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“You wouldn't believe how many languages I had to learn to get my software engineering degree." Sam's gaze drifted over Daisy's Riot Grrrl T-shirt. "I see English wasn't one of them.”

Quote by Sara Desai

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The Marriage Game

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Sara Desai

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“The name is Mr. Mehta," Sam interrupted. "Sam is for friends." "Do you have friends?" Daisy inquired. "You don't look the type." "Of course I have friends." He'd lost touch with many of them after Nisha's accident, but he still saw John regularly at the gym, along with his sparring partner, Evan. "Are they imaginary or real?" Daisy gave him a condescending smile. "I'm guessing imaginary because no one wants to be friends with a jerk." Sam scowled. "This is a place of business. If you wish to socialize, I suggest you go elsewhere." "He's cute when he's annoyed," Daisy said. "Maybe you should keep him around for eye-candy purposes." Layla gave him a sideways glance through the thicket of her lashes. "Don't compliment him. His ego is already so big, his top shirt button is about to pop." The women chuckled and Sam's jaw tightened. Women adored him. Men admired him. Employees detested him. But no one ever, ever dismissed him. "He is, in fact, sitting right here." "We're very aware of your presence." Daisy flashed him a sultry smile. "It's hard to miss the steam coming out of your ears.”

“You're certainly not dressed like you're running a business." Eyes blazing, she glared. "What's wrong with how I'm dressed?" "An apron and a pink tracksuit with Juicy written across the ass are hardly serious business attire and they certainly don't scream swipe right on desi Tinder." Sam didn't know if there was such a thing as Tinder for people of South Asian descent living abroad, but if it did exist, he and Layla would definitely not have been a match. Layla gave a growl of frustration. "You may be surprised to hear that I don't live my life seeking male approval. I'm just getting over a breakup so I'm a little bit fragile. Last night, I went out with Daisy and drank too much, smoked something I thought was a cigarette, danced on a speaker, and fell onto some loser named Jimbo, whose girlfriend just happened to be an MMA fighter and didn't like to see me sprawled on top of her man. We had a minor physical altercation and I was kicked out of the bar. Then I got dumped on the street by my Uber driver because I threw up in his cab. So today, I just couldn't manage office wear. It's called self-care, and we all need it sometimes. Danny certainly wouldn't mind." "Who's Danny?" The question came out before he could stop it. "Someone who appreciates all I've got going here-" she ran a hand around her generous curves- "and isn't hung up on trivial things like clothes." She tugged off the apron and dropped it on the reception desk. "I'm not hung up on clothes, either," Sam teased. "When I'm with a woman I prefer to have no clothes at all." Her nose wrinkled. "You're disgusting." "Go home, sweetheart." Sam waved a dismissive hand. "Put your feet up. Watch some rom-coms. Eat a few tubs of ice cream. Have a good cry. Some of us have real work to do.”

“I'll drive." Sam held out his hand. "It's my car. I'll drive." Sam bristled. "I'm the man." "So?" "The man drives. That's a man's job. Just like fixing things, building things, taking out the trash, proposing marriage, mowing the lawn, barbecuing, carrying heavy furniture..." Layla snorted. "Wake up. It's not the '50's anymore. No one drives this woman's Jeep. I can build anything from IKEA without help, and if I ever do find someone I want to marry, I'll ask the dude myself. However, if you want to take out the trash or fix the leaky faucet in the restroom, knock yourself out." "How about Layla takes her Jeep and Sam takes his car and I promise not to tell anyone that you two single-handedly destroyed the environment?" Daisy suggested. "That's ridiculous," Sam snapped. "We're going to the same place for the same reason. We only need one vehicle." "This is my gig," Layla said. "I'm driving my car. If you can't get over your traditional sexist patriarchal controlling self, then I'll meet you there.”

“The situation is simple. If you want to keep our business, we'd like a different project manager. One who doesn't act like she thinks we're stupid, or insufferable. Someone who doesn't act like she hates working with us." A red haze falls over my eyes. I've never been anything but respectful with these jackasses. I've been friendly and calm and accommodating. But this? This running to my bosses and tattling like spoiled children? Asking to have me removed because I told them that I want to build their stupid house so that it doesn't fall down? This is major bullshit, and my blood pressure soars. My carefully-fought-for bit of restraint that I've been struggling so hard to maintain shatters into a zillion pieces. And before I know it, words are flying out the front of my head. "Mr. and Mrs. Manning, everyone here at MacMurphy wants you to be happy with your experience. And you should absolutely work with someone you connect with. I recommend Liam Murphy, he's your kind of ass-kissing suck-up guy. He will tell you what you want to hear, one hundred percent of the time. He will built your monstrous tasteless house and fill it with your cut-rate special-deal fell-off-the-truck fixtures that your buddies pawn off on you. He'll never tell you that you are building something with built-in lack of resale value due to your appallingly bad taste, and that you are doing it at a price nearly twice what the market in that neighborhood will ever bear. He can be the one to ignore your calls in two years when your screening room walls sprout black mold and your ghastly gold-flecked marble backsplash cracks in half as the kitchen settles six inches into your unstable leaky basement. As for your perception that I act like I think you are stupid and insufferable and I hate working with you? Let me assure you. That? Is no act.”

“Anneke, I don't know what the FUCK just got into you, but if you want to have a job here, I suggest you go home now and think about what you want to say to us tomorrow to make us want to keep you." I look him dead in his beady little eyes and with a deep sense of calm, I unload, pretty as you please with honeyed tones. "You don't have to worry, Murph. I don't want to have a job here. I'm tired of the bullshit kowtowing to entitled crap-buckets like the Mannings. I'm tired of you and Mac never giving me my due or having my back. I'm tired of you feeding all the good stuff to your obsequious cousin Liam and leaving me all the shit. I'm tired of your endless series of talentless legs and boobs and hair extensions that you like wandering around here despite their general incompetence. I'm finished. I'm the best you had and the only one you should have trained to replace you in three years when you want to retire and still draw income. And you've never once done anything to show that you know it. So, since it's clear that you will always take the word of the client over someone who has been a valuable employee for nearly a decade, I am fucking done." I never raise my voice; the smile never leaves my face. I deliver this blow with as much grace as I can muster, throw my bag over my shoulder, grab the small box of my personal effects, and push past him before he can even close his gaping jaw. I head out of my office, feeling flushed and nervous, but also giddy. Liam is standing next to the front desk, chatting up Pinky Tuscadero Barbie. "That's a lot of yelling back there, Annamuk." He leers at me. "That time of the month?" The Barbie giggles. "Hey, Liam? A word to the wise. That fancy truck? Doesn't mean you don't HAVE a tiny little dick. It just means that you want the WHOLE WORLD to know it." And with that, I open the door wide, letting the frigid wind blow through, leaving them both gape-jawed in a tornado of papers.”