But Nick was a jerk. Nathan, well, Nathan was not. Or so I had assumed. Guess I just had really shitty taste in guys. Thanks, Mom, I thought. Why couldn’t I have inherited your giant boobs or your perfect skin? Why did I have to get your taste in men and your tendency to drink when things go shitty?

No, I was being unfair. Nathan wasn’t a bad guy. It was just a bad situation. I stared at my tired, sad face in the mirror and took a deep breath. Nope. I wasn’t going to let some fucking guy ruin this for me. Not Nick, not Nathan, and certainly not Tim, who had left a message saying he was going to meet me in the lobby at ten. I glanced at the clock and grimaced. The last person I wanted to see looking and feeling like this was Tim fucking Malis, but at this point I didn’t have any choice. I squared my shoulders and prepared for battle.

When I got to the lobby, Tim was standing at the reception desk yelling at the person behind the counter.

“I told you I just wanted whiskey in my room, but when I checked the mini bar this morning half of it was tequila.”

As I approached the desk, I saw that the person he was screaming at was the kid from the day I had arrived. Greg. The poor kid was practically white, cowering in fear. I couldn’t blame him. Tim knew how to make a scene.

“I’m sorry sir,” the receptionist said, flipping through the notebook on his desk. “I was sure that I had made a note of it. Usually we keep the minibar stocked with an equal amount of both beverages, but I’ll make sure to have the cleaning person replace the tequila with whiskey.”

“Better make a fucking note,” Tim said, leaning over the counter. “And if I don’t get comped for my trouble, you are going to hear from me. And your boss will too.”

“Yes, sir.” The kid was trembling at this point. I knew I had to step in.

“Tim,” I said, walking over to them. “Good to see you,” I lied through my teeth. God, I hated this fucking guy.

He glanced back, and when he saw it was me he made sure to give me a good, long, inappropriate leer. He had a special talent of making me feel like I was naked even when I was wearing a coat in the winter. My current outfit provided very little protection from that feeling.

“Saucy Sophie,” he said, stepping away from reception, much to the kid’s relief. “Looking good.”

I had done my best to look as unadorned as possible, barely any make-up, hair pulled tightly back and my most professional outfit —a suit and jacket that would be murder in this heat but provided decent coverage for my boobs and butt, the two parts of my body that Tim enjoyed ogling. Not that having it hidden would protect me from his lusty stares. I wore a version of this each day to work and I still felt dirty every time he walked by. He had a special knack for making the workplace especially uncomfortable. What a fucking slime ball.

“Hi Tim,” I said, dodging the arm he reached out. He always wanted a hug. A hug that always turned into a grope. It helped to keep my arms crossed around him, though I couldn’t always protect my ass from his wandering hands. He had pinched me so hard once that I had had a bruise for a week. I complained to HR but they all said that getting him fired was nearly impossible. It was his word against mine and he had been there far longer than I had. Plus, the rest of the staff—mostly men—loved him. They would eagerly gang up on me and say that I was lying. Anything to get a guy from their alma mater, or a woman who wouldn’t take such offense to what they considered “harmless jokes,” hired instead of me. I was just a humorless bitch, according to them.

Tim glanced back at the kid behind the desk.

“I’ll be back at three,” he snapped. “And there better be a fridge full of whiskey upstairs. Getting you fired is easier than getting laid with the help of a roofie.”

I cringed. Who allowed this asshole out in public, let alone on a campus to interview college-aged students? I could only imagine how Nathan was going to react to him. In short—not well.

Tim wrapped his arm around my shoulders and led me away from reception before the kid could answer.

“Fucking idiot,” he said with a smirk.

“I’m sure he just forgot,” I told him, reminding myself to include as big a tip I could manage to the receptionist before I checked out.

“Of course he didn’t.” Tim waited until we were outside before bursting into laughter. Thankfully he let go of me at the same time. “I never told him to put only whiskey in my room.”

I gaped at him. “What?”

“Yeah.” Tim slapped his leg with glee. “Oldest trick in the book. Make them think they made a mistake so they’ll always get you what you want and they’ll comp half of it. It’s the only way I’d drink something from the mini-bar.”

I was speechless. He frowned, clearly not pleased that I was disapproving of his scam.

“Oh come on, sweet cheeks,” he sneered. “They jack up the prices anyways. It doesn’t matter to them if they lose a few bottles to a guy like me.”

It matters to the kid at the front desk, I thought, but said nothing. That was usually the best method with Tim.

He tried to drape his arm over my shoulders again, but this time I was too fast and avoided him.

“Ready to head to the field?” I asked.

“Sure thing, Saucy,” he leered. I didn’t even bother asking him to call me something else. It hadn’t worked in the past, it wasn’t going to work now. “Mike told me you need a lot of help on this one,” he said as we headed towards the parking lot.

“Mike just wants a good article,” I said, trying to be as diplomatic as possible.

“Yeah, and clearly he regrets sending a girl to do a man’s job.” Tim unlocked his car—some vintage model that he was trying to rebuild himself and doing a really, really bad job. The whole thing looked like it was Frankenstein’s monster gone very wrong. I yanked the door open, knowing there was no way Tim the jerk was going to open it for me. This, of course, was the same guy who complained about women being too independent these days. He always seemed to long for the era when his car and his imagined ideal woman existed. Not like he practiced any of the manners men exhibited during that time.

The seatbelt in the car was broken, and the entire thing smelled like fast food and cigarettes. I was incredibly grateful that I wasn’t hung over, because if I threw up in Tim’s car, he would have surely found a way to get me fired immediately.

“So, I took a look at what you sent Mike,” Tim was saying, pulling out a cigarette with one hand, driving with the other. I had sent a very rough draft of my article last night after my cry fest, half hoping that Mike would call off Tim, but knowing that was very unlikely. He had been right—I didn’t have anything. Everything I had on Nathan was off the record and I wasn’t going to cross that line, not even to forward my own career.

Tim was swerving all over the road and I held tight to my useless seatbelt, thankful that the car ride would be over soon and praying that it wouldn’t end in a wreck. He grinned, clearly enjoying my fear and blew smoke over at me. I tried not to cough. The windows were open and the A/C was either broken or not on, so I was being blasted with hot smoke and thick, humid air. How someone could smoke in this heat baffled me. Even my mother, who loved her cigarettes, found air-conditioned dive bars to do it in.

“It’s rough.” I wondered if I could hold my breath until we got to the field as Tim blew another plume of smoke in my direction.

“You can say that again.” Tim shook his cigarette at me, raining ash down on my slacks, which I quickly brushed away. This was my nicest suit and I couldn’t afford to replace it. “It’s a mess, babe. It’s got no balls.”

If it had been anyone else, if it had been Nathan or Mandy, I would have made some joke about baseballs, but it was Tim so I said nothing and just gritted my teeth.