REBEL, a New Adult Romance Novel (The Rebel Series) (27 page)

I talk through my fingers.
 
“I was staying in Rebel’s brother’s apartment, but he got back from jail, so I had to stay in Rebel’s apartment on his couch and then things got kind of … involved … or something between us last night and he left me just hanging there mostly naked and it was mortifying and embarrassing and awful and I really don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

“Uhhhh …,” comes a male voice from the doorway, “…got anymore of those muffins left?”

I drop my forehead with a bang to the desktop.
 
There is no way in hell I’m looking up at Mick right now.
 
His tone tells me he heard everything.
 
I seriously need to get a lock for that fucking door.

“No.
 
No muffins for you,” says Quin angrily.

“Harsh,” says Mick.

“Go.
 
We’re having girl-talk.
 
And next time you want to come in here, have some manners … knock first.”

“Knock?” he scoffs.
 
“This is
my
office.
 
You don’t work here.”
 
Mick is offended, and I wish I cared enough to lift my head and deal with it, but I don’t.
 
He’s guilty by association in my crazy brain.
 
Little punk.
 
Brother of the abandoner of naked girls.

“This space belongs to Teagan now, so you knock.”

“Whatever,” Mick says.

I wait a few seconds.
 
“Is he gone?”

“Yes.
 
Finally.”

I lift my head and rub my face briskly over and over, trying to wipe away the red heat that’s making me feel like I have a terrible sunburn.

“Soooo … I guess that was probably a little embarrassing,” says Quin.

“Ya think?” I stand and walk over to the bathroom.
 
Rinsing my face only brings my temperature down a few degrees.
 
It’s not enough to make me feel normal again.
 
Staring at my bloodshot eyes in the mirror, I wonder where it was that I went wrong.

“What happened exactly, though?
 
I mean, did you guys
do it
or just do the bump and grind?”

“God, please, do we have to talk about this right now?”

“You have anything better to do?”

“Yes.
 
It’s called work.
 
You should try it sometime.”

“Ew, no.
 
Work is for people who can’t get scholarships.”

I leave the bathroom and fall back into my chair.
 
“Tell me about it.”
 
I scan the spreadsheet in front of me, watching the figures blur together.

“What’s that?” Quin asks, leaning over to look at my screen.

I sigh heavily, realizing she’s not going to leave if she thinks there are still problems to solve.
 
At least she’s stopped quizzing me about the events of last night.
 
I grab onto the distraction like a drowning girl.
 
“It’s just some financials.
 
Nothing to concern yourself with.”

“Wow.
 
They look pretty complicated for a garage.”

I look at her sharply.
 
“What do you know about financials?”

She rolls her eyes and points to her head.
 
“Duh.
 
Finance major?
 
Ever heard of it?
 
Do you even know me at all?”

“I’m sorry.”
 
I rub my face again.
 
“I knew that.
 
I’m just tired.”
 
And freaked out.
 
And tired.
 
And confused as shit.

“So what is all that?” she says, pointing to the screen.
 
“Looks like the stuff you’d put in an annual report.”

“Which is …?”
 
I wait for her to fill in the blank.

“It’s a report you put out at the end of your fiscal year for shareholders.
 
Full disclosure kind of stuff, regulated by the SEC.
 
Not anything Rebel Wheels would bother to put together unless they were maybe applying for some serious financing.”

“Oh.” I look at the spreadsheet a little closer.
 
“Yeah, I guess it does look kinda … complicated.”
 
I’m not sure she’s right about the whole annual report thing, but I do know it doesn’t look like the small business financials we studied in the couple of courses I took in my sophomore year.

“They’re not for this company,” she says.

“No, they’re not.
 
How’d you know?”

She points to the screen.
 
“That line-item right there.
 
The one coded below the line.”

I lean in closer to read it.
 
“Bendeck.”
 
A shiver goes through me.
 
“I’ve heard that name before.”

“Why would they code it below the line?” Quin asks.

“I don’t even know what that means, so how the fuck would I know?”
 
I glare at her.

She holds up her hands in surrender.
 
“Wow, bite my tits off why don’t you, it was just a question.”

I close my eyes and get a grip on my anger.
 
“Sorry.
 
I’m just on edge right now.”

“So what is this?” she asks, pointing at the screen. “Are you taking a summer course?
 
Is this homework you’re doing on the job?”

“No.”
 
I close the laptop.
 
“This is a set of financials my father sent me on the sly.”

Her eyes bug out.
 
“Say whaaaaat?
 
When?
 
He’s …”
 
She grimaces.
 
“He’s dead, though.”

“I know.
 
He’s harassing me from the grave.”

“That’s so-so-so-so wrong, Teag.
 
So wrong.”

“I know.
 
And I really don’t want to talk about it, so can we just leave it for now?”

“How long have you known me?” she asks, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Almost four years?” I say bleakly.

“And in all that time, have you ever seen me just let something go?”

“Ummm … no.”

“Yeah.
 
So let’s just skip the part where you whine and complain how you don’t want to talk about it, and I cajole you and nag you and threaten you until you cave.”

“Cajole.
 
That’s a good word.”

She grins.
 
“I know, right?
 
I have this app on my phone that gives me a word-of-the-day.
 
I’m expanding my horizons.”

“Good for you.”
 
I grin big.

“Wipe that shit off your face and tell me,” she says, going all stern on me.
 
“Seriously.
 
I have yoga class in a half hour.”

“Since when are we doing yoga?”

“Since I saw a dimple on my ass the other day.
 
Now spill your nasty secrets, ho, or things are going to get ugly.”

I briefly consider giving it another round or two of the whining she just mentioned, but just as quickly decide not to bother.
 
I’m too weak to fight Quin off and I don’t even know if I want to anymore.

“Fine.
 
Let’s start with the Rebel fiasco…”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

“SO WHAT YOU’RE SAYING IS, you almost slept with the boss, you wanted to sleep with the boss, but the boss got you naked and then left you in the dust?” Quin gives me a pitiful look as she waits for my confirmation.

“Yes,” I say, “that’s pretty much it in a nutshell.
 
And now he’s in there with this chick who we saw at the club that night and she’s acting like she owns his ass, and it’s just depressing because she’s about ten feet tall and has blonde hair and humongous boobs pressed all up in his face.”

“Seriously?”
 
Quin gets up and walks over to the door.

“Don’t look!” I whisper-scream at her.

She’s just about to turn the corner when the blonde comes walking in.
 
They nearly do a chest bump before the girl squeaks and jumps to the side.

“Holy crap, warn a girl next time,” says Quin, her hand on her throat.

“Watch where you’re going next time,” the blonde says.

“You’re not ten feet tall,” Quin says, eyeing her critically.
 
“Maybe five eight, though.”

The girl frowns.
 
“I’m five nine and why the hell that matters I’ll never know, nor do I want to.”
 
She walks around Quin and heads for the front door.
 
She doesn’t even acknowledge my presence.

“Bye,” I say, refusing to be ignored.

She gives me a courtesy smile and pushes the door open.
 
“Bye.”
 
And then she’s gone.

“She is really pretty,” says Quin, coming back over to my desk.

“Thanks,” I say, slumping back into my chair, “that makes me feel loads better.”

“In a super model kind of way, though.”

“Oh, yeah, okay.
 
That’s much better, thanks again.”

Quin rolls her eyes.
 
“
Argh
, come on, you know what I mean.
 
You’re real.
 
She’s … plastic.”

“Like a Barbie doll.”

“Yeah, like that.”
 
Quin brightens.

“So I’m like … what?
 
A scruffy teddy bear?”

“Way more cuddly, don’t you think?” Quin asks, giving me a grin.

“Can we talk about something else and not the woman who’s screwing my boss and latest crush?”

“Sure.
 
Let’s talk about your dad.”

I scoot forward in my chair, happy for the distraction as crazy as that seems.
 
“So he sends me this toy car which turns out to be a USB drive.
 
And I plug it in here and
bam
.
 
Financials.
 
And memos saying that he’s pissed about some shit that I see right here.”
 
I point to the screen.

Quin comes around and squints at the line I’m touching.
 
“That’s a below the line entry which is done to remove it from the regular calculations.”
 
She takes a bite of another muffin, pointing to the screen.
 
“You have inventory right there … if there’s something fishy going on, that’s another place that could be a problem.
 
Did you see any other info about inventory?”

“What do you mean?”
 
I’m so lost right now and it’s only a little embarrassing that I’m depending on a muffin monster to clarify things for me.

“What was going on with your dad’s company, like right before he died?
 
Was he selling it, maybe?”

“No, not that I know of.
 
But this one memo mentioned an IPO.”

“Well, okay then, that’s like selling the company in a way.
 
You’re selling shares to new investors, so you have to do all the financials, you know, like full disclosure stuff.
 
But if you want to paint a very rosy picture so the shares have a high value, you can fudge the numbers a little.
 
I mean, in theory you can, but it’s pretty hard to get away with nowadays.”

“Like how?”

“Well, inventory for one.
 
You can manipulate the inventory levels and make the value better.
 
And only someone who actually goes on-site and counts the material actually knows for sure if it’s correct or not.
 
Also if there are pensions in there, you can tweak that info.
 
Subsidiaries that aren’t performing and dragging the company down financially can be left off or manipulated.
 
They can overstate interest coverage and change the leverage ratios of the subsidiary.
 
That would work.”

I rub my temples.
 
“You’re giving me the biggest headache of all time right now.
 
I seriously don’t know how you know all this.
 
I think my IQ just dropped like ten points trying to understand what you just said.”

“Listen, when you get scholarships, you have to get good grades or they cut you off.
 
I had to pay very close attention in class.
 
Besides, I like this stuff.” She turns the computer to face her better. “Want to give me a copy to look at?
 
Maybe I can find something useful in there.”

I give her an expression of disgust.
 
“There is something seriously wrong with you, first of all, and sure.
 
Fine.
 
Take a copy.”
 
I pull a random thumb drive out of the desk drawer that I found during my clean up and move a copy of all the documents over to it.
 
Handing it over to her, I can’t help but smile at the serious look on her face.

She takes the thumb drive and drops it into her purse as she points at the screen. “There is something seriously wrong with those financials.
 
I’ll bet you a box of muffins on it.”

I shake my head. “No, I believe you.
 
I’m getting a bad feeling about it too.
 
Why else would my father send all that shit to me?
 
He hardly ever even talked to me, so why would he send me all this private information about a company I have zero interest in?”

“Good question. What are you going to do about it?
 
I mean, if I find something?” Quin asks, walking back around my desk and grabbing her purse.

“I don’t know.
 
Nothing, probably.
 
He’s dead.
 
The company is in my step-mother’s hands now, so it’s over.
 
It’s her problem now.”