Unstuck (11 page)

“Thank you,” I said and smiled, “Good night.”

“Good Night,” we both said in foyer at the bottom of the stairs and then went separate ways. What was I supposed to do on my day off; I had to call Nick to see if he was in town if he wasn’t then I was going to lounge all day long at the pool house. Pool! Maybe I could swim a little!

Once in my bedroom I looked at the clock and saw it was 2 in the morning, it was a Friday night, Nick was definitely up. I was going to call him.

Four

“Sugar,” I heard Nick’s drunk voice.

“Hello, Nicholas,” I said through the speaker phone while changing into my Pjs.

“How are you my dear?” I smiled and sat on my bed while brushing my hair.

“I’m good, coming back from a gala, tired,” I said thinking about how it had been a long Friday.

“Uh, a gala! How’s Maynard treating you, babe?” Babe? He was definitely drunk.

“He is a great guy, Nick. Are you home?” I asked smiling to myself I missed him, I had gotten used to seeing him often in the months when I was unemployed.

“Nope,” he said and I heard a couple of girls in the back.

“Not right now, idiot, I meant home Philadelphia.”

“Nope, I’m in Vegas, baby,” man, he was drunk, “why? Want to hang out?”

“Well I have a day off tomorrow so I thought I might spend it with my only friend,” I heard him sigh.

“Oh no! Sugar! I’m getting on a plane right now.”

“Don’t be an idiot, go and get laid like every single night and we’ll hang out next weekend.”

“Are you sure?” I could bet my soul that he was pouting.

“I am sure. Now go and get her,” I said smiling.

“You are the best,” And he was gone. He really was drunk and now I was going to spend my day off alone, locked inside a pool house. I guess I could go to my hous,e but what for? I would just do the exact same thing and I would still have to drive all the way back.

I had a depressing life.

And I really did; I spent my entire day off working. I did get up late, which was amazing but other than that, and the fact that I didn’t wear heels, I worked all day long. I attended to Patrick’s and Brian’s every need because, in the end, Brian was another man that was used to getting his needs attended. I did eat with Sarah and Miranda and it was delicious, as always. In the end, I didn’t have a day off. Not then and not for the next months. Things got hectic at the Maynard residence and I didn’t get to hear the words, “Day off,” coming from Patrick’s mouth again, at least not directed at me. But, by then, I could finally say that my life had changed. The months had gone by and people were no longer waiting for me to mess up or cry in Patrick’s office. I was in charge of everything in Patrick’s life including his schedule and even firing people was part of my job since Brian was some chicken shit that decided that I could help him in that area since I had the experience. Bullshit! He just didn't want to do it, no one likes firing people but someone’s got to do it, and in May, Inc it was me.

Employees didn’t like when I appeared in their offices. The midnight munchies had increased considerably in the past months since Patrick began working very late into the night trying to finish the details in some deals he needed to close by the end of the year and since winter was approaching fast, so he was very stressed; that meant more work for me in every single area. In the office I ran around much more than I did that first week or even month, I flew to New York almost every day and gave orders to everyone on behalf of Patrick; he was too busy for that. At home I was called into his office to help him get help him get unstuck every single night, maybe twice; I made midnight munchies almost every night. I was sleeping no more than 5 hours a night and I was getting used to it.

Despite all his stress, Patrick didn’t stop having a personal life; it was not one that I encouraged but he did have one. It seemed that stress was linked to getting laid, maybe, just maybe, it releases it; I honestly would not know but I had to pay the price, I cleaned up after his mess or his night conquests you could say. It was disgusting and really low to send his personal assistant, that’s me, to tell them in the middle of the night that he had so much work to do, not a lie, and needed to be away from any distractions. Of course, I would say it in a way that they thought Patrick was so distracted by them that they were affecting his job; most of them left feeling flattered and with a little hate towards me.

Meanwhile, I remained sexless, thank you very much.

“Patrick, you have to get inside that brain of yours that you are not Tony Stark,” I screamed after closing the door behind the girl, or flavor, of the night. I had already arranged for her to be taken home and Patrick was at the top of the stairs and grinning only in his PJ pants.

“You are my Pepper Potts, Lucinda.”

“Ugh! I hate you so much,” I screamed as I threw to him his t-shirt. I had taken it from Miss Bimbo after she had changed into the clothes she originally wore for the night.  The shirt hit him square in the face and he laughed out loud. He was amused at my rage attack. He picked it up from the floor and put it on while walking down the stairs.

“C’mon Pepper, I’ll let you make me something to eat,” he was smiling widely something that lately was not very common due to all the stress he was on. I couldn’t help but shake my head and laugh at his new nickname for me; at least I was not Miss Stuart to him. Sadly I had not stopped being Miss Stuart, everyone called me that and I hated every second of it.

“You know, Patrick,” I said as we walked into the kitchen, he had his arm around my shoulders and I looked up, “for once you should be the one cooking, after all, it’s 4 in the freaking morning and I just got rid of Bimbo #4,” I was just talking about that week. I was thankful that it was a Friday; Patrick rarely brought girls during a weekend.

“Ok, I’ll make the midnight munchies today,” he said clapping and rubbing his hands; I laughed out loud but then I realized he was serious about it.

“Patrick, you don’t even know what type of cheese you like,” I said sitting down on a stool and looked at him while he took down the binder.

“You are right, though, you deserve to have your midnight munchies cooked. Besides, Pepper, you need to rest, you look like crap.” In the past months we had gotten very comfortable around each other; after all I had to take care of really personal crap for him.

“Gee, thanks, Patrick,” I said while trying to smooth my hair and checked my pj's. “Is 'Pepper' going to be a permanent nickname?” I asked. He was looking at his options on the binder and stopped for a second as if he was considering my question.

“Yes, I believe it’s,” He said and grinned. I just shook my head, there was no point on telling him no.

Patrick did try to make a sandwich but it was impossible for him to understand how to operate anything in the kitchen so, and since he insisted on making the midnight munchies, he made cereal with me guiding every step of the way since he didn’t know where the cereal was or where the bowls were kept. We grabbed our bowls and sat on the floor, it had become a regular place for us to end our evening, him eating whatever I prepared and me yawning until he was done. This time it was different, we both were eating.

“So, where do you find these girls, Patrick?” I asked as I took a mouthful of cereal.

He shrugged while chewing, “They are girls I’ve… met in the past so I just call them and ask them if they feel like having a good time.”

“So you have a little black book,” I said looking at him.

“Yeah I do. You should be in charge of that too,” He said wide eyed like he just had a bit of a revelation.

“Nope, I draw the line at booty calls,” I said and He laughed.

“Have you ever had a serious relationship, Patrick?” I asked “Yes, I have. You?” He said while chewing his last pieces of cereal.

“Depends on what you define as serious,” I said shrugging; I wanted to avoid the relationship thing. I really was a loser in that area.

“More than 6 months,” he said and looked at me curious of what my answer would be, “Then nope,” suddenly the kitchen floor seemed very interesting and my eyes were glued to it.

“Wow. I’m the one that is supposed to have commitment issues; I’m a man after all,” he sounded amused.

“I don’t have commitment issues; I just work a lot,” I said shrugging again, “Work is not an excuse, Lucinda,” I knew that but thanks for stating the obvious, Sherlock! “It’s not.” I was sad all of a sudden, “it’s more the fact that I am considered a bitch.”

“You ARE a bitch,” he interrupted and I nudged him with my elbow, "And I kind of intimidate men, or used to.”

“Yeah, I don’t get that,” I just looked at him, “you know, men being intimidated by successful women. It’s plain stupid; I’d rather have a woman that challenges me in my everyday life than a submissive Stepford wife.”

“Well, not every man has the confidence of being a business mogul,” I said with sarcasm and he just shook his head. We were both in silence staring to nothing, sitting on the kitchen’s floor. We have definitely gotten comfortable around each other.

“Wow! So no sex for you! No wonder you are so uptight.” he said finally looking at me, “That’s none of your business,” I said trying to get up from the floor, “but for your information I am not celibate if that’s what you thought.” I finally got up and put the plate on the sink. In less than a second Patrick was standing next to me.

“Oooh! Miss Stuart does get laid! And One night stands!” Wow, he was excited about that.

“Oh shut up, Patrick,” I said while walking out the kitchen “It’s not like I have someone in my bed every night, like someone I know.”  I stopped on the foyer and turned to look at him and he had a big smile plastered on his face “What?” I asked.

“You continue to amaze me, Pepper,” There it was that awful nickname again, “Here I thought you were an uptight woman that lived for her job and now I see you are human after all!!”

“I hate you,” I said and tried to walk towards the pool house.

“No, you don’t,” he said from the bottom of the stairs. “Want to watch a movie? It’s 5:30. It would be a crime to go back to bed only to get up in a few hours.” He had a point, it was a Saturday and we had a home office day planned but that didn’t mean we could sleep in; we had to be up in about 2 hours.

“Fine,” I said and we both walked towards the T.V room.

I felt someone moving me lightly and I opened my eyes only to find Brian hovering over me, “Shit! Brian, you scared me,” I said looking around trying to recognize where I had fallen asleep. “What the hell are you two doing here?” Asked Brian suspiciously, I turned to look at Patrick who was stretching his arms over his head.

“Someone woke me up in the middle of the night, more like, this morning, to scare away the bimbo of the day,” I said my voice full of annoyance.

“Nice. Who was she?” Brian asked grinning and looking at Patrick.

“Lina,” I just rolled my eyes. I couldn’t believe them.

“Still,” Brian continued as I stretched my legs, “that doesn’t explain how you ended up in front of the TV.”

“This genius’ idea,” I said while glaring Patrick who seemed quite happy that morning ,“he said that we had barely 2 hours left before we had to be up again so maybe we should just watch a movie,” I just shook my head, “we were asleep by the time the movie began.”

“Well, I hope you had your beauty rest, we have a lot of work to do,” said Brian clapping his hands once.

“Oh shut up, Brian the “pushing boss-let’s get working,” attitude doesn’t fit you,” I said walking towards the door, “I am taking a shower, see you at the dining room.” I was in a foul mood because I had not slept enough and the fucking chairs were amazing for watching movies but horrible for sleeping anything longer than a nap.

“You do that, Lucy, you look like crap this morning,” I stopped at the door and turned to look at him sending a glare that could have killed him. Twice! Twice that morning men have told me I looked like crap. Someone was going to die.

Forty minutes later I was in the kitchen having OJ waiting for Patrick to show up for breakfast. My bad mood was better once I had taken a shower and I was ready to work. I heard voices coming from the dining room and I went there with coffee for everyone. I sure needed a cup or twenty to get through the day.

“Coffee?” I said placing the cups in front of Brian and Patrick. They both gave me a strange look and I wondered if I had something on my face. “What?” I finally asked.

“What’s with the sundress? You do know we are doing the whole home office day today, right? Those days where you wear sweats and have horrible hair,” Brian said.

“I’m aware,” I said and they both waited for an extended version of that answer, “It’s not even 10 am and I’ve already heard from two different men that I look like crap; maybe if I put some more effort, my looks won’t be such a nuisance in their lives,” I said sitting down on the chair next to Patrick and in front of Brian and took a big sip of coffee.