More Than a Hotline Fling

-15-

Damian's POV

My open-ended conversation with June haunted me for two days straight.

June had the biggest heart of anyone I'd ever met. She wore it openly, expressively, and . If I closed my eyes and pictured the perfect, ideal mother any kid was lucky to have, then it was her.

Loving. Nurturing. Empathetic. Selfless.

All the qualities I'm not.

Along with yard-mowing, suburban soccer Dad.

And yet... she said I was 'it' for her.

As much as this city stressed me out and the mental and physical toll that my job took from me personally, New York City was home. I knew every street, side street, and back alley from Lower Manhattan to Mount Vernon without GPS assistance. My two-bedroom place had enough space, I had a stressful but well-paid job, and my amazing girlfriend emptied my cock and filled me with more feelings and affection than I assumed existed inside me.

"Good morning, Sir," Shirley, my respectably decent administrative clerk, greeted me with the same impassive look she wore every morning in the office. Her dark-skinned hand thrust me a stack of paper messages because that's how she worked, old school pen and paper. "Your mother called... four times."

"Of course she did." I blinked under the harsh, white fluorescent bulbs buzzing overhead and glanced at the form on the top of my daily pile of shit paperwork. "What's this?"

"My retirement notice, Sir," she replied and adjusted her black, shoulder-length wig.

"I'm not accepting that." I smiled and handed her the form back.

"Which is why I got Deputy Inspector Hernandez's signature." She slammed the form flat onto my desk and fluttered a nearby pile she put there before I arrived this morning.

Her dark brown eyes squinted into thin slits and I fought the urge not to laugh at the rough, menacing tone that scratched her grandmother-voice, "Consider it a courtesy FYI of my thirty-day notice."

"Nope." My head shook and I put her form back into her hands. "Can't do. I need you for six more months."

"You said that six months ago," she tossed back at me without a flinch in her impassive, almost bored facial expression.

And she bought it. Even though I suspect she's poisoning my coffee.

"And I still mean it," I teased. "Don't leave before New Year's, Shirley. All hands on deck."

With flared nostrils added to her narrowed eyes, Shirley shot me a look to bury me six feet under and sealed over with cement. "Sir, do I need to remind you -"

"Clarence's birthday." My eyes rolled because despite the past five years we'd worked together, I'd never met her supposed husband. "You can still have the night off as long as you give me six more months.""

Her mouth thinned into a line over clenched teeth. By the eye daggers she shot me, every internal demise she stored up in her mind flashed on a highlight reel. She must have hit the end of it because she blinked, drew her shoulders down, and lifted her chin.

"Three months." She huffed in a loud whoosh of air and crossed her arms over her chest. "And I want a five percent raise and a better parking spot."

Twelve inches shorter but beating me in... girth, Shirley's intimidation efforts were laughable at best. My lips and nostrils twitched as I faked a cough when her glare intensified.

"Four months and the best I can do is three percent." Now I pressed my lips together, because I didn't expect that she would negotiate with me. I assumed that she walked out with a middle finger directed at both me and her former job.