Love, Factually

By Zig Zag Claybourne

Holiday love is hard. Holiday romcom love, even harder. Especially for the assistants, "friends," and others relegated to cookie cutter background noise. That is, till Vinn, Lon, Marlena, and Babs. Enjoy this holiday short filled with genuine emotion and sharp humor. Maybe even...love? Factually.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Obsidian Sky Books
• Release date: Dec 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223806967

Book preview

Taquito Life

There was nothing pleasant about weekly Zoom meetings. Vinn supposed that was a fact even Republicans wouldn’t alterna-fact away. Less pleasant: afterwork meetings. Mandatory afterwork meetings. Which cut into taquito time. And there were few things better than taquito time with Babs. Even though she was technically supervisory, Babs gave not one whit about adhering to roles over having a good time. Off the clock, life might as well have been an orgy. Her workplace holiday parties were legendary (and there were a lot because Babs threw love at as many holidays as she could Google). Provided alcohol didn’t free up anyone’s inner asshole, more spirits flew than in an entire horror movie.

Babs formally ended Thursday’s particular meeting but, as was company policy, left the session open an extra couple minutes for lost souls who felt the need to circle back.

Or for the awkward goodbyes.

Vinn, Babs’s admin, stretched back in his chair. It was so ergonomic it could have done his job for him. When it came to certain office requisitions, Babs also dngaf. Babs was the honey badger of PeerStar Public Relations. Her one rule: get shit done, reap the rewards.

Vinn loved Babs.

’Night, everybody, Vinn told his screen, watching squares of business-casual faces wink off; watching the candid glances off to the side that said people had lives outside of Zoom meetings. People had children goofing for attention, dogs wondering wtf was up, cats giving the finger, those tiny moments that revealed what was more important to square-people than having to come up with ways to spin some celebrity’s ass from speaking from said celebrity’s mouth. Public relations was a honking misnomer since it had absolutely nothing to do with the public, but Shut Your Dumb Ass Next Time didn’t fit well on business cards meant to entice potential clients.

PR was basically therapy for kindergartners: Johnny, don’t pee in the indoor hotel fountain, there are bathrooms. Brittni, was telling a fan you’d punch her in the taint backwards the absolute best use of the autograph line?

Granted, not every case was a celebrity being an idiot...just the big money ones.

P-Star had plenty of those.

The leather on Vinn’s chair barely whispered as he leaned into it. His explosive afro positively melded with a headrest worthy of first-class flights.

The goodbyes were sweetly awkward, but Vinn also liked looking to see what people might be peeping to see on his end. It wasn’t as if his work surroundings blared personality, but everybody else didn’t necessarily know that. Videoconferencing being acceptable voyeurism, Vinn noticed one guy in particular tended to glance downward left whenever Vinn spoke. Not constantly, nothing weird, but enough. Outside of Vinn’s thumb-sized model of the robot from Lost in Space standing next to the printer beside him, the workspace was a standard, comfortable, zero-flair affair. Vinn had dubbed that guy (Douglas Penmin) the Cyclops, because for some reason Vinn had always thought cyclopsesses had great vision.

The Cyclops, along with several other squares, dutifully muttered goodbye, but Vinn, looking for it without making it appear he was looking for it, caught that glance downward then quickly back up just before Dougclops blanked out. Out of respect for Babs, Vinn never exited before she’d disconnected the meeting on her end, but the instant the THIS CALL HAS ENDED pop-up appeared seconds later, Vinn knew it was time to get happy.

He cut his own video and audio. Maybe it was just his imagination...but Dougclops had seemed extra looky.

Babs, all sixty-four years’ worth of sunned freckles, crepey skin, and wispy blond hairs of her, whirled out of her office, arm in one coat sleeve and other arm arrowing for the other. Babs was one of those people who some might say used to be beautiful while admitting she was still damn hot, especially with that wide mouth that sometimes smiled like rays through a cloud, and square jawline that could pick you up and dust you off in one stride.

Taquitos, was all she needed to say. Vinn hopped up and whipped into his coat.

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By the time Vinn asked , You have that meeting with Bethany? the table had already gone through three bowls of dipping sauce and six plates of taquitos. The