Try Me (boyxboy)

Chapter 1

Hey, this is the prequel of Not So Bad, Just Violent. I've been working on it so I thought I'd might as well post it. So, yeah, if you haven't read Not so Bad, you don't have to but you should.

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Richie sat in his car and stared at the building numbly. He felt more than nervous. His stomach was flipping in every direction and his breakfast rolled around his stomach like bricks. He pulled himself together as practiced his smile in the mirror. It took him a while to perfect his smile and turn it from naive innocence to total confidence. According to his best friend, Cedric Rogers, it was that innocent smile that led to so many lousy guys falling for him. After his last relationship, he began to believe it.

A look at the time evoked a gasp from Richie, he grabbed his suitcase and scurried to the building door. He swipes his brand new employee ID and enters. He walked in strides to his new job, in a new city, with new people for his new life.

He went up to the receptionist and said tentatively, "Hello, I'm Dallas-Miller's new advertisement employee, I was told to check in with Terence Corveli before going to my department."

The pretty, young receptionist smiled flirtingly, "No problem. What's your name?"

Richie didn't even notice, his nervousness fogged his brain cells, "Richard Manning."

"Oh, do you go by Richard?" She slid her hand onto his.

Richie furrowed his brow. Nothing but the fact that she was wasting his time registered in his mind. "Can you please hurry? I don't want him to think that I was late."

She frowned and took her hand back, "Fine." The receptionist dialed a number on one of the land lines and talked for about ten seconds before hanging up the phone and pointing towards a comfortable small seating section of the lobby. "He says he'll be with you in ten minutes."

"Right," Richie huffed, "Thank you."

She waved him away and went back to her paperwork.

He sat down on a fluffy love seat and rocked himself nervously while waiting for his employer. The ten minutes were dreadfully long, every second ticked by like an hour. Eventually, a middle-age man in a navy blue suit came strutting towards him. The man had a trimmed black beard and slick black hair, his every step smelled of Armani and Versace. "Richard Manning?" he held out a hand, "Welcome to Dallas-Miller."

Richard stood hastily and shook his hand fervently, "Thank you Mr. Corveli. I'm happy to be here."

"Call me Terence," his black eyes glimmered, "Come on, I'll introduce you to the Ad crew. Your new manager is a bit," he paused thoughtfully, "Well, he's just not welcoming to new hires. He's like a dog, he just needs to get used to you then he'll be," he paused again to think of the appropriate word, "civil," he concluded.

"Civil?" Richie echoed, "You mean there's no chance of him perhaps liking me?"

Terence laughed, "Nope, no chance at all. That's a nice goal to keep though."

Richie chuckled along uneasily and followed the man to the elevator. During the ride up, Terence gave Richie tips on how to make it in Dallas-Miller's Ad department. Most of it included not bumping heads with his manager. Richie grew more and more nervous as the seconds passed and the ding of the elevator made him jump three feet in the air.

Terence laughed, "I'm sorry, I'm making you nervous, aren't I? You seem like a nice kid, you'll be fine. Let's go meet your colleagues."

He grabbed Richie by the elbow and led him down the hallway. Before he knew it, they took a sharp turn into the bee hive. People and files were being sent from place to place, going from desk to desk and the chatter was deafening to Richie. He was used to his small town office building but this, this was something completely different. In the center of it all was a man standing like a red light in human traffic. Everyone wanting to get pass him stopped to talk to him first. His every reply was short and barked, even his honey brown eyes couldn't level out the amount of bitterness in his distempered frown.