Chapter 2 Asshole

"Are you fucking daft or something?" His heavy voice boomed off the walls of his office. I winced as he threw the stack of papers in my face, and I watched them fly in different directions.

"Did you not proofread this before printing them? What in the world are those typographical errors for?" He asked loudly, turning a few heads from the main office.

I stayed quiet. Truth was, I hadn't. I spent my Saturday in the hospital with Max because he had a crisis. Sunday afternoon when we got back, I was too scared to leave his side, and when I eventually did, proofreading was the last thing on my mind.

My head hung low as I couldn't meet his eyes. "I'm sorry, sir."

He sneered at me. "Shove your fucking apology up your ass."

For an employer, he used cuss words way too frequently for my liking, but I'd rather chew my foot than say that. "Pick those up and shred them now. Make sure you proofread every single page and correct those errors before printing a new one. I want it on my table in the next thirty minutes," he banged his hand on the table, making me jump.

"I said now," he shouted when he saw that I had not moved from the spot. I scrambled to action, ignoring the pitiful looks my colleagues were giving me.

When I started working with DigiPress three years ago, Richard, my employer, had made advances towards me, and I politely turned him down. He was not hostile about it until he heard that I and one of my colleagues went out on a date. A friendly date for that matter.

He flared up, and suddenly came up with a rule that you cannot have personal relationships with your colleagues or your job would be at stake, blah, blah, blah. Since then, he had been an actual pain in my ass.

It took a whole six months of sending appeal mails to HR before my salary was finally increased. Meanwhile, they had increased that of everyone at my level except me. My name had somehow been erased from the list of names to receive an increment.

Only a few people at the office knew the reason he was so hostile towards me, others guessed what it could be while the rest could not care less about why I was being treated that way.

"Hey girl, you okay?" My work bestie, Leslie, asked when I walked by her desk. I gave her a slight nod with a small smile while I went back to my desk to review the work.

Leslie was an absolute sweetheart. Back when I had just started working here and Max was just a little over two years old, she would cover for me at work in a heartbeat when I couldn't meet up with an assignment.

I shoved my glasses up my nose as I went through the pages. Ten pages in and I had seen only three errors, and they were all on the first page. Did Richard seriously ask me to shred all the pages when there was nothing to be corrected in the majority of them?! He really was unbelievable.

Exasperated, I pressed two fingers to my temple. I would not have been able to use them anyway, the floor in his office was slightly wet from cleaning and the white paper must have gotten stains on them.

A steaming cup of coffee was suddenly stretched out in front of me. I followed the line of sight from the hand holding it to the face of the person. A soft smile broke out on my lips when I saw the familiar face. "Thanks, Josh," I mumbled out, taking the paper cup from him.

He gave me a thumbs up before turning on his heel to leave.

I quickly rounded up with the editing and dropped it on Richard's desk with a straight face. He could bully me all he wanted, I'm not going to let that affect my work here... while I'm here.

My asshole boss can go to hell for all I care.

It was almost the time when Max's school closes so I quickly hurried with the rest of my assignment for the day and left the building.

Day one of five, then I get another weekend to myself. I turned down the extra time work for the rest of the month, I really could not afford to put myself through that anymore.

"Mommy," I heard his voice shout, the moment I walked into the small classroom where the kids who hadn't been picked up yet stayed to wait. "Hi baby! I'm so sorry mommy's late, I got held up at work," I said, giving him a sloppy kiss on the cheek.

Max giggled, wiping his hand on his cheek. "That's okay, Janet was teaching me how to make a kite!" He said, clapping excitedly.

"Was she now? You're going to have to teach mommy when we get home," he nodded gleefully while I turned to Janet who was arranging some books in the bookshelf. Janet was the 16-year-old girl who was volunteering at the school for after hours. She has been so much help with Max whenever I run late.

"Why don't we say thank you and goodbye to Janet," I urged him. He ran to her and gave her leg a hug, yelling out his appreciation and goodbye. "Thank you so much," I mouthed to her with a grateful smile. She shook her head at me lightly before waving me goodbye.

"Lasagna for dinner?" I asked Max after helping take a shower and change into comfortable clothes.

"Lasagna for dinner!" He echoed back in response. I sighed in relief. Max had his lasagna days and luckily, today was one of them.

He raced to the kitchen and propped himself on one of the stools, swinging his legs in fake innocence. "No running down the stairs Max," I warned. "You said no running up the stairs," he corrected with a cunning smile.

I shook my head at him in disbelief before heating the leftover lasagna in the microwave.