Meaning . . . she’s trying to drive me fucking nuts.

She knows how to push my buttons, and she’s doing exactly that. How, you ask? Simple, it’s little, inconsequential things that in the grand scheme of life don’t seem like a big deal, but when you know someone is doing it on purpose, it builds.

It mounts.

And boy, oh boy, am I at my fucking breaking point.

For instance, she keeps tilting the hung pictures around the house so they’re crooked. Every time I pass one, something’s off, and sure, I could walk away and not care . . . but fuck, I am not that man. I pull out the level and adjust the picture until it’s perfectly back in place. It’s to the point now that I carry my mini level in my back pocket while I walk around the house.

And laundry, if I don’t take mine out of the washer right away and put it in the dryer, she pulls it out, sets the wet clothes on top of the dryer, and starts her own load. She doesn’t grant me the courtesy of slipping my clothes into the dryer for me, so I end up having to wash my clothes again so they don’t smell moldy. Infuriating—and yes, I know this is my fault. I’ve now set a timer on my phone, and when it goes off, I sprint up to the washer to make sure I don’t waste any time putting my clothes in the dryer.

Not to mention the little things like walking around in her bikini, lying topless by the pool, or even parading around in a loose-fitting robe that does nothing to hide her sexy curves.

Don’t even get me started about the batteries in my TV remote. Or how she is constantly moving my things around so they’re out of place. Like my protein powder or my vitamins, or how she seems to only swim when I’m outside watching a game and blasts her music so loud I can’t hear the announcers say a goddamn thing.

But that’s fine because I’m the one who fucked up, right?

I deserve it all . . . right?

At least that’s what I keep trying to tell myself so I don’t fucking explode.

I slip my tie from around my neck and toss it on my bed. Banner picked me up and dropped me off today because I haven’t bothered with transportation yet—you know, because she has my goddamn car. And what a fucking day. I woke up with a headache, and it’s only gotten worse throughout the day as I sifted through mindless meetings, exciting, but boring-as-shit quarterly projections, which I know are required, and mind-numbing interviews of prospective employees. Apparently, I did a shit job of hiding my annoyance today because I got a lecture from Banner all the way back home about not showing my annoyance around the new employees. Because yeah, life might suck for me right now, but we’re still on the cusp of a new venture, and I shouldn’t be dragging it down with my personal life. He was right. Then he proceeded to tell me he’s been working on something special that, if it goes through, will skyrocket The Jock Report to the next level. But because he didn’t want to jinx it or get my hopes up, he refused to talk about it and offered me zero details.