Chapter Text
This day started completely normally, just like hundreds of days before it. There was nothing significant about waking up in his shitty apartment, almost oversleeping because of the alarm, and riding the bus with a few homeless people on the way to work. He started the day with a quick scroll through his Facebook feed, watched a couple of memes, and grabbed the usual shitty coffee from the cafeteria. The normal hopelessness of being in his late twenties and lacking any perspective in life. Depressing? Yes. But in hindsight... safe.
"Did you finish your report?" Jenny asked—the one from the next desk with nice tits and not much else going on—snapping him out of his daydreaming on company time.
"Report...?" he mumbled, not even bothering to fake interest.
"Yesss... The one we talked about yesterday. I need your date for mine..."
"Oh, that one! Yeah, I almost finished it. I'll send it to you the second it's done..." He was going to start it after lunch... probably. Definitely by tomorrow.
She stared at him for a few more seconds, then sighed heavily and turned back to her own computer. So it wasn't that important after all.
Well, now it was time to decide how to kill the hours until lunch. Maybe a few rounds of Candy Crush? Or scrolling through Tinder. He hadn't gotten himself laid in a while, and maybe someone new had shown up. He could also text Robb and ask if he was up for a beer after work.
Hmm. Choices. Choices.
It was sometime around 11 a.m. when he finally—mostly out of sheer boredom—decided to open Excel and start typing up his sales report. It was also around noon when he got bored of that and decided to go for another coffee. He deserved a break, he told himself, glancing at his half-finished Excel sheet.
There were a few people in the cafeteria who seemed to have more or less the same idea.
"Hi, Theon." Eric from HR waved to him from his spot near the coffee machine. "Second coffee already?"
"Yeah. I've got a lot going on today. Need a bit more energy." True and untrue. Did he have much to do? Kinda. Did he plan to do it, with or without help? Not really. Still... what kind of asshole counts coffee breaks? Like, really...
"Yeah... sooo..." Very smooth, Eric, Theon congratulated the guy in his thoughts. Thirty years or more and maybe you'll finally master the art of small talk. "...what do you think about today's big announcement?"
If Eric had any good trait in Theon's book, it was his tendency toward office gossip. Theon usually kept up to date, too. Who had slept with whom or broken up with whom could be useful information. Mostly for figuring out who was open to a bit of “off-hours, cross-departmental integration” and who he could offer a chance to vent to in order to achieve such integration.
But that just sounded like some work-related bullshit.
Eric must have seen the blank look in his eyes, because he continued.
"...they mentioned it at the end of last month's department review..." People actually listen during the monthly review? "...about the boss planning to put his son in charge of the department..." Eric finally finished with a resigned tone, and a light finally went on in Theon's head.
Would it change anything in his life? He sincerely doubted it. Although... who knows, maybe someone younger wouldn't have as much of a stick up their ass as old Bolton. Maybe they'd buy a new coffee machine... ha. It's good to dream.
"Anny saw him on her way to the office this morning," said a not-so-pretty girl whose name Theon had never bothered to remember, but who had clearly been eavesdropping on their conversation. "She said he was kind of hot."
It wasn't news he particularly cared about. Why couldn't the old man have, for example, a hot daughter?
"I never heard of old Bolton having any children," Roy from Accounting muttered, pouring himself a cup of coffee.
"I heard he studied abroad," Amy from IT said, having just entered the room.
"Hmm... I don't want to start any rumors..." Deric from Controlling muttered over his mug, "...but apparently he had some legal troubles, and his father didn't want to put him in the business."
More or less interested voices echoed around the room.
For Theon, well... as long as his paycheck hit his account on time and he could keep spending six out of eight hours at work screwing around... who cared who sat behind the big desk? It still wouldn't be him.
Okay, okay. As Robb always said, positive thoughts. Positive... Old Bolton might not be in the office as often anymore. He always gave Theon the creeps. Not that they ever really talked, but just the look in those almost white eyes and that cold, dead-like face... Ugh.
It couldn't get any worse.
"But wasn't the boss's wife at the Christmas party last year? She was too young to have a grown son..."
"She was his second wife."
"I heard his son is dead."
"I'm telling you, the old man didn't have any children. It's some kind of tax scam..."
"...Anny said he looked... Kind of wild, but kind of sexy. You know what I mean? A Northern type..."
"The old man got away with it twice...?
"...No, I'm telling you, I can't Google anything about it..."
"What was his name... Ramon? Rayaan?"
"Domeric?"
"No... I definitely remember something starting with R."
"Google only shows someone named Domeric Bolton at university of..."
"Probably someone else."
A murmur of voices rose in the cafeteria, and Theon was quite surprised to discover how closely his coworkers were monitoring his boss's private life.
These people needed to find some hobbies. And this was coming from someone whose favorite off-duty activity was banging disposable chicks. Yezz.
"Well, as long as he doesn't make us work..." He joked, which was echoed by several people present. Feeling at least temporarily fulfilled socially and not so interested in his boss's son (unfortunately, not his daughter), he returned to his desk with his now lukewarm coffee. For a second, he also felt the urge to Google something about this mysterious man, but...
"Theonnnn... And what about that report?"
He sighed. Okay, maybe he should get some work done today.
It was supposed to be around 3 p.m., because he was already planning to slowly head home. He'd packed his phone charger into his backpack and hung his sweatshirt on the back of his chair. The report for Jenny was in the sent folder (though perhaps not perfectly filled out...), and he felt rather proud of that.
The day had started slowly but ended almost productively. If that even mattered...
Positive thoughts.
He deserved a drink on the way home.
Just then, two figures straight from the conference room entered the open space. Theon, as he did every time the boss of all bosses appeared, stiffened. He raised his head, but not high enough to be noticed. Several people did the same, and a few stared rather insolently.
It was so fucking cringe-worthy that the first thing that popped into his mind was that he suddenly understood what Anny (whoever the hell she was) meant by "kind of hot."
The guy was about the same height as Theon (and he wasn't short), but much broader in the shoulders and clearly better built. Black, deliberately disheveled hair and a two-day stubble straight out of some tacky Netflix show aimed at horny housewives. And of course, a suit that probably cost more than Theon's monthly rent sealed the deal. Fucking rich people.
But he didn't even have time to roll his eyes at his own thought.
Because right then, the man's gaze lifted and slowly swept across the office. And it stopped dead on Theon.
An unpleasant shiver ran down the back of his neck. Even from this distance, those almost white irises stirred something deeply uncomfortable. But while old Bolton's stare had always felt dead and empty, this one was... disturbingly intense.
The electric jolt lasted only a second, but when it ended, Theon suddenly felt the urge to lean against his desk for support.
Fucking creppy.