Chapter Five: Beefing with a Three year old is Crazy
I lowkey don't like PinkPanteress (idk how to spell it sorry) music. It just kinda gives insecure, or at least her old music did. But I freaking love this song. It sounds like if flowers could talk. Btw, please don't jump me for disliking her lyrics!
We’ve been talking twice a week
Yeah it just makes me wanna sing
(Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah)
Elijah woke up because of the vibration from his phone. He pulled it out from under his butt, flipping it open to see who could’ve possibly been texting him at five in the morning.
Remember, you got this, boss man ain’t got nun on you.
Well, he does. A lot actually, but you get the sentiment, right?
Anyways, keep your chin up high, I’ll be thinking about you while snapping cool videos and pics.
I’m so honored to have a nickname from you, cool bro! Can I make one for you too?
I appreciate this, but how in the world are you up at the crack of dawn?
Don’t worry, I’ll be thinking about you too while boss man is probably verbally abusing me
Glad you like the nickname! Though it would fit.
I was up playing COD actually, and then I just randomly thought about you
Sorry if I woke you up, but knowing you, you probably needed to get up anyways
Anyways, get up, go make money. Continue being a nerd, don’t let boss man stop you
Sorry chat, lowkirkenily fell asleep.
Don’t worry, I got my superman tie on under my shirt. He’s not getting through this.
How does Apple Bottom Jeans sound??? I like it!!
Apple Bottom Jeans😎 at 6:15
Elijah, what the fuck kinda nickname is that 😭
Elijah smiled at Levi’s message, opening up the chat to Tommy’s.
Cool bro, I forgot to tell you that I got the job!
Coolest Brother in the Entire Galaxy 😎🥰🔥❤️ at 6:23
Next time don’t make me wait so long, dumbass
Good job though, knew you could do it
You never told me what job it was though
Elijah, you better not be slinging dope or some shit
Coolest Brother in the Entire Galaxy 😎🥰🔥❤️ at 6:27
Well, yeah, you better have gotten that job
I would’ve came up there and beat your ass if you didn’t
I mean, yeah, I guess. I get to afford Pokemon cards from Walmart
I’m my bosses side kick now, genuinely terrified for my life rn big bro
Coolest Brother in the Entire Galaxy 😎🥰🔥❤️ at 6:33
If he gives you shit tell me
In that very same second, do you hear me?
Could you like not beat up my boss?
Coolest Brother in the Entire Galaxy 😎🥰🔥❤️ at 6:41
As Elijah rode on his scooter to his job he began thinking about his boss again. Was his boss a bully or chill? Whatever, Elijah could deal with anything that comes his way! But he also began thinking about Levi and his marketing stuff. Making videos was so cool. Plus, Elijah would be a good friend if he was able to help Levi out with his new position. Wait…help Levi out? A thought sparked in Elijah’s mind.
He parked his scooter into the storage room again, and munched down on a spoonful of chili before leaving.
He wandered around for a while looking for boss man. He should’ve asked Levi what he looked like, gosh he could be so stupid sometimes! He turned a corner before bumping into somebody. He mumbled out an apology, trying to hurry up and find the boss man. Where could he possibly be? Did he leave without him or something?
“Where are you running off to?” the person he bumped into questioned.
The voice was awfully familiar. But he didn’t know why, because he bumped into nothing but chest. Elijah didn’t know anyone that tall. Elijah turned to face the man.
Elijah felt like he just transcended into heaven but also took a freefall to hell. It was the man! Like, the really, really, hot man!
“Uh, uh, nowhere sir. It’s uh, pretty surprising to see you again. Like, you were in my house, now you're here! At my job, where I clean windows and stuff.”
The man raised his eyebrows at Elijah’s words.
“Are you trying to insinuate that I’m stalking…you?”
Elijah let out a dry chuckle, trying to laugh off his unintentional disrespect.
“Um, no, not at all. Pfft, I would like, never do that. It’s just, y'know, cool to see the dude who cleaned my old man’s window at my job.”
“Uh, yeah, heh, why? Does he talk about me a lot?”
“....Not in the way you would like.”
Elijah let out a quiet ‘oh’. That was okay though, Ssaem always said his mean words out of love.
“Wait, um, what are you doing here though? Are you like just seeing what other windows companies do or something? Are we competitors? That would suck, I don’t want to fight you.”
The man leaned back on the wall, crossing his arms and legs. Wow, he looked so cool! Like, he looked like a real man. He was tall, lean, yet he had such big guns on his arms. If Elijah wasn’t so confused he would’ve been drooling.
“What are you doing here?”
Oh, okay, wow. Flip the question right back to him. Elijah can work with that.
“Well, I started working here two weeks ago, it’s been nice. But if you’re asking like, what I’m doing here right now, I’m looking for my boss.”
“Yeah! Levi, my coworker. He’s uh, like around my height, black, braces, he’s a cool dude. Anyways, Levi was like, “I’m going into marketing, you’re with the boss man now.” I think he left without me, I don’t know.”
“Did he ever give you a name?”
“No, we’ve just been calling him boss man. He was mostly preparing me on boss man’s personality and stuff.”
“Really? How’s…boss man like?”
“Well Levi said he’s quiet, serious, and patient. I hope that’s true.”
“Do you want to know his name?”
“Yeah! I’ve been looking for him for like twenty minutes, dude!”
The man stuck out his hand for a handshake, Elijah accepted it without hesitation. The grip was real firm, which had Elijah almost curling his toes.
“Matthew Holcomb. Just call me Matt.”
“Uh, Elijah Benjamin. Elijah’s my first name, so I would like to be called that. Nice to meet you, but I was asking for the boss man’s name.”
Matt shot him a deadpan stare.
Elijah truly felt as though the ground collapsed beneath his feet.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So, now Elijah was riding in the car with bos-Matt. His boss, his crush. Now it felt too real saying that out loud, as if finally affirming his feelings. The feelings were still fresh, but Elijah could already feel a longing in his chest.
They were pretty silent together at first, with most of it being Elijah just admiring Matt’s face whenever he could. He also watched how Matt worked, how his biceps flexed when he was cleaning a window on a higher level, how his shirt would rise….
This is the first day, god why is he acting like he’s in heat!? Plus, this is boss man. Like, he can’t be acting like this. Maybe at home.
But he also observed how Matt advertised their company. Any customer or stranger that asked a question about them Matt was quick to either give a whole speech (when he was in a socializing mood) or refer them to google. Hm, pretty old school, which is to be expected from an old (very hot) guy.
But another idea struck Elijah. He could help Levi, but he could also help Matt. Think about it, getting Matt to agree to his cool marketing videos would A.) Help Matt with his oldness and lack of social media awareness, B.) Help lessen the workload for Levi (because if Elijah was basically doing the work for him, he was helping his cool friend out!), and C.) Gain the company engagement aka customers! And he could do it in the best way he knew: comedy!
Elijah just knows his seventh grade teacher is rolling in his grave now for calling him an idiotic brainless dirt-eater.
He waited until Matt parked the car to explain his idea.
“So, um, Matt. I know you’re a big fan of doing like word of mouth and like, advertising on google and all that stuff.”
There, Elijah dropped the mic. He would’ve felt more proud of himself if Matt wasn’t looking at him with a mix of concern and confusion.
“Social media marketing. We do some funny videos-”
Matt begins climbing out of the car, shaking his head to himself. Elijah tries to reach for him in hopes of getting his point across.
“You’re a funny guy! I’m a funny guy! Like people-”
“No, no, no, let’s go. We gotta work.”
Elijah scrambles out the car, chasing after Matt. He takes a momentary pause to say hi to a man’s dog.
“No, but for real! Because we could do some funny videos of us like washing windows and posting them and it’ll like go viral and stuff. And then people will get-”
Matt holds up their work belts and says, “I mean look at this, what about this is funny?”
“You can find the comedy in everything! Like, look, look,” Elijah reaches for a spray bottle, “Oh wait, is that a water bottle, or is that a ... .uh…I don’t know but you know, we could think of some funny ideas, y'know?"
“I mean there’s nothing funny about cleaning windows though. We’re not comedians. What are we supposed to do?”
The silence after that was a real confidence killer for Elijah.
“...Yeah, that water bottle bit really worked out.”
“Hey, okay like I didn’t think about it, it was just pretty random! Okay, look, just think about it like this, right, right, right-People would like us because we’re funny. So then they see our funny video and they’re like, ‘Oh, wait, those people are funny. They’ll do-they’ll be cool.’ Like they’ll trust us.”
“You don’t think that’s gonna make us look like imbeciles.”
“Think-Think about like Jim Carry, Ryan Reynolds…and other people. They’re funny-”
“Oh! Jimmy Carry and Ryan Reynolds? Y’know what?-”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah! Like if you say them on the street you’ll be like, ‘Oh wait they’re funny! I can-I can-they’re cool. Like I want them to work for me”
“That’s a good point. Maybe you should, uh, maybe you should call them and see if that they want to come work for Trips Windows. Because they’re funny! So we can hire them and they can come wash windows for us and be funny guys! And that way-”
“I want it-I want it to be like..Wait, I don’t have their number though.”
“Well, what do you want me to do about that?”
“Well, okay, look, look, we can be funny! If I-If you-if you just-”
“Buddy, you just tried to be funny with the water bottle bit and it got….literally nowhere. I’m just-I’m just pointing out things! I’m not trying to be rude. I’m just pointing some things out!”
“We could just film a video! Like, cmon. It would be cool to do some marketing! Look, look, here,” Elijah pulls out his phone, “We can-”
“So, you wanna film inside client’s homes?”
“Well, yeah, but hey, hey, y'know we’re doing a funny skit…We’re washing windows over here! Like, yolo!”
Elijah looked over at Matt to see what he thought about it, only to see the face of nothing but disappointment.
“No, like you have to go along with it. Like you have to improvise!”
“Okay, well, um. We gotta go clean a house because that's what we do. Because we clean houses-”
“We offer pressure washing-”
“Uh, things of that nature. Gutter cleaning, things like that.-”
“We don’t offer stand-up comedy to these people. And I think we should just-”
“And I think that we should just know our place-”
“But we should go with the times! All the cool companies are marketing-”
“That’s really cool! I think that’s really amazing. Gen z, millennial, I totally get it. There’s an age gap. I understand.”
“I just wanted to incorporate stuff that’s cool…”
“Yeah, hey, dude, I think-”
“And people would like it…”
“Keep thinking of ideas that don’t have to do with any of this on your off time, okay?”
“Good. Good. Now let’s get back to work, and forget this…conversation-”
“No, it was more of an argument really.”
“Nah, man I’m telling you it was an argument. By like legal classification it was.”
“Elijah, I’m not going to argue with you about the concept of arguing of all things.”
“But you are. Like you’re responding to what I’m saying in a defensive tone-”
"Nobody's getting defensive!”
“I’m not! And even if I was, yelling doesn’t automatically equate to being defensive.”
“But in this situation it does because you’re yelling because you feel like I’m attacking you!”
“Nobody’s being defensive!?”
Nothing but pure silence after that, Elijah noticed stares around them. Matt saw him looking around and followed his stare, noticing the same thing. They both silently agreed to get back to work.
Nosy teenagers peer around the corner.
“Y’know I would offer them my mom’s services-”
“Ew, your mom’s a prostitute?”
“No, you fucking idiot. She’s a marriage counselor.”
“Ohh, yeah don’t do that. They’ll just argue about whether or not they need it.”
“That’s exactly what I’m thinking.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Author’s Note: Another chapter down, how we are feeling, how we doing? Matt’s here!!!! You just know he got a kick out of teasing Elijah in their first meet!
Yall, I was giggling while twirling my feet writing this chapter. I kept going like, “And then what? What happened after that?” But…..I’m the author. Which is nice, bc I get to decide whether I’ll give myself butterflies or tears.
Omg it was so fun writing those two together. Having to write the videos word per word I realize that they genuinely argue like a married couple. Like it’s ridiculous, they ALWAYS cut each other off, talk over each other, and then they both argue with their hands. They’re a hot ass mess, but we love them!
I can’t believe I was so scared to write Matt. It was actually easy once you actually look at his character. He’s always caving into Elijah’s bullshit. Like he’ll be mean and condescending, but best believe he’s always keeping an eye on him!
Plus, I’m convinced they both like arguing lmfaoo. Elijah ragebaits him but Matt’s gonna respond everytime. They crack me up!
Disclaimer: they’re not gonna be toxic! Matt’s too soft on Elijah for that, and I don’t think Elijah could seriously hurt someone on purpose. It’ll be a lot of bickering, but not toxic!
