The Mess We've Made | Minsung

chapter ninety-eight

"Fireworks are a lot like bombs, I'm telling you," I chuckled.

"I mean, I believe you, but why do you know that?" One of my employees named Jada asked me with a laugh.

"I used to make fireworks and explosive-like shit as a kid with my older brother and his friends. Since he was in high school and I was in elementary school his friends got annoyed when he brought me around but they never seemed to complain whenever we were blowing shit up. I've always been good with my hands."

"Oh, so that's what you meant by-,"

I cut another one of them off named Terrell, "Mmhm. The government thinks I'm a threat because I know how to make fucking fireworks."

"And by extent - bombs? I presume?" Jada chuckled.

"To put it simply, I was a menace in college. I don't know how none of those stories have leaked to the press," I said.

"You know, I was actually a freshmen there when you were a senior," Terrell said.

"Are you gonna follow that up with anything?" I chuckled.

"Nah, I'm not tryna' disrespect you potentially," Terrell said to me in response.

"Disrespect me?" I questioned.

"After that thing with Grayson..." An employee of mine involved in the conversation named Sophia mumbled.

"I've never had any issues with you guys in terms of respect or anything else, really," I shrugged. "You guys have never said anything out of line before."

"Eggshells. We've been walking on eggshells," A newer employee named Sydney said. "I just got here too."

"Thank you, girl," Jada clapped for her a few times.

"Someone had to say it," Sophia sighed.

"I ain't sayin' shit," Terrell chuckled.

"I made a mistake in letting my employees walk all over me. I respect all of you and we can talk like this over lunch casually on a Wednesday but you still take orders from me. You get what I mean?"

"Sure," Sydney shrugged, taking a bite of her salad.

"Makes sense," Jada said.

"I don't even know how it got to that point anyway," Terrell said.

"I made a lot of mistakes," I chuckled. "I wanted to be the 'cool boss' but turned myself into a doormat."

"Congratulations," Sydney joked.

"Can I say something completely inappropriate and potentially offensive?" Jada asked me.

"Depends. Does it cross boundaries?" I asked her in return.

"It's entirely subjective," Jada said. "Employee-to-boss confidentiality or whatever?"

"Okay..." I trailed off.

"Everyone here is smart and very capable. I haven't met a single person here that doesn't do the work. What I will say though is that we got a lot of fake motherfuckers running around this bitch with their heads held high like they aren't full of shit. I think you got yourself involved with a few of them and that's where it started," Jada said. "I don't fuck with any of the people you fuck with. I don't think that says anything about you because you're nice to everyone but they haven't been nice to you. You run shit around here, you're our boss. We're supposed to respect you and they don't even though they act like it."

Damn.

"Okay, that was extremely inappropriate," I sat my fork down. "I'm your boss."

"Okay, how about we talk about this and pretend like you're not here? I won't be saying it to you directly," Jada said.