stripping me bare.
Am I flushed? Send help.
I try to hide it with a laugh. “You’re just so calm with this Mayday situation. I was just thinking...maybe you only explode on me.”
“Not just you,” Nick adds with a wince. “You should see how he gets when he’s out of cereal. Ward eats peanut butter puffs like they’re going out of business.”
“Children, can we focus?” Ward asks, darting his eyes away with a hilarious tic of shame that says it’s true.
I snicker, trying to imagine him stuffing 'candy for breakfast' into that mortar of a mouth. So maybe he does have a human side.
Nick snaps his fingers loudly, banishing the thought.
“I’ve got it. We need a reputation wash. The same kind of service I hired to spruce up my internet footprint the last time Osprey was on my ass,” Nick says with a smile, holding out his open hands like he’s just solved string theory.
“Huh?” Ward looks at him. “That was online only. And it didn’t fool Osprey and his machine for very long when your ex was still gallivanting around, talking about your sordid...history.”
“That’s not the point,” Nick snaps, huffing out a breath.
“What’s a reputation wash?” I ask.
Nick turns to me. “It’s like cleaning your personal history. Teams go into Google results, social media, wherever, and try to rank up the positive results over the bad.”
No one says anything. Ward and I exchange a lost glance.
“Trouble is, Winthrope isn’t dicking around on Instagram or Twitter. Plus, The Chicago Tea has a top spot in Google news. Nobody’s going to bury Osprey’s crap with the media empire he’s built. We don’t need a reputation wash. We need a time machine, Einstein,” Ward tells his brother.
Nick’s shoulders sag. His eyes flick back and forth, a shade greener than Ward’s, searching for alternatives and failing.
“Look, he doesn’t want to do business with us because he thinks we’re spoiled frat boys. We need to look old, artsy weird, and boring.”
“No shit, Sherlock. We need to look like our grandparents, but we both know the ship has sailed on that, no thanks to...never mind.” That last word is a whisper as Ward’s eyes meet mine before shifting to Nick again. “Short of defying relativity and re-doing our lives, what you’re asking for is impossible.” He pauses. “And frankly, there is no reputation rinse. Not for real. You saw how fast it was over and done for you.”
“Nah, but that was me. Your reputation isn’t trashed beyond repair, Ward.”
“What?” Ward asks.
I plaster myself to the wall and watch.
“You don’t have a hundred miles of nasty blog posts and tweets like I do. You haven’t dated enough famous girls and had the infamous breakups. You didn’t have Carmen Seraphina crawling over barbed wire, always coming back—”
“Thank God for small favors,” Ward rumbles.
Nick throws him a withering look. “The point is, your reputation can be smoothed out. Just enough to show Winthrope we can do the job without him breaking a monocle or something.”
Ward scoffs. “Yeah, right. You heard him on the phone. He knows who we are. Hell, if Grandma wasn’t in the mix, he never would’ve given this firm the time of day. He’s not the type to pass out second chances. We have to prove ourselves on skill, talent, and service. Although, if he won’t give us a foot in the door, I don’t know how we—”
I burst out laughing.
“How is that funny?” Ward looks at me, his eyebrow quirked.
“I mean, it’s not. It’s just—you talking about people not giving second chances.”
“Okay?” His forehead creases.
I shrug. “Ignore me. I’m just an obnoxious drunk.”
Nick lets out a belly laugh and meets my eyes.
“I like you. Never stop giving him everything he deserves, Paige.” He looks at Ward. “Bro, you’re boxing yourself in. You can save this company. You just need a reset and an open mind.”
“Don’t you think I’d do it in a heartbeat if I thought it would work? Human beings aren’t fucking blueprints, Nicholas. You don’t just redo a bad design and go about your merry way.”
Our eyes meet, and I hate how I’m totally blushing again.
He may be a bosshole, but right now, his words are strangely profound.
“Ah, Ward, you’re such a drama king,” Nick spits. “If you’d just man up and get over her, you wouldn’t even need a reset. You don’t stomp around Chicago with your dick hanging out like I do.”
He’s trying to be funny, but there’s something kind of sad behind his self-deprecation too.
Oh, Nick. You poor, poor soul.
Ward stands.