“Then don’t use ass-kicker. Use a different word. Like enemy. Or bully.”
Samantha was typing rapidly, seeing what would pop up in her search bar. “Oh my God, Professional Nemesis Wanted. Right here! That can’t be real.”
“Told ya.” Katrina looked smug.
As well she should be since she had a job, a hot boyfriend and a cute apartment.
Not that Samantha was bitter or anything. Much.
“Wanted: Nemesis to help former rugby player work out his aggression in a healthy manner outside the workplace,” she read.
“What? What does that even mean?” Katrina asked. “He wants a workout partner or something?”
“I have no idea. Wait, there’s more. ‘Looking for someone to challenge, goad and push me via texts and email so I get both a full physical workout and learn to focus my energy in a positive way.’”
“He sounds like a hipster. How much is he paying? You can goad, can’t you?”
Goading was something she wasn’t all that familiar with and frankly, sounded awkward as hell. “I’m not sure I can, actually. You know I’m really terrible at telling men what to do.” It was why she was currently single. She had a very bad habit of choosing strong men with even stronger attitudes and losing herself in the relationship. After a particularly bad breakup she had decided she needed to learn to stand up for herself just a wee bit better before hitting the scene again.
“That is true. But think of this as the opportunity to push yourself. How brutal can you be? I say apply for the job. At the very least it will be entertaining. ‘Drop and give me twenty, loser.’ Like how fun would that be?”
Sam rolled over on the couch and reached for the wine bottle. Her glass was mysteriously empty. Pouring, she rolled her eyes at her friend. “You are so full of shit. You wouldn’t be able to do that any more than I am capable of it. Let’s face it—we can tell off a cab driver, scream at the bicycle messenger who runs into us and shoot daggers at the bartender who stiffs us on vodka, but when it comes to men, we want to be enlightened and beyond the shrew, so to speak. In the end, I just have every ill-mannered, flannel-shirt-wearing douche bag Brooklynite running roughshod over me.”
“Which is why you should be a nemesis. You can’t get any more Brooklyn than that. I love it. It’s genius.”
It was kind of genius. And Sam was a little intrigued. Maybe part of the reason she couldn’t find a job was because she was passive. She sat nicely in interviews and waited for them to ask questions, which she then politely answered, and afterward nobody ever called her back. It was a bizarre reality that she had no problem being entitled when it came to vying for a subway seat, but with men and the job market she had zero chutzpah.
“I might as well message him for more information. Maybe he wants to pay in vegetables or something completely bizarre.” Nothing would surprise her at this point. “Emailing now.”
She typed quickly. Can you please provide more details on the nemesis position? Such as pay and tasks required?
But when she read it out loud to Katrina she realized it was all wrong. Pushing her glasses up on her nose, she deleted. “I need to be more aggressive, don’t I? I mean, it’s an ad for someone to boss him around. I need to channel an attitude.”
“You totally do.”
Having never played sports or done anything competitive at all, aside from beer pong as an undergrad at NYU, it wasn’t exactly something that came naturally. But that was the point. “Okay, so how about... I’m available to start immediately. I’ll need your current workout regime and your goals. Until then, remember that if you’re not first, you’re last.”
Katrina started laughing. Samantha felt a little smug as she hit Send. “That feels kind of good, you know that?”
“I wonder if he’s hot? I mean, rubgy player sounds hot.” Katrina took a sip of her wine and raised her eyebrows up and down suggestively.
“The odds of that are about as small as my bank account.” She held up her fingers a hair apart. “Teeny-weeny. Dis big.”
“You never know.”
“What I do know is that Rugby Boy is desperate to have his ass kicked because hello, he already responded.” She turned her phone for Katrina to see. But then didn’t give her friend time to look because she was curious what he’d said.
“It’s like a whole list of what he does to work out in a day and it’s completely ridiculous. Who does two hundred squats in one day? Plus he says he wants to push himself to run up to five miles because running is his weak spot.”
Then she saw the disclaimer. Only interested in working with a guy.
Pfft. What did a guy have that she didn’t?
Besides a penis. How would he ever know? The ad said emails and text messages. “I’m totally doing this,” she told Katrina. “I don’t even care how much it pays. This is going to be an interesting exercise for me. It’s like therapy to learn how to be assertive. He wants a guy, but whatever. I’ll just imply I’m male.”
“As long as he doesn’t expect you to ever meet him in person. Because if he does, I’m pretty sure he’ll figure it out.”
“I’m not going to meet him. He could be a complete creep.” She watched crime TV. There was no way she was going to meet a guy who was nuts enough to want to hire a nemesis. Hell no.
“My name is Sam,” she typed back in response, speaking her words out loud for Katrina’s benefit. “And unless you’re eighty, you can do five miles. If you are eighty, I still expect three.”
“Ha-ha, he answered immediately.” Entertained, Samantha grinned. “‘I like your style,’ he says. ‘Let’s give this a trial run. One week? Five emails a day. Show me what you got. I’m Liam.’”
“It’s a deal, Liam.”
For the first time in weeks, Samantha wasn’t wallowing in self-pity. Being an asshole was invigorating.
* * *
Liam Kelly sat at his desk in his cubicle and tried to keep his expression neutral as his boss spoke. His complete bugger of a passive-aggressive boss, who had absolutely no reason to behave the way he did, other than that he clearly enjoyed it.
“So let’s not have that happen again, all right?” Greg clapped him on the shoulder as if they were buddies. But it was a con. A sham. He was enjoying giving Liam a dressing down. It was his way of feeling powerful or some such shit.
All Liam knew was that he left the bank every day wanting to punch a brick wall repeatedly. Or punch Greg in the face while emphatically stating with total satisfaction, “I quit.”
But he couldn’t quit. The only way he was allowed to stay in the US was if he kept his job and therefore his work visa. So there would be no punching in the face no matter how often Greg made him want to, and there would be no tearing apart his cubicle walls in total defiance, or ripping his tie off and rappelling with it down the side of the building to the street for an escape. All of which he had considered at one point or another.
He’d never been meant to work in an office. It wasn’t in his genetic makeup. But after retiring from rugby, he’d found himself needing a job in finance per his university degree or risk being sent on a plane back to Ireland. And while he loved the country he’d been born and raised in, he equated going back with failure. He’d have to stand in front of his father in Kinsale and tell him that the sacrifices he’d made for his son had ended in nothing. He’d failed at rugby, he couldn’t fail at banking, too.
Plus there was no minimizing