Page 4 of False Comeback

New people meant a greater risk of being let go if I rocked the boat too much or caused too much discord in the workplace. I could just be replaced.

Holt could just decide that he didn’t want to deal with any conflict and fire me and Crossbody.

I hate him so much. I seethed, glaring at the doors. I could just picture him in his dressing room—I’d never seen it, but it was probably ridiculous and fancy—lounging back without a care in the world. Probably brushing his hair or something, preening over himself.

He was probably feeling smug about making me lose my temper again in front of everyone. In front of Corey. Probably laughing about Corey threatening to remove me from court.

Smug asshole.

I was getting angry again, so I gave Heidi a tight smile and beelined for the treadmill in the workout area. For once, Crossbody wasn’t hogging it all to himself. He practically lived on this thing when he was at work.

And if he came out here hoping to use it while I was? Well, that would just be a tiny little victory to me. A win. He wouldn’t be able to say anything, because Corey had ordered us to not talk to each other or interact at all unless we happened to get teamed up for a match.

I smiled a little to myself as I hopped on and started it up.

—

By 6 p.m. I was marginally less pissed.

I’d rehearsed with Carl, the vampire Blood Suckapunch, for a few hours for our upcoming match. I’d chilled out with Dan and Mads—our resident gorgon, who went by Lady Victoria Venom in the ring—for a while. And I’d avoided going anywhere near Crossbody.

Everyone was starting to drift home. Dan had left at five-thirty to go home with Rafe, and I knew that meant the other office workers were likely to have finished for the day too. Larkin and Seb never hung around, eager to be alone together, and I’d overheard Susan saying that Holt was taking Taylor out to dinner at a fancy restaurant she and her boyfriend Asmo had recommended.

Corey had also left a while ago to start getting ready for his drag show tonight, so I was feeling calmer now that the top brass was out of the building. But I also didn’t want to go home.

That panicky sensation was still gnawing at my gut. The worry that Holt was going to fire me and replace me. That asshole Crossbody had said in front of everyone during court that I “didn’t take my job seriously” and was a “slacker.”

Fuck him.

It wasn’t true. Just because I enjoyed myself at work—and had a life outside of it—didn’t mean I was a fucking slacker or didn’t take my damn job seriously. I took it fucking seriously. I’d clawed myself out of poverty with this job. Not that the pompous royal fae would have any idea what that was like.

I could prove just how seriously I took it by staying late and… I didn’t really know what I’d do. Kind of hard to rehearse for a match when your match partner had already left. But I knew if I went home, I’d just sit and stew. I’d get pissed again.

I considered calling Dan and seeing if he and Rafe still wanted to go for that drink. Maybe I could find someone to fuck at the bar—work some of this restless energy out of my system. But they were probably already home and getting settled for the evening. It was still a little odd to see my strictly-casual-only buddy fully immersed in the honeymoon phase of a real relationship. He seemed smitten with our quiet ghoul IT Manager.

I mean, he’d attempted to take on Frank and Beans to defend Rafe’s honour, so he had to really like him.

I still had nightmares about that house. The motel art. The serial killer sand pit. The paintnuts—particularly the one Beans had fired directly at my nuts.

At least the small bruise on my testicle was gone, and at least we were unlikely to ever see Frank and Beans again. They’d fled after stealing Dan’s head. Holt had been about to fire them for it, but they’d disappeared before he could to, apparently, start a new life mugging people and stealing their zippers.

I was still pissed about the jeans they’d taken from me. But it was a sacrifice I’d been willing to make to escape that funhouse from hell.

I didn’t want to go home and sit there thinking about Crossbody or Frank and Beans. I needed to keep busy. I always needed to keep busy so I didn’t start getting frustrated and anxiously restless.

Now that my dressing room was somewhat tidy, I decided to give it a deep clean—something I may not have ever done before, and I’d been here five years. Which was probably bad.

This way, if Holt or Corey decided to drop by my dressing room, they’d see what a good employee I was. Tidy and conscientious and a hard worker.

With that in mind, I went to the supply closet to grab some cleaning products, nodding goodbye to Kenneth and Brian as they left together. One of the maintenance guys, Tommy, was sanding down and repainting Frank and Beans’ former dressing room door. Their stuff was piled up in the corridor for disposal, and a shiver ran down my spine as I scanned some of the items.

Several martial arts trophies. A big novelty hotdog in a bun with arms and a face, clearly stolen from a restaurant or somewhere. A large collection of dog toys, many of which had been gnawed on. And, Jesus Christ, a huge pinboard covered in all our faces. They’d been ripped out of our promotional posters, which lined the walls in the public corridors and arena. Holt had assumed it was fans stealing mementos on the way out, grumbling every time he had to get a new one printed.

But no. It had been them. Stealing our heads from posters.

A trash bag was overflowing with empty hotdog packages, crumpled cans of hotdog water-flavoured soda, bags of dog kibble and old, stained tighty-whities. I shuddered and took a step away.

“Sorry you had to clean the room out, man,” I said to Tommy ruefully. “Bet it was a hellhole, right?”