When Rebecka Meets Sam

This is the beginning of a short that’s been sitting around since 2018, would love to give Rebecka her HEA this year. <3

You know that saying, “when the going gets tough, the tough gets going”?

I don’t get going, I make lists.

My name is Rebecka Johnson and I make lists. I snickered after making the solemn proclamation in my head.

The saying doesn’t specify whether “gets going” is a necessary or specific condition for “tough,” so I might still qualify. But to be honest, I’m not holding my breath.

Today I was making a list because the proverbial shit has hit the fan.

My boss got arrested this morning. And his boss, and the CEO of the company. 

I was out of work for 3 months and 4 days and I finally find a job with weekends off and I can’t hold onto it for a pay period before they arrest all the people who sign the flipping paychecks.

So I’m making a list, a makeshift budget of the things I can afford to put off and the things that will be cut off if I don’t pay them this month.

Well that’s working on the assumption that I’ll be paid for the time I spent answering the phones here… and be reimbursed for the two dresses they asked me to buy to dress the part.

I was so busy making my list—the original birthing it’s own family of sub lists—that I barely noticed the guy in the suit tapping on my desk until he grabbed my hand to stop my writing.

I about jumped out of my skin when he did it.

“Woah woah lady I’m sorry I didn’t mean to scare you,” the stranger man in the suit said.

“Wow you have a really symmetrical face,” I responded instead of, I don’t know, something remotely situationally appropriate.

Thankfully he laughed, and flashed me the most perfect smile I’d ever seen in person.

I pushed up my glasses to take full account of the stranger suited man.

He was tall. Well I assume so, as a woman with a lower center of gravity, my assessment of tall is certainly relative.

He was dark skinned, with a full beard speckled with a little a gray, and a very close cropped fade.

He was wearing a 6 x 1 double breasted pinstripe navy suit, crisp white button down and no tie. I couldn’t see his shoes from where he stood looming over my desk but I assume they were equally stylish.

“Hey do you work here?”

“I guess I still do, everyone that signs the paychecks were arrested today, but until someone fires me I guess I’ll keep coming to work and maybe I’ll still get paid?”

My sense of self preservation clicked in and I began trailing off my stream of consciousness babbling.

He didn’t look like the feds who were here arresting everyone this morning.

Oh dear God, what if he’s a reporter?

Sorry sir, I didn’t catch your name, who you are or what you’re doing here, can I help you?”

“My name is Samuel Francois miss, I’m your new boss.”

Well, that announcement solved the question in most of the color coded lists on my desk. Unfortunately, my fingers were itching to start a new set of lists for the problems this announcement would cause.