Angry Love

Chapter 1

Arnold wiped a hand across his foggy mirror. His face was slightly red from the steam of the shower. He turned his face side to side, searching for blemishes.

"Alright, Shortman," he mumbled to himself. "You will walk into this interview and land this job. It will be the first step towards your dream job!" Arnold turned on the faucet and wet his hands then brought them to his face.

"You will impress the hell out of the interviewer," soapy hands rubbed across his chiseled face and glided through his golden beard as he washed his face.

"You," he pointed at his reflection as sudsy droplets fell from his fingertips. "Got this!" Suddenly, the bathroom door burst open. Arnold's heart was racing in surprise.

"Get out the damn bathroom, boy!" His best friend and roommate yelled angrily.

"Ok, Gerald, I'm almost done. You didn't have to kick the door down like that." Arnold replied sheepishly as he rinsed the soap from his face.

"Bruh, you have been talking to yourself for 30 minutes. We all have shit to do today and unless you want me to take a big ass shit on your bed, get the hell out of the bathroom, white boy!"

Gerald's mouth was set in a deep grimace as he stared at Arnold. He loved his dense friend and wouldn't trade him for the world, but he pissed him off now and again.

The two shared a two-bedroom apartment that they rented after reuniting after college. Gerald missed his friend dearly and was over the moon when Jamie-O told him about the vacancy in his building. He and Arnold had been looking for somewhere to call their own and couldn't afford anywhere. This place was newly renovated and in an up and coming neighborhood so the rent was in their price range. They had lived together for the past four years.

"Ok, ok," Arnold held his hands up defensively. "I'm done, I'm leaving now." He pushed past him and entered his decently sized bedroom. Arnold pulled open the curtain to reveal the huge industrial picture window behind it. Arnold loved the view from his room. Much of Hillwood had been gentrified, so the skyline was ever-changing. The biggest building in the distance currently held Arnold's attention.

"I'm coming baby." He whispered eyeing the gleaming building.

Helga G. Pataki was a force to be reckoned with. Always has been. She graduated from bullying the kids in her class to being the highest-paid editorial chief in the city with a mini-army under her as her staff. She has worked for Yonder Publishing for four and a half years and had climbed the ladder fast. She didn't sleep with a single person to get to where she was. She just commanded authority and it helped that she was damned good at her job. The higher-ups were so impressed with her, that they offered her a seat on the board when she reached ten years, guaranteed. The companies profits rose exponentially from her keen eye to spot a best seller. Not only could she sniff out a winner, she knew when an author had multiple titles in them, so she found the company consistent talent.

"Life is good," she whispered as she propped up her Christian Louboutin red bottoms on her gold-lined glass desk. She loved her life and could imagine it getting any better than it was. Her mother, Miriam has been sober for ten years and was overcompensating her affections to make up for her years of neglect. Her father, Bob, left the family when she was in 8th grade and she hadn't heard from him since. She wasn't sad when he left, but the opposite. He was a dark shadow in her life that she didn't realize was there until it moved on. This is the only reason her mom was able to stop drinking. Without his constant verbal, and sometimes physical abuse, she didn't need to drown herself in booze. Life improved significantly for her after this.