Idiot for Hire

Chapter 2: Why You Shouldn't Call a Security Guard the Hulk 

After Nathan Byers was tackled to the ground, several more security officers ran to the front of the stage as backup. I was surprised they felt the need to attack him like that. He wasn’t a criminal; he was just irritating.

Startled cries were heard throughout the room as the lights flashed on abruptly, and even I stumbled out of my chair in surprise. My mother gracefully stood and joined me, probably thinking I was going to do something reckless and needed someone to stop me.

As soon as the lights came on, all eyes were glued on us. I barely had enough time to steady myself and smooth my dress and hair down.

By mother’s appalled expression, I figured she was going to loudly voice her opinion, but she didn’t. She simply shot me a reprimanding look, as if all of this was my fault, as if I had called this loser over and said, “Hey, come crash this fashion show and talk to me. You might even get thrown to the ground and pulverized. It’ll be fun!”

A strange sound was heard from the floor, and I looked down at Nathan. A muffled comment followed, although I had no idea what it was. It must have been pretty hard to get that much out, even if it was unintelligible. He was being used as a couch by a big, hulking security officer who looked like he could stand to pass on the fried chicken once in a while. Not that I was going to be the one to tell him that.

I paused to see if his words would sink in, but they didn’t. “What?” I finally asked.

After a few moments, Nathan turned his head to the side, took in a deep, dramatic breath like he’d just been submerged for five minutes, and said, “Well, that escalated quickly. Sir—can you stop using me as a chair? Hello? Earth to the Incredible Hulk?”

Wow… This guy must’ve been predisposed to stupidity or something. He had to have been perfectly aware of the mismatch between him and the security officer, although why he would still choose to call him the Incredible Hulk was beyond me.

Reluctantly, the security officer arose, grabbing onto Nathan as he stood up. Once he was upright, he tightened his grip and finished pulling Nathan up. “What did you call me?” he boomed once they were both standing.

“I didn’t call you anything. Why would I? I actually happen to admire the work you do. I really do. I’d aim to be you if I weren’t so lazy.” He paused, putting an end to his desperate praising. “Is your name Cobra Bubbles?”

“Is my name what?”

“I’ll take that as a no. I’m assuming you’re not a big Disney fan?”

“Do I look like a child to you?” the security officer demanded, his voice ringing throughout the otherwise silent room.

“No.” Nathan looked at the security officer from head to toe, cringing as the enormity of this man made itself painfully clear. “No, you do not.”

The coordinator of the show, Blare, shuffled down the runway, leaving the safety of backstage. “Is there a problem here? What is going on?” he cried.

The models had retreated into the safety of the curtains, and the rest of the audience was just observing us curiously. This must have been my mom’s worst nightmare, but she was handling it pretty well. I think she may have secretly been reveling in the spotlight, even if it wasn’t completely desirable. Attention was attention, after all, and she didn’t get much of it anymore.

“Not to worry,” the security officer said, looking at Nathan pointedly. “We’re going to resolve this problem very quickly.”

“Problem? I don’t see a problem here,” Nathan quickly interjected, feigning innocence.

I was partly horrified by his idiocy and partly intrigued by his good looks. The intrigue made it hard to look away. I didn’t want to admit it, of course, but the fact was indisputable. He was hot. Like, run into a revolving door because you were too busy staring at him hot. He definitely wasn’t what I’d expected when he’d approached me in the dark. He was tall—around six feet tall, I’d say, now that he wasn’t being used as a chair. He had dark hair, matching dark eyes, a lightly tanned complexion that complimented his already handsome face, and a lean physique that made it clear his jacket was definitely covering something up. After shamelessly checking him out for a good thirty seconds, I actually felt embarrassed.

Eventually, my mother noticed my gaze and finally spoke, albeit quietly. “Adriana, do you know this clown?”  

My reply synchronized with Nathan’s as I tore my eyes away, although the actual words were complete opposites. Just as I said “no,” he said “yes.”

My mother raised an eyebrow at the two of us. “Well, which is it?”

“Miss,” the security officer interjected, “if you know this… child… we’ll leave this be. If not, he can be escorted out. Just say the word and he’s out of here.”

“She knows me,” Nathan announced boldly. “Right, Riana?”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Dree and I are cool. We know each other,” he continued, attempting a new nickname this time. I didn’t mind that nickname as much, and I was more concerned with setting the story straight, anyway.

“We don’t,” I assured my mother after seeing the look on her face. This loser was going to get me in major trouble. What was he doing?!

“What?” he asked. “Don’t you remember? You and my sister were so close. Or did you forget?”

That little Rosemary’s child was playing the sister card! Mousy was too much of a coward to go to the press herself, but with this guy as a brother, she didn’t need to do her own dirty work, anyway.

If he kept this up, word of my latest secretarial disaster would spread like wildfire, and I’d have to deal with another vindictive nutritionist for God knows how long. I was pretty close to crying—though this may have been a slight exaggeration—when an idea popped into my head. I needed to sever the connection Nathan had to me, right? Well, if destroying it wasn’t an option, building over it was. It wasn’t perfect, but it would work. Nathan could easily be one of the candidates for the job. It was a decent explanation as to why he’d attempted to talk to me and claimed to know me. Hiring a guy to be a model’s private assistant wasn’t common, fine, but it wasn’t completely unheard of. Besides, it wasn’t like I had to hire the guy. I just had to pretend he was a candidate.

“I know him, but feel free to escort him out,” I finally said. “He seems to have forgotten his interview isn’t for another two days.”

“Interview? Don’t tell me you’re thinking of hiring him.” My mother looked at Nathan with outright antipathy—like he was a bug on the bottom of her $500 shoe.

For a moment, I felt like I was thirteen again. The way she looked at Nathan reminded me of the first and only time she’d met my first boyfriend. Harry wasn’t indigent or anything, but he wasn’t “financially up to par,” according to my mother. “You can do so much better,” she’d claimed right after she’d slammed the door shut behind him.

Without her approval, I wasn’t allowed to see Harry anymore, and that was the end of that. I couldn’t even go to my dad about it. It just felt awkward and weird, especially at such a young age.

The memory brought back a deluge of bitter feelings that I had to choke down in order to reply. Nathan, however, beat me to it. “Thanks,” he said loudly. “I’m not standing right here, of course. I can’t hear a word you say.”

“He’s actually the brother of an assistant I had in the past,” I carefully replied. “She went back to school, and I agreed to give him an interview as a favor.”

Nathan let out a wheezy snort, but he didn’t denounce my words, either, which was a relief. “Adriana the Saint,” he finally said, a hint of sarcasm in his words.

“You can show him to the door now so we can stop interrupting the show. I’m so sorry, Blare.” I turned and gave the show’s coordinator an apologetic look; I’d almost forgotten where we were. Oops?

He smiled tightly at me before speaking to the lighting crew. “Can you hit the lights again? Assuming there will be no more interruptions and my show can proceed as usual?” No reply was heard, and he took this as a positive answer. “Grand. Lights, please.”

My mother shook her head as we sat back down. “There goes your invitation to his next show. All of my hard work for nothing… Do you know how many conversations I wasted on that man? And you managed to ruin it in five minutes. I don’t know why I’m surprised.”

“Oh no,” I said flatly. “My bad.”

She shot me a dirty look, but whatever she was going to say was drowned out by the background music starting up. Thinking everything had gone back to normal, I focused on the show again.

My focus didn’t last very long. A hand slapped at my shoulder all of a sudden, and my moth dropped open in shock as I looked over at the offender. No one treated me like that. No one. No one had slapped at my arm in… actually, no one had ever slapped at my arm.

“Come outside,” the voice whispered loudly, and I actually recognized it. It belonged to Nathan Byers. I thought he’d left already, but I guess that was just wishful thinking. “I see the light—I’m being dragged away, but come outside!” His voice gradually got higher as he was, indeed, dragged away. It became easier to ignore as he got further away, and eventually I couldn’t even hear it.

I was kind of tempted to follow him outside. I wasn’t even sure why, to be honest, and I had enough sense not to, but the feeling was there.

The show went on, and there were multiple outfits that I absolutely adored. I hated the majority of the models that were sporting the outfits, of course, but they were so chic I barely minded.

Neon colors were back, and even though my mother hated their very existence—she’d have written a eulogy for them if it meant never having to see them again—I knew she wouldn’t protest my usage of them if they were in style.

Neon bandage dresses in every hue imaginable, colorful jeans, bright pumps, and flowery accessories made the otherwise mundane runway burst with life and energy. The show was inciting an irresistible urge to max out my credit card, and, well, I was due for a nice shopping spree.

All too soon, the show was over, and it was time to leave. After a hearty apology to Blare and a quiet reprimanding from my mother, we were out the door. My mother received a phone call from a client as we were leaving and walked away to talk in private. Her exit was, I was guessing, Nathan’s cue to grab hold of me and drag me into an alley.

“What are you doing?” I demanded shrilly. “Let go of me!”

“Sorry,” he said, quickly letting go. His tone of voice was rich and sonorous—the complete opposite of the shrilly sound I’d just emitted. “Jesus, you’re touchy. I just needed to get your attention.”

“Well, you have it.” The nerve of this guy was truly astounding. He acted like I was some girl he’d just met on the street. I was Adriana Martella. Did that mean nothing to him? Why wasn’t he groveling at my feet, or, I don’t know, attempting to stuff me in a duffel bag?

He must have been gay. That was the only plausible explanation for his erratic behavior.

Nathan just stood there and looked at me for a good twenty seconds before I snapped. I may have been spacing out, too, but I wasn’t the one who owed an explanation here. “Well?”

“Well, what?” He looked genuinely confused, and I didn’t know whether to laugh or slam my head against the side of the building.

“Why are you here?” I clarified, my patience wearing thin. “More importantly, why am I here?”

“I don’t know. Why are you here?”

I narrowed my eyes. “I asked you first.”

“I asked you second,” he replied cheekily.

“Let me just warn you right now,” I said, ignoring the annoying part of me that still wanted to gush over his looks and how nice his voice was. “These heels I’m wearing are sharp, and I’m willing to risk getting my feet dirty to use them as weapons. Why are you here?”

“Not afraid to get down and dirty, eh? I wouldn’t have guessed as much from looking at you,” he said, and the suggestive tone of his voice didn’t go unnoticed.

Definitely not gay.

I rolled my eyes. “I’m leaving.” It was probably better if I left, anyway. I was entering dangerous, uncharted territory. I actually felt kind of sick to my stomach, now that I thought about it, and I felt hot, like I had a fever coming on.

Resolved, I began to walk away, but I didn’t get very far. Nathan stopped me by holding onto my arm. Again. “Wait,” he said.

“Stop touching me!”

“That’s got to be the first time I’ve heard that one,” he muttered, mostly to himself.

“If you don’t have anything to say that’s worth my time, I’m leaving,” I told him, wiggling out of his grip. “I don’t have time to waste on you.”

“Ouch.” He placed a hand over his heart and feigned a hurt look. “That’s harsh, Dree. And here I just wanted to ask you when my interview is.”

I was the one who paused stupidly this time, and when I replied, my response had that confused tone that tended to interlace Nathan’s questions. “Your what?”

“My interview.” Nathan smirked at me. “You didn’t think I’d forget, did you? I mean, this is great. I’m actually between jobs right now, so clearly you’re an angel sent down to give me a nice, fat paycheck. A fallen angel, maybe, but still an angel. How much does this job pay, anyway? A celebrity’s personal assistant has gotta be paid some serious cash. Let me say something right now, though. I will not paint your nails for you. I can’t stand the smell of nail polish.” He shuddered at the mere thought.

“As if I’d need you to do that for me,” I said with a scoff. “It’s called a nail salon, honey. Ever heard of one?”

“Vaguely. So when is it?”

I pretended to look through my cell phone’s agenda. “How about…. February 30th? Does that work for you?”

“That’s in like a year,” he exclaimed in disbelief. “You can’t go a year without—wait a second. There’s no such thing as February 30th.”

“Oh, my God.”

“Come on,” he insisted. “Just give me a break. You said you’d give me an interview. It’s only fair that you keep your word, even if you were just using me to get out of whatever mess you got yourself into.”

Honestly, with the way he was looking at me, it was hard to say no. I was usually pretty set on my way—unless my mother was involved—but at that moment, I didn’t feel the overwhelming urge to have my way. I kind of wanted to give in.

Instead of making a decision, I asked, “How did you know I was using you to get out of a mess?”

He shrugged it off. “I could just tell.”

The longer I thought about it, the more excuses I made in his favor. Really, there wasn’t any harm in giving him this interview. There was no commitment to hire him, and it would get him off my back. Plus, maybe he’d forget about why he came in the first place. It was a win-win situation.

“Fine,” I said. “If you really want an interview, be at 901 Alpine Drive at noon this Monday. Don’t be late.”

“Define late…”

I shot him a pointed look.            

“I’m just kidding.” He held up his hands defensively. “You need to work on your sense of humor. It sucks.”

“Well, you need to study your calendar. Your common sense sucks.”

Nathan grinned at this, for some reason, and his smile lit up his whole face. It was distracting, to say the least. “Touché, Dree. Touché.” He patted me on the arm and walked away, leaving me standing alone in the otherwise abandoned alley. I scowled at his retreating figure. He really needed to stop touching my arm. Seriously, I’d known the guy for less than an hour and he’d already developed an annoying habit.

“Adriana,” my mother called out. She was standing by the limo with one hand on her hip, an unhappy look on her face. “If you’re done speaking to strange men in alleys, can we go on our way?”

“Coming,” I yelled, scurrying over to the limo as fast as my shoes would allow me to. I guess it did look kind of bad. Alleys weren’t generally regarded as the best place to have a conversation with some guy you just met. 

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A/N: Hahaha I love writing this story. Nathan is such an idiot. It's so great. It puts me in a good mood. Anyways, hope you guys liked it! Vote/comment/fan etc. :)