MB Short Story: First Name Basis

“DECK THE HALLS WITH BOUGHS OF HOLLY!” Glitch sang/bellowed, the lyrics echoing off the high ceiling of Aeon’s lobby.

                “Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la!” Sally and Nick sang in unison. Unlike Glitch, whose soprano remained surprisingly pleasant despite the fact that she was belting as loudly as possible, neither Sally nor Nick were anywhere close to being in key (Sally because she was utterly tone-deaf; Nick because he found it amusing to harmonize with Sally’s flat notes).

                Kent was present as well but refused to sing on account of principle, despite having the best voice amongst the group.

                The music stopped as the three carolers (plus Kent) entered the elevator, and promptly resumed once the doors opened on the fifteenth floor.

                “DON WE NOW OUR GAY APPAREL!” Glitch sang/hollered.

                Several faces poked out of offices to observe the commotion, their expressions quickly turning to winces at Sally and Nick’s cacophonous chorus. Kent, who had been trailing in the rear, raised a shushing finger to his lips when one of the curious audience members opened their mouth, presumably to ask why the hell Justice and two coworkers were singing Christmas carols.

                Glitch eventually halted in front of a still-closed office door near the end of the hallway.

                “TROLL THE ANCIENT YULE-TIDE CAROL!” she sang/roared.

                The door remained shut through Sally and Nick’s offkey fa-la-las.

                Glitch knocked in rhythm with the song. “SEE THE BLAZING YULE BEFORE US!” she sang/shouted.

                The door remained shut.

                “Maybe he’s not back yet,” Sally said.

                Nick smirked. “Kim’s inside, just avoiding us.” He raised his voice to a volume almost on par with Glitch’s earlier singing. “You can’t hide forever! Holiday cheer is contagious, Kim!”

                Glitch nodded at Kent, who stepped forward. She motioned Nick and Sally to take a step back.

                “STRIKE THE HARP AND JOIN THE CHORUS!” Glitch sang/yelled.

                Kent’s heel struck right next to the lock. With a crunch of wood and metal, the door swung violently inwards, revealing Ambrose Kim’s office.

                For a long moment, no one spoke, horrified by the chaos within.

                Kim’s usually immaculate office was in disarray. Loose papers were strewn across the floor as if a blizzard had gusted through, and a pile of laundry sloppily tilted to one side beneath the desk. Several of Kim’s precious books had been taken off their shelves and thrown haphazardly onto the seats of chairs. The window was cracked open, with a navy-blue tie draped over its frame and fluttering in the breeze like a flag of surrender.

                “There must’ve been an intruder,” Sally said. “Should we call security?”

                “Maybe he jumped,” Nick suggested, staring at the window. His smile slipped into a frown as he squinted at the pile of laundry beneath the desk.

                “Everyone halt!” Glitch stretched her arm over the doorway, blocking the other’s access into the room. “This is a crime scene!”

                Kent sighed. “Kim is—”

                “Missing!” Glitch proclaimed. “Rosy is tragically missing!”

                Kent sighed again. “But—”

                “Vanished!” Glitch touched the back of her hand to her forehead as if about to faint. “Rosy was supposed to return today, but he went missing while on vacation! And now his office has been ransacked! Quick, someone call Liam Neeson!”

                “He’s right—”

                “Oh, woe! To have gone missing at such a youngish age! Rest in pieces, sweet Ambrose Kim!”

                “Shut up, Parker,” ordered the pile of laundry in a hoarse voice.

                Ambrose Kim pushed off the three coats that had been covering his body. He gripped the edge of his desk, hauling himself upright to glare grumpily at the four intruders.

                Glitch gasped. “Rosy! We all thought that you were dead!” She wretched out a fake sob that sounded adjacent to a chuckle. “What a relief!”

                “Is it?” Nick let out a hiss of pain when Sally elbowed his side.

                “Why are the four of you in my office?” Ambrose demanded. “And why the hell are you singing Christmas carols?”

                “First of all, the others are technically in the hallway just OUTSIDE your office,” Glitch corrected. “We’re singing because you missed the interoffice holiday party.”

                “Because you’re a grinch,” Nick chimed in from over Glitch’s shoulder.

                Ambrose’s glower deepened, which did nothing to refute Nick’s accusation of grinchdom. “I was on my honeymoon.”

                Nick groaned. “Don’t remind me.”

                “It’s February,” Ambrose said. “You’re being ridiculous.”

                Glitch tsked her tongue sadly. “Au contraire, my dear Rosebud. The Holiday Spirit can’t be contained to a single month.”

                “Literally, this year,” Sally added. “Hanukkah didn’t end until January.”

                “Which again, was over a month ago,” Ambrose pointed out. “So, what the hell are you all doing here?”

                “We wanted to welcome you back!” Glitch’s lips curved in a toothy smile. “Well, I wanted to welcome you. Nick and Sally wanted to annoy you.”

                Sally nodded, while Nick became suddenly preoccupied with inspecting the potted orchid on the bookshelf.

                Ambrose stared expectantly at Kent, who shrugged. “I was bored.”

                “None of you are acknowledging the real issue, here,” Sally interjected. “Why was Kim sleeping under his desk instead of at home?”

                “Already fighting with your spouse?” Nick asked, sounding inappropriately hopeful. “Could things be heading to a divorce in the near future?”

                Sally’s elbow shot out again, but this time Nick dodged.

                “Things at home are perfect.” Ambrose’s expression and tone both softened as his mind went to his partner. “More than perfect.” Glitch hid a grin under her hand at the sudden display of vulnerability, while Kent and Sally averted their eyes politely. Nick, however, gagged loudly.

                “If things at home are perfect, then why are you using spare coats as blankets?” Nick demanded. “And why hasn’t Button come back to the office?” He took a step into the office, shoving past Glitch. “What have you done with them?”

                “A lot of things, I suspect,” Glitch murmured to Kent, who rolled his eyes but couldn’t suppress a smirk.

                “You two talked on the phone just yesterday,” Ambrose told Nick.

                “I’m not buying their ‘working from home’ excuse!” Nick almost shouted. “Especially not when something is clearly off with you.”

                Ambrose crossed his arms. “My marriage is none of your business.”

                “It is when you’re married to my sibling!”

                “Exactly!” Kim snapped back. “We’re married. We just returned from our honeymoon. To our workplace. Where you, their brother, and every other Ment can . . .”

                “. . . Can read Button’s mind,” Sally finished, glancing at Nick with horrified amusement. “Give it a rest, Nicholas. You know exactly what Button is going to be thinking about nonstop.”

                Glitch waggled her eyebrows, never one content to leave to subtly what could be awkwardly stated out loud. “They’ll probably be thinking about this past month. This very romantic past month.”

                “We would prefer to keep some things private,” Ambrose said stiffly.

                Nick, whose complexion had grown increasingly pale throughout the conversation, stared longingly back down the hallway as if he were contemplating bolting. “Button is avoiding me?” he asked in an unsteady voice.

                “Until they can stop themselves from reminiscing about Corfu, yes,” Ambrose said.

                “What happened in Corfu?” Sally asked before her cheeks deepened in a ruddy blush. “Never mind. I can imagine.”

                “Please don’t,” Ambrose requested.

                “I can understand why Button may want space—it’s not the first time that they needed to keep their distance,” Nick begrudgingly admitted. “But that doesn’t explain why they kicked you out of the house.”

                “No one was kicked out,” Ambrose retorted. “I took a leave of absence for almost two months. Despite Black’s best efforts, that’s two months where you were submitting most of UCRT’s paperwork.”

                Nick flinched. “I did my best.”

                “‘Your best’ is still sloppy enough to leave me with a backlog of corrections longer than the train ride we took to Naples. Somewhere after the fourth stack of paperwork, I had to rest my eyes.”

                “Under your desk?” Sally asked.

                Ambrose glared at the group. “I had hoped that any intruders would assume that no one was here and depart.”

                “And the reason it looks like a hurricane passed through here?” Glitch prodded.

                Ambrose hesitated, looking uncharacteristically uneasy.

Nick snickered. “I forgot about that,” he said.

                “What did you do this time?” Sally asked, clearly preparing herself to be exasperated.

                Nick muttered something in a voice so low that only Sally was able to discern the words. Her eyes grew round. “You did WHAT?” she shrieked. “Nicholas Hyacinth Wiseman, what is WRONG with you?”

                Despite not having heard Nick’s confession, Sally’s reaction was enough to confirm something for Ambrose. He marched towards his brother-in-law with murderous intent and grabbed the front of Nick’s shirt to yank the taller man down to face-level.

                “Where did you hide it?” Ambrose demanded. “So help me God, Nick, I will—”

                Nick blinked at Ambrose. “You called me Nick.”

                “Answer the question!”

                “You hardly ever call me by my first name,” Nick said. “Ambrose, are you warming up to me?”

                Ambrose’s emitted a growl from the back of his throat. “Where. Is. My. Marriage. License.”

                “You stole their marriage license?” Glitch would’ve applauded, had she not been certain that doing so would’ve resulted in her murder by Ambrose. “How’d you finagle such a gloriously devious deed?”

                “There was nothing glorious about it,” Ambrose spat out. “HR needed it for insurance. I brought in the original to make a copy but left it on my desk before we left for Greece.”

                “Ambrose Kim made a mistake?” Glitch let out a Broadway-worthy gasp. “Say it isn’t so!”

                “When I got back, the certificate was gone,” Ambrose said. “We worried that the press had somehow stolen it, but instead—” His grip on Nick’s shirtfront tightened and grit out, “Where is it?”

                Oof. Usually, Glitch was all for proclaiming one’s love to the world loud and proud, but she understood why Ambrose would be worried about the media learning about his marriage to Wiseman. The secretive youngest child of Unity’s premier family, married to their former instructor with a questionable past as a mercenary? It wouldn’t be good for Unity’s optics, and the less attention Wiseman drew, the safer they’d be from Ments like . . .

                Well, sometimes love conquered everything, but other times it was best to keep marriage certificates out of unauthorized hands.

                “Wonderful prank, truly, but you should probably return the paper before Rosy has a heart attack,” Glitch told Nick. “He’s too youngish to die.”

                Nick, haven shaken himself free from Ambrose’s angry grasp, scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. “About that . . .”

                “Oh no,” Sally groaned. “Please don’t say what I think you’re about to say.”

                Nick’s shoulders hunched inward, and he gave Sally a droopy-eyed look that was suitably abashed and only a little performative. “I was keeping it safe in my office, I swear! But I think it must’ve gotten mixed up with some of my reports meant for Ambrose,” he said. “It’s why I agreed to storm his office when Glitch suggested it.”

                “You were hoping to find the marriage certificate and then pretend that you’d never lost it to begin with,” Glitch summarized, shaking her head. “Are you a genius or an idiot?”

                “Both,” Sally answered on Nick’s behalf. She sighed, grabbing Kent’s upper arm when he tried to slink off unnoticed. She glanced over at Ambrose. “We’ll help. How many more piles of paperwork to comb through?”

                “Eight,” Ambrose replied. “Pray that you kept some of that holiday spirit. You’ll need it in order to get through Nick’s terrible mission summaries.”