“You only got this job because you’re a woman,” Chad nearly yelled at her, shaking his head hard in her direction. “You went and fucked that up though. You really have no idea what you’re up against do you?”
Devyn stood there frozen. There was no way she could backtrack from this one, so she being defensive was her only move.
“What does being a woman have anything to do with me getting this job? I worked my ass off for it. I went through four years of business classes and have worked retail since I was 16. Just because I got the job and you didn’t, doesn’t mean I don’t deserve it.”
Chad scoffed, pushing off the wall.
“I’m calling corporate. We’ll see what they have to say about this incident.”
3
“If I don’t fix this, he’s going to try to get me fired.”
Devyn paced across her living room, and if she didn’t know any better she would have believed that she could burn a hole. She was going on lap 15 around the living room. Her feet slid across the fuzzy carpet, tingling from the friction. Her mind wouldn’t let her rationalize.
Her sister had been trying and definitely not succeeding at watching the most recent reality TV show that was out. Maria sighed and turned the show down. She turned her body to face Devyn, who had already broken into a sweat and was chatting to no one in particular.
“How do I fix this? He hates me. I’m going to lose my job if don’t do something.”
“You need to calm down,” Maira said.
Devyn stopped, staring at her. She hated when people told her to calm down.
“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that. Let me try that,” she snapped at her roommate, glaring down at her.
“How are you going to get fired?” Maria ignored the comment, giving Devyn a stern look.
“Because you literally walked into him. You aren’t going to get fired because you bumped into him and he spilled coffee on himself. That is ridiculous.”
Devyn watched Maria flip her hair over her shoulder before rolling her eyes at how silly the situation was. She had no idea.
“You don’t understand.” Devyn dropped her head into her hands.
“What don’t I understand?” she shot Devyn a look from across the room. She needed to stop pacing.
“He is vindictive. He hates me. He wants my job, andI don’t understand why because I’m miserable.” Devyn let out a breath. A laugh escaped her before she could catch it. “And because I may have left out the part about how I smacked him when he told me I slept with my boss to get my job.”
“Please tell me you’re joking Devyn.” Maria shook her head, staring at Devyn with a look she had seen all too much growing up. “Que carajo.” What the fuck?
Devyn flinched. The Spanish words slipped off her sister’s tongue too easily. Normally, Devyn didn’t mind when her sister swore, but she never liked it when it was aimed at her.
“First of all, you’re overreacting. He isn’t going to get you fired. If he goes to corporate then everything else that happened is going to come to the surface. We can try to smooth things over between you two, but you have to tell me what’s really going on. I know you. This is more than a slap across the cheek. What else is going on you aren’t telling me?”
Maria crossed her arms over her full breasts, another trait she had taken straight from their mother’s bloodline.
“I got him for Secret Santa.” Devyn bit her lip. “I was hoping it could be easy, but they established new rules this year. I have to be there to give him the gift, and I can’t go get a gift card like I had hoped. So, I pulled his name. I have to buy him a gift, and I don’t even know him. I don’t know how I’m supposed to buy a gift for him if I don’t even know him and I know he wont let me get close to him to figure it out.”
“You have to apologize,” Maria said.
“Excuse me? Did I hear you correctly?” Devyn was dumbfounded. It was in that moment she realized her sister had surely lost her mind.
“Hear me out.” She put her hand up. “You apologize to him. That will clear up you slapping him and it might actually get him to play nice. He sounds like a child who doesn't know how to be nice because his mommy babied him too much. If you are nice to him and apologize, there is a chance it will boost his ego and make him not want to tell anyone how you smacked him in fear of making him look bad. This way, he will know you don’t want any bad blood between the two of you and that you want to make things right, even if you are only doing it to make your life easier. Maybe ask him out for coffee since you made him spill his. The point is, you make him feel like he is the one who is in control of the situation, even though you are the one calling the shots.”
“I don’t understand. If he says no then he is in control.”
“He won’t say no,” Maria said confidently, sitting up straighter.
“Why not?”
“Because he wants to feel like he is ‘the big strong man’ who is in control of the entire situation. Play damsel and his attitude will change.”
“I am not pretending to be a damsel. He is the one who needs a reality check, not me.”
Devyn’s blood boiled and showed on her cheeks. Playing damsel would go against everything she had ever known herself to be. She had worked from the ground up to become the strong willed person she was today, and she wasn’t going to let someone she worked with take that away from her.
“I know he is,” she said, “but if you want
