minute later with a thick slice of apple pie. He set it down in front of Evan and cleared his throat.

“On the house,” Sal muttered, not quite looking at him. “That’s for the trouble earlier, and for the show.”

Evan looked up at him, and his throat went tight. “Thank you.” His voice came out rough.

A gray box slid into view.

[Mission complete. $150,000 has been deposited. Host ignored his phone and a grown man covered in syrup. I’m so proud I could take a nap.]

A text from his bank said the review of his account had been cleared. He opened the app with his thumb trembling.

$250,000.00.

He stared at the number until the screen went dark.

“Tessa.” Evan reached for his wallet. “Let me pay you back. Let me at least—”

“Keep it.” Tessa waved him off with a hand that was still trembling. “I’m the idiot who just quit her job in a diner.”

“You’re not an idiot.” His voice cracked on the last word. “You’re the only one who stood up.”

Tessa looked at him for a long second. Her eyes were wet behind her glasses, and she blinked hard until they cleared.

Evan pushed the pie into the middle of the table and handed her a second fork. She let out a wet little laugh and took it.

“Hey, that’s my pie too.”

Her phone buzzed against the table.

She glanced at the screen, and her whole body went still. She looked at Evan, then back at the phone, before holding it out across the table to him.

“It’s Diane Cho.” She barely breathed it. “She opened your file. She wants to know who wrote the original report.”

The phone kept buzzing in her hand. Tessa leaned closer, her eyes locked on his.

“Evan, she’s asking for you.”