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"Pull him out. I want both of you up front."
She was already moving.
I went back to my desk, though I didn’t sit. Instead, I stood behind it with my hands braced on wooden surface as I breathed through the tension that had settled across my shoulders. This wasn’t fear. Fear made you want to leave the room. This made me want to plant my feet.
Within half an hour, I got proof of just how much a piece of shit my Daddy’s former agent was.
Holb Nekman was shorter than I had pictured. He had the broad build of a man who had been athletic once and had let the years round the edges of it. He moved through the front office with the momentum as if no one was going to stop him. He blew past Cheyenne's desk with a gesture that was half dismissal and half I don't see you. When Moseley stepped into his path, Holb sneered at him.
"Sir." Moseley's voice was steady. "You need to stop and tell me who you're here to see. You can’t just waltz through here without an appointment.”
"I'm here to see whoever is running this operation." Holb's voice was the carrying kind, meaning I could hear every word clearly. "I don't have an appointment because I don't need one."
"You do need one," Cheyenne said, from behind her desk, her tone pleasant in a cutting way. "This is a professional office, and you've just walked past me without so much as a hello. So let's try again. Who are you and who are you here to see?"
He looked at her then. "I'm here to see Grizzly Thorson. Tell him Holb Nekman is here."
"I already know," I said, drawing his attention away from my people.
He turned to face me, his lip curled back in disgust. I watched as he took me in from head to toe. While he looked, I did the same to him.
"Thorson." He said my name like it was a footnote. "We need to talk."
"My office," I directed, uncaring if I sounded like an ass. He hadn’t seen anything yet.
He took the chair across from my desk and sat in it like it was his. I closed the door, because I didn’t want Moseley or Cheyenne to feel obligated to monitor this. It was mine to handle.
As soon as I sat, he started talking. There was no easing into things. The man was already living up to his reputation.
"I'll make this brief," Holb said, which was what men like him said when they intended to be anything but. "Your boy hascost me considerably. The fallout from his little scene at the restaurant, the social media circus, the clients who pulled back because they didn't want association with the drama—that sits on his tab. And by extension, yours, since you're the one who swooped in to capitalize on the situation."
My glare was instantaneous. "I didn't capitalize on anything. Paxton reached out to me. He was looking for representation that understood him. His former agent failed that requirement in a fairly significant way."
The color in Holb's face ticked up slightly. "What he did was breach a valid professional relationship for personal reasons."
"He enforced a clause that his legal team included specifically to protect him from exactly what you did." I fought not to raise my voice. "CenterGain was a stupid move. You knew who he was, and you brought him to that table anyway. That's not a gray area, Holb."
"Don't speak to me like that. We’re colleagues on even ground. I’m not your client."
"We're in the same industry. We're not colleagues. And no, you’re definitely not my client. I would never work with you." I folded my hands on the desk. "What exactly are you hoping to accomplish today?"
He leaned forward. "I want you to understand that I have reach in this business that you have not yet had cause to feel. Your little Bellport operation is charming. The queer athlete angle is smart marketing, I'll give you that. But you are not insulated from the kind of pressure I can apply when I'm motivated."
I let the words sit in the room for a moment.
Then I said, "You need to leave."
His jaw shifted. "Excuse me?"
"You've come into my office without an appointment, pushed past two members of my staff, and you have now made what sounds fairly close to a professional threat. I'm telling you to leave. If you don't, I'll call the police and let them sort out the trespassing portion of the day. Your choice."
The color in his face darkened as he sputtered. He planted both hands on the arms of the chair like he was bracing for an argument, and I could see him cycling through his options, trying to find the angle that put him back on the side of this where he had leverage.
He opened his mouth, but before he could get a word out, the door behind him opened.
Auden walked in like a person unbothered at interrupting a meeting.
They had their laptop under one arm and a coffee in the other hand. They were dressed, as they tended to be, in a way that made everyone else in the room feel slightly underdressed. They took in the scene—Holb's posture, my expression, the general atmosphere of the room—and they closed the door behind them.
