"I'm hiring Charlie," my dad announced one evening. I looked up from my phone, my mind reeling. "He came to me to ask about running a store, so I told him he'd have to start off at the bottom just like my own son." He sat in his recliner. Just like that, he was signaling that he was done.
My mom didn't even look up from her crocheting. "That's nice, dear," she said in a monotone that seemed to imply it wasn't nice, but she wasn't going to argue.
"Wait, wait, wait," I said setting my phone down and scooting to the edge of the sofa. "What do you mean, you're hiring Charlie? I've been looking for a job for six months! You're seriously going to hire him instead of me?"
Dad gave me a look that pinned me to the spot. "Yes. He's not a liability. You are. Her birthday is still three months away. I don't want to risk anything happening yet. Not until it gets closer."
I felt all the air go out of my sails. Liability? Seriously? "Dad, I haven't seen her since I passed her on my way home the last night at the furniture store. That's been six months. Six. Why do you think I'm still obsessed with her?"
He raised an eyebrow and pointed at me. "You remember exactly how long it's been since you've seen her. That tells me a lot. Son, Brayden, look. I know you like her and there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, I don't think you could make me happier than you could by marrying her. But I worry about you making a move on her right now."
My teeth clenched. I couldn't believe he had the nerve to tell me that. "I have no intention of doing anything. She doesn't pay me any mind and probably hasn't given me a second thought. It's ultimately up to her if anything happens between us, anyway, right?"
Dad sighed. "Brayden, I want to be safe instead of sorry. You're sweet and kind. That's the type of person she needs right now, and I think she'd easily fall for your personality. I don't want to take any chances."
He had a point there. If she fell for me, then I knew I would date her. Waiting for her to be legal was probably for the best. "Fine," I said, knowing my tone probably sounded like I was sulking. Which I was.
Silence settled on the room for a few minutes before Dad sighed. "You can come in and do some training with Charlie. He needs someone to show him the ropes. I think you can do that. But you're coming in during the day while Jenny is at school."
My frown deepened. "Dad, you know me and Charlie don't-"
"I know, but this time you're the one above him. You're going to be his trainer. He's never worked in the stock room. He's never restocked. You're going to be his personal manager for now and check after him. Just report directly to me instead of trying to straighten things out yourself. I don't want to put up with his grandmother whining to me about how you're not being fair to him."
The response surprised me. I didn't realize he didn't like his own family. That was when I realized something. "Wait, where is Charlie going to be staying? I'm in the guest room, and my old room is an office now."
Mom and Dad exchanged glances. "He's going to be in the gest house," Mom replied.
I looked at her. "You knew about this? Why am I the last one to find out? Why didn't you guys ask me what I thought?"
They looked at each other again, and I knew they were going to be on each other's side. As they should be, but that just meant there was no one on my side. Again. "It's not your decision in the end," Dad said. "We already knew what your response would have been, and we took it into consideration."
I stood, feeling anger well up, sitting heavily in the pit of my stomach. "You knew my response, but it apparently meant nothing. I'm going to bed." I turned and walked out of the room, trying to ignore the people behind me telling me to stop being childish.
I could be whatever I pleased.
My door slammed behind me and I flopped facedown on the bed. What were they thinking? They knew I didn't get along with Charlie. Why was he coming here of all places? At least he was going to be in the guest house. There was a kitchen and everything in there. He wouldn't need to come into the house.
Yet, somehow, I knew he would. Because I was in here. He loved to mess with me. I was the butt of his jokes, and the prey he chased down to make fun of. I hated him. I hated everything about him. He was the bane of my existence. I didn't want anything to do with him. Now, not only was he going to be in my house, but he was going to be around Jenny all the time.
If he found out I liked Jenny, then it was over. He would gun for her. She didn't know me, so she probably wouldn't think twice about me and go with him. I had to make sure he didn't suspect anything. Which wouldn't be too hard, I realized. After all, Dad was putting me on an opposite shift.
I sighed and rolled over. Guess I'd just have to man-up and do this. My mother always pointed out that I've been kind of timid when it comes to Charlie. I don't think I'd ever mentioned it, but I did look up to him at one point. When we were kids, he did better in school than I did. We got the same grades, but he was quicker to make friends than I was. I was the kid that hid during lunch and often spent the entire break in the library.
It wasn't until we were in middle school that I was finally able to make friends. When I did, that was when he started to mess with girls. I felt like I had to do the same thing, but I was never truly interested in them. I dated them, but it wasn't until college that I had a crush. My first one was a bust, but Jenny had something the other girl lacked. Besides a boyfriend, I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was. I just knew I was far more drawn to her than I was to anyone else before.
This was one person I wanted to hold on to, and I was going to make sure no one was going to take her from me.
---
"That doesn't go there," I said for what felt like the hundredth time in the past hour. It was nearly two weeks into Charlie's job, and I was still monitoring him. I wasn't supposed to be babysitting him after the first week, but he still couldn't understand that things had to be sorted when we restocked to make it easier at the end of the month.
"Why are you so picky?" he finally asked. His face betrayed far more irritation than his voice did.
I glanced around the stockroom. No one else was watching us. Openly, anyway. The rest of the people did their job. "You'll see when we do inventory." Again, a phrase I had to tell him for at least the thousandth time just that day. I had already explained why, but Dad told me to keep telling him that and let him find out the hard way on the last day.
Well, one more week of this and it should be over. Either he was going to learn, or he was going to quit. I was hoping for the latter, but as long as he learned, I would put up with him. He was so determined to do things his way, though. If I had been running the store, I would have fired him. Dad, though, thought he needed to learn his lesson the hard way. I was for it, but I worried about the rest of the employees. They would likely be upset at him for ruining things and making more work. I was worried, though, that they would direct that at Dad, thinking that he should have gotten rid of Charlie.
Still, I was going to trust Dad. He knew the people that worked for him better than I did. Our next delivery day was only a few days away, the day before we did the end of month inventory.
"Not there," I said again, annoyance leaking into my tone. Charlie rolled his eyes at me but still moved the box to where it should have been to start with. "If you put things where they're supposed to be, it helps with things later on."
"You keep saying that. Would you just shut up? I heard you the first hundred times."
"Then why aren't you listening?" I retorted without thinking. He slowly turned to me. My first instinct was to cower away and try to take it back, but this time I held my ground and stared him down.
His eyes narrowed. "I'm going to tell your boss that you're micro-managing me and threatening me on the job." He dropped the box - which I cringed at because I knew he had probably dented all the cans - and came up to me until his face was inches from me. "Feeling like the big man now? Learn your place. You're not the favorite, you know? You're still that little boy who couldn't make friends, no matter how you think you've changed."
I just blinked and kept my face neutral. "Well, maybe I'm not your grandmother's favorite, but that doesn't apply to the whole family. You're forgetting who your boss is."
His eyes widened as he realized. "You're really going to play that card?"
"If you think you have a shot, go for it."
He growled and his eyes darkened, but he backed down. When he went back to stocking, I let out a sigh of relief. It was the first time I'd openly stood up to him. While I was relieved to settle the issue, I was also terrified. Far more than I probably should have been.
The upside, though, was that the next few days passed peacefully. He didn't try to intimidate me and I was able to tell him how to restock the shelves. The last delivery before inventory came and Dad summoned me to the office. "Everything okay?" I questioned as I sat in a vacant chair.
"Everything's fine," he replied, clicking around on the computer. "Just stay here and wait out the delivery." The printer whirred to life. We sat in silence, listening to the gentle whoosh of paper being pulled into the machine and then being spit out. After a few minutes, Dad gathered the papers and slipped on his reading glasses. He flipped through the pages. "These will work." He handed me a few sheets. "Take a look."
I did as he asked. It was something to document inventory. "Why are you giving this to me now?"
"I want you to do an accurate inventory tonight after the shelves are stocked at close. I'm going to have someone do it tomorrow with Charlie. He's going to learn the hard way that he has to put things in the proper place. If he can't learn that, we're going to have a big problem."
Inventory tonight? Alone? That was going to take most of the night. "But Dad-"
"You're doing inventory. End of discussion. I'll help you for a little bit, but I trust you to do it right. Just don't move anything. Let them find things that don't belong."
---
"You're lying," Charlie shouted as I walked into the stockroom. He was shouting at one of the guys that worked in the stockroom full time. They were working on inventory. "There's no way that there's more green beans over there!"
"I'm telling you that you missed a box." The guy grumbled under his breath as he carried a box over to where Charlie was.
"I'm telling you I didn't," he said, leaning over to check it. Color drained from his face as he saw what was printed on the cardboard.
"Told you," the guy muttered as silence filled the air.
I watched, amused, as the guys kept finding boxes in the wrong places. Charlie's face kept getting redder and redder. I couldn't tell exactly why, whether it was anger or embarrassment, but either way, it was probably the first time I'd seen him lose his composure.
Laughter tried to bubble up while I stood there. It was a little thing, but it still felt like revenge for all the times he'd talked back to me while training him. I turned and walked off, leaving everyone in there to sort it out themselves.
Thanks, Dad.