Fast Forward

Chapter 22: Team Player

Chapter 22: Team Player

"Quiet, everyone, authority and superiority approaches!" I yell at Melinda and Dean as I barge into my private office – the one that they happen to occasionally occupy at the same time as me. "Your chief photographer, your boss, your life, your everything, has just arrived."

"Great. The gutter rat is here," Melinda chirps in her annoying, nasally voice. "And you're half an hour late...again."

"I was busy!" I retaliate with a lie – I overslept, and Jay had to wake me up about a bazillion times.

"Shut it, Furby! I'm trying to levitate over here!" Dean shushes me, unfazed by my 'late' entrance.

I glance over and spot him sitting on Melinda's table in a meditation pose – legs crossed, eyes closed, and hands together as if he's praying. In all fairness, if I was stuck alone in the office with Melinda, I'd be praying too.

"Firstly, it's Boss Lawson," I correct him. "Secondly, why are we trying to meditate in the same room as Melinda? That spells disaster. You won't find any peace when she's in close range," I share my wisdom with him. "I feel like you should know that by now."

"You're not going to float, you idiot! And if by some miracle you suddenly do, I hope you float off this planet!" the one in questions raises her voice at Dean. "Now, move! You're ruining my photos!"

Case in point.

"No," Dean refuses her flatly and simply.

Infuriated, Mel shoves him out of his pose and off her work. "You're so stupid, Wyatt! I just organized this table!"

"I rest my case, Deanie," I say and take a seat at my table. There's nothing like a morning of fun at work to distract me from life's problems.

Dean decides to do the decent thing and gets up from her table. "I'm sorry, Mel. As—"

"Don't call me that!" she hisses angrily.

"As a gesture of goodwill," Dean continues calmly and hands her a thick stack of pictures, "I offer up these beautiful photos to add to your shrine. Consider it an official apology, Mel."

Melinda skims through the photos before crinkling up her nose and tossing her ginger hair over her shoulder. "Gross! Why would I want selfies of you and the drowned rat pulling crazy faces?! Those aren't going anywhere near my mantle!"

I shake my head at her. "Tch. You're ungrateful."

Melinda narrows her gaze. "How many photos did you two morons take? There're like a bajillion here! Do you guys even do any work?"

I shrug. "Is too much of a good thing really a bad thing? I think not, Mel."

I'd be grateful for a thousand photos of my face...

"Stop calling me that! You're not even my friends!"

"Alright, alright, Mel, I'll stop calling you 'Mel'. Ms. Grumpy is more fitting anyway," I reply, making peace with her like the true peacemaker that I am. "Personally, I think Dean's gesture of goodwill was very...endeaning," I add with a serious face.

Melinda runs both hands through her hair, frustrated. "You did not just say that."

I stifle a laugh. "Whatever do you mean?"

"Aww yeah!" Dean fist-bumps me, catching on. He hops up to sit on my table and turns to face me, his brown eyes meeting my own. "Moving on from Mel, how are you doing on this fine day, pretty lady?" he flirts shamelessly.