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Had he slept with her, then?

And later dumped her?

I bit down hard on my lip as I walked into the station. People waved and nodded as I weaved my way to my desk and plopped down. I had scooted toward my desk when the legs on my chair somehow gave out, dropping me to the floor like a bag of bricks.

I sat in my own disappointment and annoyance for a solid minute before standing up and kicking the broken chair away. “Piece of shit.”

“Maybe cut back on the donuts.” Mendoza grinned as he took a huge bite of his sub sandwich.

I glared. “Did you do this?”

“Funny as hell, but sadly, no. Though, we did have a chair guy come by while you were gone. Said the chairs needed to be checked.”

I stared. He couldn’t be that dumb. “A chair guy? Since when have we ever needed a chair guy?”

“He’s legit. I looked him up.”

This was the problem with technology. Max, in all his boredom, could build a fake website in seconds. Hell, he probably did it with his phone behind his back while Mendoza questioned his legitimacy.

I paced around my desk, irrationally angry and extremely paranoid that if I opened any drawer, something was going to jump out at me; or worse, that Max had found a way to shrink himself into mini Maxes and packed them into my drawer in order to stop my heart.

Because it would.

Multiple Maxes would straight-up kill me dead.

You’d find my body on the floor, face frozen in terror as if that chick on The Ring had just crawled out of the TV and tried to lick my face.

“You’re jumpy.” Mendoza took another huge bite out of the sub, mayo spotting the corner of his mouth. “More jumpy than normal.”

“I have a menace on the loose,” I said under my breath. “Color me normal.”

“Menace? Who?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Seriously, don’t. The more I thought about him, it seemed the more the universe took control.

I very calmly walked back around to my desk, pushed my chair out of the way, and grabbed my empty coffee mug — only it wasn’t empty like I thought; instead, it tsunamied over the brim and seared my hand so hard I yelped and dropped it on the floor.

“This isn’t your day, man. Go home.” Mendoza looked concerned, as I held my hand and swore. “I think the chair guy freshened everyone’s coffee. Nice guy.”

“So. Nice.” I clenched my teeth and my still-burning burned hand. “I think I will take the afternoon off. Call me in if you need to.”

Mendoza gave me a two-finger salute as I calmly walked out the door, holding my hand together as the fires of hell burned around my fingertips. Just how hot was that coffee? I made it to my truck, the one missing the door, and kicked the tire over and over again, until, with one last wallop, I led with the top of my foot, rather than the heel or point.

Something crunched.

It wasn’t Max eating Pringles behind me.

It was my toe…

Dying a slow painful death as it swelled inside my boot.

“Could this day get any worse?!” I yelled. Just then, fierce rain began to fall to the cadence of thunder booming in the clouds. “Never mind.”

I jumped into my truck, started it, and suffered through ten minutes of extreme paranoia — not to mention pain — as I made my way back to the house.

I killed the engine and winced as my toe continued to throb. I needed to pull off my boot and see the damage, but the thought of looking at blood had me queasy. I limped toward the house and then paused, hearing laughter.

Of the Max variety.