Chapter 36: Brown

To be swaddled in Ezra's sheets on a Saturday afternoon was never a bad thought. However, there was no snuggling up to a warm naked body after a wild romp, though I had bundled myself in his sheets for reasons related to the very sex I wanted to have with him.

Life... why are you so cruel?

Our Saturday would have played out much different, had we not resolved Friday night's dilemmas; all of what I was going through would have entailed a much more visceral reaction toward his every move had I still been pissed off at him.

A week ago I scheduled for a very important doctor's appointment, and since we returned to his apartment, Ezra barely moved from my side. He sat at the edge of the bed, conflicted between addressing emails on his phone and listening to the suffering woman squirming in his bed.

"Ezra, no," I griped, before he could attempt to adjust any more pillows around me.

He released a little frustration back. "Will you let me do anything for you?"

I shook my head, and he peered at me with disapproval. I was thankful he let me come back to suffer in his place, but the pain had me reacting first before thought.

The moment his attention returned to a bright screen, I whined, "Ezra?"

The call of his name immediately tore his attention away from the device. "Can you do me a favor?"

"Of course," he answered, petting what little of my face I exposed from his blanket wrap.

I squirmed at his touch, and my nasally tone oozed into the air. "Can you please carry me to your window... and throw me out of it?"

His eyes nearly popped out of his head at my request. "Jesus, Ada! I'm not going to throw you out of the window!"

"Please?" I begged with a sickly laugh, though it hurt to be humorous when I suffered from pain that lollygagged in my uterus. "Or maybe find a way to torpedo me into the sun?"

He struggled to hold a straight face. "Don't make me laugh. Your requests are not funny."

Maybe the requests weren't funny to him, but all the extreme thoughts circled around in my head– each vicious thought a vulture that would relieve me from the misery of having an IUD inserted during a rough menstrual cycle mere hours ago.

Yay, birth control. Someone kill me now, and fuck you 'day one'.

My left hand slithered from out of my soft cocoon, and I reached for him. "I've been experiencing cramps since puberty decided to ruin my teenage days, but ... you never get used to nature's bullshit. And it's worse than ever right now."

Ezra fiddled with the heating pad controls sticking out from the sheets. "I'm really sorry, Ada. I have to reiterate that you should relax, like your doctor said."

I squeezed his hand tighter, the sweat across my brow assisted the proper level of drama I needed to convey. "Ezra, listen to me. It's like if you took one of your ginsu knives and shoved it in–"

His awkward, blank stare shifted to the side, as he reassured, "Ada... I think I get the picture."

"No, no. You take the knife and you shank and twist every two to five minutes. All the while you feel like you want to exercise all bodily excretions simultaneously–crying included." I ended my unfinished description of suffering with a sound effect that frightened him.

He looked near my belly, "Will you take the ibuprofen now?!"

My dumbass knew I had no business trying to stick out the pain sans medication, and I hissed in agony, "Yes. Give me all the pills, please."

Extra, extra, extra strength please. Actually just put me in a coma for two days.

He rushed to fetch a glass of water and tablets of glory. Though, Ezra wasn't able to give anything to me, frozen in place as he watched me slowly emerge out of my swathe and to all fours on the ground.

His eyes leveled when he asked, "Where are you going, Ada?"

"To the bathroom," I scoffed.

He had grown tired of my misbehavior, but he kindly asked through his teeth, "Shall I carry you to the bathroom... my very crippled dove?"

Already on his knees, Ezra was reaching for me, but I hissed at his hands and countered him, "You shan't. For once, I don't want your hands on me unless you like wearing puke for clothes."

*

There was slight relief in being able to lie on Ezra's leather couch in his office during Monday's lunch break. The back pain was so bad, that the cramps were becoming an afterthought.

Again, I was trying to see how long I could stick it out without taking any medication. I won my internal battle in the early morning, but as the afternoon neared, I was thinking about the white flag. Luckily, the sound of the rough rain beating against an office window was therapeutic. The white noise of the cascading sky and typing from Ezra's keyboard was amazing until a vicious thunderclap interrupted my therapy.

Cranky all over again, I folded my arms over my chest and glared at the ceiling wondering when the horrible cramps would finally subside.

High above my head, Ezra's face suddenly hovered into view before he suggested for the fifteenth time, "You should have stayed home, Ada?"

I closed my eyes and declared, "Blasphemy."

He poked my nose, and I heard, "You should have stayed with Brown Buns at home and joined her eighteen-hour nap."

My eyes peeled open and my elbows propped me up in the plush seating. I was shaking in silent laughter, when I repeated, "Brown... Buns?"

Ezra's difficulty to hold in the laughter was just as bad as mine, but I let it loose after two horrid snorts.

I wiped a tear from my eye, and questioned "Why are you this way?"

"I knew it would make you laugh," he confessed on his way back to his desk. "Now, are you sure you don't want to eat anything?"

Food sounded delightful, yet at the same time the thought of it made me feel ill. "Nah, I have a fresh bottle of painkillers in my purse that I plan to snack on."

I showed him all of my teeth in a big smile while he shook his head with dead eyes.

He snagged his landline and began, "You need food, so I'm going to order you some–"

Another clap of thunder clashed into our ears, but this time the room fell dark. The electricity was down, and I jumped from the couch.

"No... no, no, no," Ezra panicked. "Of all fucking days."

It was rare for Ezra to be so careless with profanity which ignited instant fear within me. In a few swift movements, Ezra open the blinds to his window. It was our next best source of light, and with enough illumination I watched Ezra viciously snatching his cellphone off of the table.

I chose to inject caution with my next words. "What's the matter, Ezra?"

He didn't answer me with his cellphone already to his ear. About three times did Ezra try to make a call, but it wasn't until a long pause and a fourth attempt that he got a hold of someone. The conversation was brief, and he was even angrier after the phone drew from his ear..

"Chris said that they've lost power on their floor as well. The entire building is in the dark."

"Is there a backup power generator?"

Ezra shouted, "There is supposed to be! And functioning!"

"Okay, just calm down," I urged.

Ezra raised his voice again, "I can't just calm down! If the power is out, than our clients have no access to viewing even the simplest of their data."

Narrowing my eyes, I mumbled, "Wait..."

Ezra rubbed his chin and nodded to confirm that the horror on my face was surely just.

I brushed off my horrible thought with a laugh. "But there is a protected secure server... right?"

"Mmm hmm," he angrily answered.

Pinching my fingers, I paused momentarily before asking, "Where is it located?"

He wiped his palms down his face and fell back into his seat. Swiping along his phone he didn't look at me when he answered, "Underneath the building."

"Come again?! I'm sorry, what?!" I exclaimed, slamming my hands on his desk.

A knock at the door caught our attention, and Ezra signaled for Chris to enter.

My irritation was back in full swing, as I looked to my approaching manager and complained, "Chris, the secure server–"

"Servers," Ezra shamefully corrected with a loud sigh.

"... servers... are underneath this building," I repeated with a laugh.

"Yeah." Chris gasped, trying to catch his breath from obviously running up the back stairs.

I momentarily closed my eyes and rubbed my brows and with snide words I recollected, "Let me make sure I'm one hundred percent clear on what his happening right now. So the secure servers– plural–are located under a building... that currently has zero power."

Chris's visible distress redirected to our boss who then recklessly dropped his cellphone on his desk.

"This bullshit!" Ezra barked before he noisily regained a few deep breaths.

I took a moment to gather my own and Chris asked, "Who did you just call, Mr. Leoné?"

"Building maintenance. They are already investigating the failed backup generators," he grumbled.

That's good, I suppose.

"Where the are your CIOs?"

Ezra extended his arm in frustration, "Who do you think I tried calling first, Ada?! This is the reason I purchased Reagan, to avoid this kind of fucking disaster!"

"Shit," Chris whispered to himself. "This is really bad. We've never had this happen before.

The bags underneath my eyes were throbbing as I navigated to my purse on the couch. I retrieved my phone and opened the keypad.

The frustrated boss was attempting another try at calling his executives, but I waved the phone in his face and demanded, "Call them."

Ezra rolled his eyes and finished out his attempt to reach out. I had to do my best not to raise my temper at him any more in front of Chris. To no surprise, Ezra caught no one on the line.

About to lose his attention in redialing, I forced my proposition again, "Call those two transparent idiots from my phone right now, Mr. Leoné. Right now."

Welp, there goes my controlled temper.

It didn't matter if Ezra's frustration was on me or the overall situation as he snatched the phone. He may have met my experiment with resistance, but I was far from shock when Ezra immediately got a hold of Lebleu.

"Oh my God... it worked," Chris said dumbfounded.

Before I could respond, my manager signaled that the both of us leave the room. I couldn't disagree, because if I stayed around I was sure to interject the well-deserved slew of profanities as ambiance to Ezra's entire conversation.

Chris glanced back through the slender window and sighed, "That was excellent thinking, Ada."

My face remained twisted in disgust, "I fucking knew that one of those jackholes would be more likely to answer an unfamiliar number as opposed to his. What kind of executives are at this company? You have two bitches in charge of the technology, and then you have a damn President who... what the fuck does she even do apart from serve as an afterthought?"

"Family businesses can always seem more complicated. As for the President, I wish I could tell you something about her, but I've got nothing except that she is on the payroll and prefers to 'work from home'. As for the work she does, I uh... actually now that we're really talking about it, I'm actually surprised to think that something this stressful doesn't happen more often here."

I was in disbelief. "Really? So, he deals with this kind of negligence often?"

"Two years ago, we had client visits up our ass because our systems were being attacked bad. It was me, him, Renee, and her small army of interns trying to organize and maintain Mr. Leoné's schedule of insanity. The directors and managers that used to be here? Worked out of the country on a completely different time schedule. The execs? On vacation and responding to maybe a third of the emails sent out to them. It wasn't until the boss enlisted the help of Reagan Digital that we were saved."

What in the living hell?

Chris raked his fingers through his hair and said, "Listen, I'll be back in a bit because I have to check on Renee. I know this situation is pretty embarrassing for a company whose life source is client information, but I swear the boss has been trying for more than a year to avoid anymore shit like this."

Chris jogged away and shoved himself through the door into the stairwell. I was still angry at the situation, but it was inevitable that I felt bad too. Ezra inched open the office door; the call was over, and I felt even more pity when I saw the extreme exhaustion on his face.

The door shut behind us. Before he could get too far, I yanked him into a tight embrace. Without hesitation, his arms squeezed me with might, and he admitted into my hair that he really needed the hug.

"I'm sure everything will be just fine," I mumbled into his shirt.

He pulled back and held my face at its sides. Staring intently into my eyes he sighed, "I really hope so, Ada."

Though I was without a smile, I pushed my optimism. "Regardless of what happens, it will be okay. I promise."

The air he forced from his nose touched my face; he wanted to believe it but it was obvious that he couldn't when he walked away to return my phone into the security of my purse. I couldn't stand to see Ezra frustrated. There were no jokes I could make to bring up his spirit. I knew nothing about running an entire business that dealt with huge company funds, but I knew if Ezra wasn't able to resolve the issues to come, he was going to slouch and look out of his window with despair for a long time.

*

I glanced at the clock and couldn't believe that it was 2PM. We should have been happy that the power had returned a half an hour ago, but I received an irritated text from Ezra informing me that Chauvin had yet to walk into his office. The Senior CIO was supposed to show his ass before the close of business.

Trash.

I tried my best to focus on checking my work in my cube, but it was very difficult as I knew Ezra was two floors above and struggling to organize a mess by himself.

It was instinct for me to stay and figure out how to help, but when he quietly urged for me to return to the thirty-first floor, I didn't put up a fight.

My poor Ezra.

When 3PM approached, I insisted to Chris that I was going to linger behind with Renee who remained in the office to make sure that her interns computers were in working order with the IT specialist Reagan Digital kindly sent over.

I didn't feel right leaving Renee alone with some nice but random guy, so I waited for another hour with her until he finished his rounds. He asked us about the servers locations, he left us– and surely the building– with a bewildered look.

"You didn't have to wait with me," Renee sighed from the long day.

While looking at the time on my phone, I shrugged, "Yes I did, girl. I know you can absolutely take care of yourself, but I wouldn't have felt right leaving you, and Chris had to go on time today."

"I'm actually pretty late myself, and I have to go right now," she panicked after glancing at the clock.

Telling her that I had to use the bathroom, I insisted that she leave without me, and I waited exactly three minutes on an empty floor before I ascended to Ezra. In a rush, I swallowed two more pills before walking into his already opened office door.

Work quickly!

Despondent, Ezra pulled from his screen and asked me, "Feeling better?"

"Not really," I admitted through my physical misery.

I was so sick of being in such incredible and sporadic pain that I sat on his couch and stared ahead at his shelves in silent fury.

Ezra's melancholy was clear. "Ada, it's past 4PM, I'll have Kyle take you home."

I brushed off with a raised brow. "Nah, I don't want to leave you here by yourself, and I don't need Kyle driving here to essentially put the car in reverse for two minutes."

"The weather has hardly improved, so I'm calling him, Ada. You need to go home and sleep. You're miserable," Ezra said firmly.

"You're miserable at the moment too, Ezra," I snapped back.

He returned the resistance."Well, be happy that you don't have a family legacy to maintain, right now. When Kyle calls, I need you to get in the car and go."

Scowling back at him, I asked, "Why don't you just let me stay with you?"

Before Ezra could open his mouth, loud strides turned his attention to the open doorway. Much to his luck, Chauvin strolled right into the office.

No knocks, no intro. Just here, huh?

I looked at Ezra's clock before counting on my fingers how late Chauvin was by hour.

The daring man carefully pulled and adjusted the sleeves to his trench coat. "Took me a while to get here but I have arrived."

I crossed my arms and lowly scoffed, "Were you on another vacation?"

"What?" Chauvin spat at me.

"Where in the hell have you been since the power outage at noon?" Ezra growled.

Chauvin was vacant of any remorse. "I took an early lunch and retreated to my home in the wake of the terrible storm. You couldn't have expected me to travel back in that dangerous weather."

It's still storming now, dumbass.

I giggled to myself, "God forbid we be without the CIO who wisely keeps secure servers in the basement."

Chauvin's eyes were on me and in the shape of fine slits. Ezra stood up as soon as the negligent executive stomped over to me. He was in my physical space, so I stood up.

"Is there a problem... woman?" Chauvin hissed.

"Yes. You are too close to me, so you can absolutely get out of my face," I threatened.

Ezra tugged me away and warned him, "Don't approach or dare to speak to her that way."

Chauvin pointed and scoffed with venom, "Then teach this Black tramp how to keep her sassy mouth shut."

"What?!" I barked with rage.

Ezra lunged forward and snatched the sides of Chavin's collar. "What did you just say?"

The bigot remained unmoved by Ezra. "What are you going to do little boy? Beat me? Fire me?"

"Fucking apologize to her, now!" Ezra snarled.

"Look at you trying to be a man," Chauvin laughed in his face. "Worthless."

The grips along the collar grew tighter, and the CIO's face showed color. Yet, Ezra decided to show the man mercy. "You're the worst of the trash lingering around here. Get out of this building and don't bring yourself back here before I rip your tongue from your mouth."

The opponent stumbled back, freed by his captor. Chauvin had his chance to leave unscathed, though he ruined his opportunity when he spat in Ezra's face. In an instant, red veiled my vision but Ezra pulled me back from charging after the piece of shit storming out of the office.

"He fucking spit on you, Ezra!" I shouted at the door. My efforts to release myself from Ezra's strong grasp proved useless.

"Ada, calm down," Ezra calmly insisted through my struggles.

This is insanity!

He finally let me go, and I recaptured my footing. Confusion took over my entire being, pointing at the open door but looking to Ezra when I asked, "What kind of executive of your company treats you like that?!"

Ignoring me, Ezra retreated to his desk space and used a Kleenex to clean his face.

I shrilled, "Ezra!"

"Goddammit, Ada! Just give it a fucking rest!" he exploded.

I held my elbows wide from my body. "Give it a rest after he talked down to you without a single ounce of respect?! Ezra, you've got me fucked up because I'll be damned if you are going to tell me not to give a shit!"

Ezra dismissed my complaints and sat down in his chair to revolve away. A gesture so small meant so much to me, and my eyes glazed over.

"You're shutting me out," I huffed with hurt.

He returned, "I'm not."

"Then talk to me!"

"You are exhausted, you are hungry, and you need rest," he answered instead.

Refusing to take his dismissal, I circled around his desk. I expected to see the reflection of the anger I had on his face, yet I encountered a withdrawn expression instead. I called his name, once more, to get him to at least look me in the eye, but technology continued to be the source of all issues.

His phone buzzed in a pattern along his desk and without moving to retrieve it, he informed, "Kyle is waiting downstairs for you."