The Secretary and Her Boss

Chapter 32

"Hear me out, if we attack him from all sides, he won't stand a chance," Henry was saying, pulling me and Jack into a huddle.

"We've been over this. It doesn't matter how many of us there are, he is undefeatable," I reminded him. "We've tried it before."

Henry shook his head. "I've gotten so much better! I've been teaching Tyler, and he is really good. He's almost better than me now."

"Your son is four years old, Henry. That's not a compliment to you. You still suck," Jack said.

We were sitting in a huddle at my brothers' incredibly humid and hot AirBnB, about to start our yearly 'Autumns Family Mario Smash Bros. Tournament', attempting to strategize. Will won every year, and this year Henry was determined to keep that from happening.

"Don't insult my son! He's almost as good as Will. Just give him a few more training sessions and he'll show you all!" Henry bellowed, forgetting for a moment that we were inside of a house and not in fact out on a battlefield.

"This is a terribly huddle Henry. Will can literally hear everything when you shout like that," I pointed out. "We'll just play and get it over with. There's no beating him."

"You have to believe Lil!" Henry whisper shouted.

Will walked out of the bedroom, stretching, all grin. "Okay past, present and future losers. Sit down and accept your fate." He pushed a large whiteboard into the living room a moment later with dramatic flair.

Ryan who was sitting in a lone chair, reading what I was pretty sure was a romance novel, threw his head back and laughed when he saw the whiteboard. "You actually went out and bought one?"

I raised a brow. "You... bought a whiteboard, why?..."

Will began to make brackets on the whiteboard but halfway through drawing up two messy boxes, Finn pushed him aside and took over, taking the time to make perfectly neat lines. "Because..." Will said with a dramatic pause. "That way I can see my own name nice and big in the winner's box on this whiteboard when I inevitably win."

"You can't even take the whiteboard home," I said with a snort. "That won't fit on the plane."

Will shrugged. "You can have it. You are welcome to it, so long as you keep my name on the board forever."

"I'd rather see it burn," I said with a glare.

"Shame. It would liven up the boring decorations at your apartment," Will said with a snort.

Henry shot me a look as if to say 'please help me take him down,' and after watching Will settle down on the couch, all confidence, my competitive spark was back, and I nodded to Henry, ready to take down my brother.

As we all began to pick out our characters, filling the living room to the brim as we sat down on couches, chairs and the floor— Will trash talking and nitpicking each of our character choices— there was a knock at the door. Jack opened it and waved someone through. 

"Thanks for coming again, Hank. It's hotter than hot in here," Sam said, eyes still on the screen, trying to decide between playing Samus and Captain Falcon. 

The man, Hank, had on a baseball cap, a tool box in hand and wore a pair of jeans and a white work shirt.

The man, Hank, clearly knew where the thermostat was, making a quick beeline for it, quickly solidifying in my head that he was the owner of the AirBnB. He put down his toolbox and got to work, sounding embarrassed and apologetic below the baseball cap as he looked through the menu screen. "Of course. I'm sorry. I've never had a problem with this thing before. I'll check the vents. See if there's a clog. I really hope there isn't. Found a raccoon in one of these things a few years back."