Little Man Read online

  Little Man

  Chapter One

  “I’m telling you, Trevor,” I growled, pushing my shoulders back and thrusting my chest forward as I stared

  down my coworker. The effect, I knew, was ruined by the fact that I was more than a foot shorter than him. I

  craned my neck, narrowing my eyes as I said, “I’m the team leader. It’s my decision. That’s all you need to know.”

  For the longest moment, he didn’t back down. He didn’t break eye contact, and his jaw bulged. I began to

  mentally prepare myself for an argument, but to my surprise, he looked away. Taking a deep breath, he said, “I

  understand it’s your decision, Car. But I really think we should look at the numbers again. FSP is really strong this

  quarter, and –”

  “No,” I said. “It stays the way it is. And that’s final.”

  He threw his hands up in the air. “Fine,” the bigger man said. “Whatever. You’re the boss, right? No need

  to listen to us, huh? We’re just your team. We’re just the people here to support you.”

  “Watch yourself,” I said. “You don’t want to say something you’ll regret.”

  After everything I’d done for West and Sons, I deserved a little benefit of the doubt. I had been their top

  investor for two out of the last three years. I knew what I was doing. And guys like Trevor Franks only wanted to

  make me look bad so they could take my job. Give him the slightest opening, show the smallest sliver of weakness,

  and he’d make me regret it. I knew that as well as I knew anything in my life. So, I wasn’t about to give him the

  opportunity to show me up.

  However, that didn’t mean I wanted to ruin the man. He was a good worker. Smart. Punctual. And he

  knew how to follow orders – most of the time. If he could suborn his ego, he could become a valuable asset. Or he

  could flame out like so many before him. That was up to him.

  “Damn right I don’t,” he said, grabbing his coat and starting to walk out of the conference room.

  “Stop,” I commanded, using the deep, penetrating voice I’d all but perfected over the years. It did the trick,

  and Trevor stopped in his tracks. Despite the fact that there were four other people in the room – all members of my

  team – it was deathly quiet. “Sit down. We’re not done with this meeting.”

  “Seriously? You don’t need us here,” Trevor said. “You’ve got all the answers, don’t you? You know

  everything.”

  “I value your contributions,” I said. He began to scoff, but I cut him off, saying, “But if you don’t sit your

  fucking ass down right now, you’d better just keep walking. Go to the elevator. Ride it down. Head into the

  parking garage. Get in your car. And never come back to this fucking building again.”

  That was it. The gauntlet had been thrown down. And I could see the war of emotions as they played across

  his face. There was anger there, sure. But that was normal. Men like him weren’t used to being ordered around by

  guys like me. After all, I was barely over five feet tall, and that was with my lifts. And it galled him that he had to take it. There was fear there, too, and rightly so. He was a junior investor. He didn’t have the track record to back up his sense of self-worth. His big ideas were just that – ideas without much of an anchor in the real world. And he

  knew that if he was fired, he’d have a hard time explaining that to other potential employers.

  Eventually, the fear won out. With a sigh – and the jerky movements of someone in the midst of a barely

  restrained tantrum – he threw his jacket over the back of his chair, dragged it away from the table, and sat down.

  I didn’t relax. Give them an inch, and they’ll take a mile. So, I continued with the remainder of my meeting,

  pacing back and forth as I gestured, forcefully making each point. There were a few questions here and there, but

  most of my subordinates were too afraid to speak. And Trevor simply stared straight ahead, sulking. It wasn’t an

  ideal situation, but it had been necessary for me to establish myself as the alpha. Someday soon, I’d make it up to

  him. I’d put him in charge of something. That might make it marginally better for him.

  In the meantime, I finished my meeting, gave my team their assignments, and dismissed them. The filed out

  of the conference room silently, leaving me alone. When they were gone, I finally relaxed, taking a deep breath as I

  allowed some of the tension to leave my shoulders. It felt good. The show of dominance might have been

  necessary, but it was exhausting, nonetheless.

  I gathered my things, straightened my shoulders, and left the room. Once in the hall, I quickly found my

  way to the bathroom and ducked inside. There, I did my business, washed my hands, and splashed water on my

  bearded face. I looked up to see my reflection staring back at me.

  Pretty. Growing up, that was the most common word people used to describe me. And I suppose I couldn’t

  really blame them. Even in my late-thirties, I’d maintained my boyish good looks. Blonde hair, piercing blue eyes,

  and a delicate nose perched atop a great, bushy beard I’d grown to hide my rounded jaw. The facial hair almost

  made me look masculine.

  Almost.

  But not quite.

  Part of that was my stature. Some of it was due to my facial features. The rest could be chalked up to my

  slight build. Once, I’d been obsessed with correcting that. I had spent hours in the gym, trying to sculpt myself into the masculine build I lacked. But that took an incredible amount of time. With a wife, a job where I was expected

  to work sixty-plus-hour weeks, and a stepdaughter who demanded more and more of my attention each day, I simply

  didn’t have much time to spare. So, my body had reverted to its natural state – slim, ill-defined limbs on a compact

  frame.

  I hated the way I looked. I’d been fighting it for most of my life. And most of the time, I’d gotten good at

  living with it. I knew what to do, how to act to draw attention away from it. But it still frayed my nerves to think

  that guys like Trevor would never have to work nearly as hard as I did to get simple respect.

  However, there wasn’t much I could do but live with it. I had done okay for myself, and in spite of my

  limitations, I’d risen to a position of prominence in my chosen field – investment banking. And I’d be damned if I

  let some young asshole like Trevor Franks get the better of me. Not on my worst day.

  My chest puffed out a little more at that, and by the time I left the bathroom, I had resumed my steely

  façade. However, it almost broke when, as I neared the end of the hallway, I heard some familiar voices.

  “The fucking leprechaun,” said Diana, my team’s only female member. She, too, outsized me by quite some

  margin, and she had a habit of wearing heels, which only exacerbated the issue. However, I’d long considered her

  the best of the bunch, even if she was a woman. I was progressive like that. “He can’t let anybody else have a say,

  can he?”

  “Little man syndrome,” came Trevor’s agreeable voice. I could hear the mirth in his tone, and my muscles,

  such as they were, clenched. “Dude like that? He’s got to show everyone how much of a man he is. It’s all about

  insecurity. And –”

  Straightening my tie, I stepped out of the hall and into the bullpen – a collection
of desks gathered in an

  open-floor plan that was supposed to somehow be better than sequestering the employees in cubicles. I wasn’t

  convinced it did more than let them waste time more easily. But that hadn’t been my decision.

  “Trevor,” I said, nodding. I looked at Diana, smiling. “I trust you two won’t mind working late. The

  Carrington account isn’t going to service itself.”

  The looks on their faces was almost enough to counterbalance what they’d said about me. However, after

  they stammered responses, my mood darkened, and it continued to grow fouler as I made my way to my office. I

  didn’t even bother to speak to Lisa, my assistant, as I stormed past her, slamming the door in my wake.

  I stood there, fuming for a long moment – maybe a few long moments – before I managed to reassert my

  self-control. A million responses rocketed through my mind – firing them being the most prevalent – before I

  decided to ignore it – or at least try to. What they said about me didn’t change who I was, but it did color my self-

  perception.

  I hated them for that.

  I planted myself behind my desk and tried to finish my work day. I answered a few emails, made a couple of

  calls, and worked on a half-dozen spreadsheets containing financial information. But when five o’clock came, I still

  angry, so I decided to forego my usual late night to go home and watch the basketball game. I wasn’t a huge fan,

  but it was the last game of the NBA Finals. I could take one early night for that.

  Seeing Trevor and Diane still busy as I made my way to the elevator did something to assuage my bad mood,

  and by the time I made it to my shiny, black Corvette, I was feeling quite a bit better about myself.

  After getting in, I pressed the “start” button, and the automobile roared to life. I paused for a moment,

  appreciating the rumble of the engine’s eight cylinders. I didn’t know much about cars, but I knew one thing: mine

  was new, expensive, and incredibly fast. And that’s all I really needed to know.

  As I pulled out of my designated parking spot, I tuned the radio to a local rock station, and I was rewarded

  with a relic from my past: Rage Against the Machine’s “Bulls on Parade”. I cranked the volume up and lost myself

  in the song, feeling every guitar riff, every lyric. It was lost on me that I was exactly the sort of greedy, corporate overlord the band so often railed against. I had become part of the machine they hated. But all I heard was a catchy

  song from my high school years.

  The drive home was uneventful, save the fact that, within a few minutes, I was overcome with road rage,

  screaming at other drivers who couldn’t hear me. Still, I made it home okay, pulling up to the gate and entering the

  code. The towering gate swung open on motorized hinges, and I drove forward. Eventually, the house – or rather,

  the mansion – came into view.

  It was impressive, to say the least. Three stories of pure, American opulence. White columns. Perfectly

  manicured foliage. I’d often joked that it looked like the house from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, but if I was honest, it outstripped that television home in almost every capacity. I loved every aspect of it, all but the reality that it wasn’t really mine.

  I pulled around to the garage, settling my ebon vehicle into its customary place, and went inside. Soon, I

  found my wife, Theresa and her daughter, Erin. Both sat in the breakfast nook, enjoying an early dinner.

  “You’re home early,” Theresa said without looking up from her salad. “What happened?”

  “Nothing,” I said, setting my laptop case on the nearby bar. “I just wanted to come home and spend a little

  time with my girls.”

  “Bad timing,” she said. “Erin’s got study group in an hour. And I was planning on working a little.”

  “Oh,” I said, sliding into a chair next to my wife. She was, like everyone else, quite a bit larger than me – as

  far as I could tell, she had me by at least half-a-foot, and like Diane, she often wore heels. Next to her, I felt no

  bigger than child. However, she was also built like a Playboy model – full breasts, an hourglass figure, blonde hair

  – you know, the works. That she was even with a guy like me was somewhat of a mystery. I turned to Erin, her

  sixteen-year-old daughter. “What are you studying?”

  “Math and science,” she said. “You know – school stuff.”

  Erin was her mother’s spitting image, only younger. I could easily imagine what most of the boys who went

  to school with her would do for a night alone with my stepdaughter. I could also easily imagine each and every one

  of them running for the hills as soon as they got a whiff of her personality. Or maybe they all saw a very different

  person than I did. In fact, that was more than likely. She’d hated me ever since I married her mother four years

  before.

  “Don’t be like that, Erin,” Theresa chided. “Tell him what you’re doing.”

  She sighed in the dramatic fashion only a teenaged girl can, saying, “Fine. We’re studying the second World

  War.”

  “Anything interesting?” I asked, admittedly going through the motions. I didn’t really care about the girl’s

  studies, but Theresa wanted me to show an interest in her daughter’s life. So, I did. Or at least I pretended to. Erin, though, saw right through it from the very beginning.

  “In World War II?” she asked. “Nope. Nothing. It was super boring. I don’t even know why we’re

  studying it.”

  I couldn’t miss the sarcasm. “You’d better –”

  “Erin!” Theresa said, interrupting me. “Don’t you have to get going?”

  “Yeah,” the girl said. “I suppose we’ll have to talk about how boring World War II was when I get home,

  Carl.”

  I fumed, clenching my fists in anger. However, I maintained my composure as the girl left the room. In fact,

  I held my temper in check until I was sure she’d left the house altogether. Then, I turned to my wife, saying, “You

  really need to take her in hand. If I would’ve talked to my dad like that when I was a kid, he’d have taken behind

  the woodshed for a good beating.”

  “And you advocate child abuse?” she asked, quirking an eyebrow. “Perhaps I should give her a good – how

  would you put it? A good whooping?”

  The way she enunciated the word brought a smile to my face. That was the thing about Theresa – no matter

  how angry I was, she could always cut through it. And that was why I loved her. It wasn’t the body. Or the face.

  Or the sex. It was the way she calmed me down. That was worth more than anything else in the whole world.

  “Now – come on,” she said, knowing she had defused the situation. “I think there’s a game coming on

  tonight, right? I ordered some wings from that place you like. They’re in the oven.”

  I grinned, my previous anger forgotten. “You’re too good to me,” I said.

  “I know,” was her response.

  Chapter Two

  “Now,” my wife said, sliding onto the couch beside me. “Who’s playing again?”

  “Golden State and the Lakers,” I said. It was almost adorable how little she knew about sports – unless you

  considered cheerleading a sport, that is, and I didn’t. “But the Warriors are going to win.”

  “Is that so?” Theresa asked, snagging one of the buffalo wings from the tray in my lap. She bit into it.

  “These are kind of good.”

  “Kind of good?” I asked. “They’re the best wings in the city.”

  She shrugged. “If you say so,
” was her response. She knew as much about wings as she did about

  basketball. She looked at me and reached toward my face, wiping a bit of sauce from my beard. She licked it from

  her finger. “You know I hate that thing, right? I wish you’d shave it.”

  “Fat chance,” I said, stroking my beard. It reached past my collar, covering my neck completely. The only

  reason work had allowed me to grow it in the first place was because I’d made them so much money. But it wasn’t

  like it looked unruly or anything. I kept it up well. “Love this thing. And beards are in style these days. Don’t you go on the internet?”

  “I don’t like it,” she said. Then, as if the idea had just struck her, she suggested, “How about we make a

  bet? If I win, you shave the beard.”

  “And if I win?” I asked.

  “Um…what do you want?” she asked, batting her eyelashes. She looked far younger than her forty-one

  years. In fact, she could’ve easily passed for a woman ten years younger.

  I thought about it for a second before smiling and saying, “The threesome.”

  She rolled her eyes. “It always comes back to that, doesn’t it?” she asked. “You’ve been going on and on

  about that fantasy since our honeymoon. What was that waitress’ name you wanted me to proposition? Layla or

  some such? The answer was no then, and it’s no now.”

  “Come on – you want me to get rid of this beard, right? Well, put your money where your mouth is,” I said.

  You win, and I’ll keep it off for as long as you want me to. But if I win, you have to have one measly threesome.

  The risk versus reward here is definitely in your favor, babe.”

  “You’re a pig,” she said.

  “I’m your pig,” was my response. “Come on. It’ll be fun either way, right?”

  She looked away for a long moment, and I knew I had her. When she turned back to me, she said, “Fine.

  But if I don’t like the bet, we don’t do it. So, what’re we betting on?”

  “The game,” I said. “You pick who you think is going to win. I’ll take the opposite team. It’s all on you.”

  “And if I win, you’ll shave that thing tonight?” Theresa asked.

  I nodded. “As soon as the game’s over,” I said.