Page 118 of Badd Love
Some of the interviews lasted more than half an hour each.
Finally, I was the last one left, despite being the first one there; clearly, interviewees were not called back based on order of arrival.
Figures.
The door to the inner sanctum opened, and the previous candidate walked out, looking peeved. Forties, graying, slim, and serious with the air of a man who runs marathons for fun, he paused as he passed me. "Good fucking luck, sweetheart," he said, sounding ready to chew nails.
Yikes. Okay.
The door closed again. So…not my turn?
Sweet.
Fifteen minutes passed. Twenty.
I'd taken my walking papers from the Navy a couple of months ago, which in itself was a family sin—Tiernans werecareer, dammit. We were Navy lifers. You didn't leave the Navy. You didn't work for civilians. Yet here I was, in civvies, out of the Navy, interviewing for a position that wasn't even a government contractor job, which would have been at leastacceptableto my family, if notpreferred.
Finally, three and a half hours after I entered this place, the door opened, and a skinny kid in a suit worth more than everything I own stood just outside the doorway, peering at a tablet.
He peered harder.
Here it came.
"Tea?" As in the hot beverage.
Dick.
I ignored him.
"Tea?" Louder, as if I somehow hadn't heard him the first time. He also wasn't looking at me.
He cleared his throat ostentatiously. "Tea Tiernan?" Still mispronouncing my name and omitting my hard-earned rank.
I looked up and met his eyes, and I gave him the Tiernan Terror: our family's ability to stare at someone and make them feel tiny, stupid, insignificant, and inferior. It can't be taught or explained, only experienced, survived, and internalized until you can replicate it yourself on unsuspecting ensigns; I'd perfected it to the point of being able to make grown men cry. Literally, once.
He quailed, paled, and glanced at the tablet again. "Lieutenant Commander Tiernan?"
I stood up at perfect parade attention. "Good afternoon." I emphasized the afternoon slightly to point out that I'd been waiting since morning.
“This way, ma'am." He gestured through the doorway, as if I'd somehow take a wrong left turn at Albuquerque and end up in someone else's office.
I strutted past him, hating the feel of the leather ballet flats my sister insisted went best with this outfit. You can't strut properly in flats, dammit. You need heels, at least, but preferably a good pair of heavy shitkickers. Nothing says "don't fuck with me" like a stomp-heavy strut.
Walking into the inner sanctum felt like walking into a different world. The reception area was Serious Business; this was…Tech Bro Playground.
Two walls were entirely glass, revealing a breathtaking view of Seattle's skyline and the Puget Sound. There was a putting green—not a strip of fake grass from Menards with a little plastic cup. No, this was actual grass, indoors, complete with undulations in the "terrain". It occupied a whole corner of the office, which itself was most of the floor. I could land a Huey in here. There was an 80” flatscreen TV on one wall with a PS5 and a couch facing it. A foosball table. A table arrayed with junk food.
The desk was bigger than the USS Princeton, my first berth. The man behind it totally shattered what I'd been envisioning. I'd imagined some doughy, pencil-necked dork in coke bottle glasses, or a stodgy old fart who paid other people for his ideas.
This guy was, objectively, hot. Six feet even and fit, he was wearing khakis and a seafoam green polo. Messy, curly blonde hair, and yes, glasses, but chic designer ones that gave Clark Kent more than pre-Microsoft Bill Gates. He was older than he looked, though, I knew that. I'd done my research—he was notoriously reclusive and never gave interviews, never attended public events, and had never been publicly photographed. The only known pictures of him stopped at college. So, while he looked to be late thirties at best, he was, in reality, past fifty. Which was, in my estimation, a combination of good genes and the longevity care that comes with being a billionaire.
He was doing the classic Important Businessman Pose: standing at the window behind his desk, hands clasped behind his back, looking pensive and thoughtful and busy, as if he had a million things to do, but his current train of thought required Gazing Pensively While Thinking Deep Thoughts. Yes, the capitals are necessary.
He had nice arms, I couldn't help noticing.
He wasn't my type, but I am straight and single and in possession of excellent eyesight, and he was attractive.
I crossed the veritable wasteland that was his office to stand at attention between the two wingback chairs angled toward each other in front of his desk.
