I was about to walk into the building when I heard the street vendor whistle sharply.

“Yesterday, that old woman who’s assistant to the monster came down and gave me a hundred bucks for you stealing!” he said, waving my paltry twenty-dollar bill in the air. “I’m gonna get rich off of you. I know it!”

I snorted and walked into the building, waving defiantly at the security guards and receptionist who had almost thrown me out bodily just the morning prior. I wanted to shout at them about all the things I’d bought that I’d never owned before, such as a gallon of milk, but I didn’t want to sound pathetic.

When I arrived at my floor, the Times newspaper intact and paid for in my arms, ready to set my shoulders and get on with any awkwardness with my coworkers after I fled from this place yesterday, I was instead surprised by the receptionist giving me a big hug the moment I stepped out of the elevator.

“We call what you did yesterday the actual moment you start working for Shepard Shipments,” she confided, giving me a pat on the back. “Everyone who has to deal with that beast does it, eventually. You might hold the record for how quickly it happened, but you’re going to be his assistant, after all.”

I was forced to laugh. “I just wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into yesterday,” I admitted. “It’s kind of my first office job.”

“If you’re back today, then you’re doing just fine,” she assured me. “Most people don’t come back after they have an encounter like that. His office door isn’t soundproof, you know. We could hear him yelling at you—not the words, of course, but the volume. What did you do to piss him off?”

I was an idiot, I wanted to say. It didn’t make me feel good to badmouth a man who’d just ended my status as homeless and poverty stricken with a simple plastic card and license to spend whatever I needed to. However, I wanted desperately to fit in with my coworkers, to have some bright spot in my day if I knew Roland was going to be yelling at me later.

“I was a smartass to him,” I confided.

“No!” she gasped, scandalized. “What’d you say? You have to tell me!”

“I’d spilled most of his coffee on his newspaper, and he said he didn’t ask for a coffee that was half empty,” I said, unable to stop myself from smirking at the memory. “I told him that some people would say it was half full.”

The receptionist shrieked with laughter, and I tried to shrink inside myself as people craned their necks to see just what was so funny.

“You are going to get so fired!” she whispered, her shoulders still shaking with laughter. “How you are back here today?”

“Believe me, I’m asking myself the same question,” I muttered. The receptionist had confirmed one of my suspicions. Why had my sass been tolerated yesterday—not only tolerated, but rewarded with a veritable limitless shopping spree? Add that item to the official “Shit Here Does Not Make Any Sense Whatsoever” list.

“Well, I’m glad you’re sticking around,” she said. “You’re spunky. I’m Sam, by the way.”

“Beauty,” I said, shaking her hand.

“Oh, honey,” Sam laughed. “Everyone knows your name after yesterday.”

I cringed. That felt more like a bad thing than a good thing.

“Well, I better go focus on not spilling Roland’s coffee on his newspaper,” I joked.

“Don’t let anyone hear you call him by his first name” she hissed, surprising me. “They’ll think you actually like him.”

“Like him?” I frowned and shook my head. “I don’t like him. And he definitely doesn’t like me.”

“He doesn’t like anyone,” Sam confirmed. “Well, good luck in there, soldier.”

“Thanks,” I said, laughing and feeling uncomfortable at the same time. I felt almost traitorous talking about Roland behind his back. He’d helped me probably more than he’d helped anyone in this building. So why did all of these people work here if they all hated him so much?

I stopped by the break room, filled a mug full of freshly brewed coffee, and took small, slow steps to ensure all of the hot liquid stayed firmly in the cup. I was going to do this right today. I wasn’t even going to give him a reason to shout at me.

There was something almost comforting, though, in the knowledge that if he did shout at me, it was just another part of my self-enforced punishment. I’d take the licks and keep on going for as long as I was employed here. Having a clear plan—no matter how messed up it might have been—was strangely nice.

Myra’s purse was on our desk, but she was off to parts unknown again. Was I going to be that busy once I took over for her? The thought lingered in my mind as I leaned against Roland’s office door, knocked with the hand securing the paper, and entered.

“I have your coffee and paper here, Mr. Shepard, just as you asked,” I announced as cheerily as possible for so early in the morning.

“No, not as I asked.” He was seated at the desk, like yesterday, but the chair was turned around. He was hunched over the keyboard to his computer, his phone display alight, working hard. The office was just as dark today as it was yesterday, the only source of light coming from his devices and that single lamp on the desk.

“Not as you asked?” I repeated. “I promise that I paid for the paper, and the coffee is hot, and I haven’t spilled any of it…yet.”

“Would you care to tell me what time it is?”

My eyes darted around the room for a clock, but the light was just too dim. I jammed the paper under my arm and fished around in my purse until I came up with my cellphone, keeping my eyes on the coffee mug, willing the beverage to stay put with all of my strength.

I mashed the button to engage the display.

“It’s eight o’clock,” I said, confident.

“Wrong.” He pointed at his own phone. “It’s 8:03.”

“I rounded down,” I admitted. “If it was 8:05, I would’ve gone up to 8:10.”

“When I say that your day begins at eight o’clock sharp, that’s what I mean. It’s not three minutes after, not five minutes after, not ten minutes after. Not thirty seconds after. Eight in the morning. Precisely. If you find you need to get here a little earlier to ensure you’re on time, do what you need to do.”

His words were harsh, but his tone was mild. I absorbed this information without so much as a noise of protest.

“I understand, Mr. Shepard, and I’m sorry,” I said. “It won’t happen again.”

“Don’t waste my time with apologizes,” he said, taking the paper from me first and then the coffee, his fingers brushing mine and making me shudder inexplicably. “Just get it right the next time.”

“Yes, of course,” I babbled. I could still feel his fingers on mine but had no idea why they’d made such a strong impression. It had been an accident, our hands touching. Was it because of that terrible scar? Did it repulse me?

“Anything else?” Roland asked pointedly. I realized that he was staring at me, staring at him, and I quickly lowered my gaze.

“No, sir,” I said, “oh, except this.” I located my wallet and extracted his credit card. “Thank you, again, for everything. This may sound kind of stupid to someone…well, someone like you, but it’s really fun to be able to get a huge tub of ice cream and not have to eat all of it at one time. I’ve never had my own freezer before!”

He gave me an odd look that I couldn’t quite define before taking the card from me.

“You also got a cellphone, I see,” he said, not acknowledging my gratitude again, or somewhat thankfully, my awkward admission about the ice cream.

“Yes,” I said. “It seems like there’s kind of a steep learning curve, but I’m pretty confident I’ll get the hang of it.”

“Email me your number,” he said shortly, looking back down at his keyboard before launching into a storm of typing. “You need to be available at all times as my assistant. I need to be able to count on you if I reach out and need something done.”