Considerably Wicked [Excerpt Only]

Chapter 2: Rain

It was a gloomy morning, and as soon as Liezel Anne Blanco stepped out of the cab, the rain poured down like it was mocking her, testing what little patience she had left after spilling coffee on her way to work.

When she got to the office, she settled down at her desk. Today was like any other day at work, except for her. She was wet, cold, and completely uncomfortable.

"Hey, Liezel Anne, what do you think of this? House of Terror slash The Little Mermaid―whoa! What happened to you?" Glen adjusted his big round glasses and ran his hand through his big, curly red hair. "You're wet."

Liezel frowned and tried to look for her facial tissue pack in the thick of papers strewn over her desk. It was already a miracle that Sinclair Godfrey hadn't called her name yet. She was already ten minutes late, and she was supposed to bring her boss his cup of black coffee five minutes ago. She had to fix herself quick. She couldn't possibly face him looking like a bedraggled chicken.

"Can I help you with anything, Liezel Anne?" Glen pushed, his eyes fixed on the cleavage pouring out of her black lace push-up bra.

She looked up and fixed one button of her shirt, but it was no use since her shirt was almost see-through. Fortunately, she had decided to wear her black pencil skirt and not the white one, or that day would have been a feast for perverts like Glen.

"Help me by wiping that foul look off your face, Glen, or I will write Maddy a strong-worded complaint against you."

Glen made a face like he just heard her say a not-so-funny joke. "But I didn't say anything."

"Go back to your side of the floor with the rest of your geek friends. I don't have any patience right now to excuse your immaturity and lewd behavior." Liezel finally found her box of Kleenex and started dabbing at her legs with a tissue.

"I didn't―"

"Hey, buddy."

Liezel's face suddenly lit up, recognizing that friendly, warm voice in an instant. She looked up and smiled.

"Hey, Will."

"Good morning, Liz," Will greeted. "Crazy weather outside, huh."

"You look perfectly dry."

"I brought an umbrella with me and my coat," he said, eyeing the items in his hands.

"How's the house hunting?"

"Still looking."

"Okay," Glen butted in. "Now isn't this just unfair of you, Liezel Anne? You treat me like I'm some guy with pending sexual harassment complaints while you treat Will like a decent human being whose only crime is looking like the twenty-seven-year-old Brad Pitt with fucking gorgeous hair and fucking blue eyes."

Will smiled and gave his friend a pat on the back. "If it's any consolation, you look like Jonah Hill, Glen. Adorable and...funny. Sometimes."

Liezel made a face and continued what she was doing before Will joined her little exchange with Glen.

"Which Jonah Hill? In what movie? Superbad Jonah Hill or Wolf of Wall Street?" Glen asked like the answer actually mattered to him.

It wasn't anything new to Will or Liezel. Aside from his jokes that had, most of the time, offended a few people, Glen was also known to pick on the smallest things and make such a big deal out of it. He had quite a few talks with Maddy from HR about his choice of words and approach to women in the office. He had been given warnings more than a couple of times, and it wasn't because he was Sinclair's second-best developer next to Will that there weren't official complaints against him, but people had just gotten too busy to pay him attention after closing a massive deal with two giant distributors in the gaming industry. When people became too happy and too busy after finally having some projects to work on, they started treating him like he wasn't even there, except for when he was working.