Playing Grown Up, He Was Still Responsible Enough to Oversee His Business

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Playing Grown Up, He Was Still Responsible Enough to Oversee His Business A kjwrit fanfiction Wealthy, a playboy, and a genius to boot, Eric Northman lives his life without regret and without apology. But when his own life hangs in the balance, it’ll take more than his own ingenuity to save himself. Namely, his Executive Assistant, Sookie Stackhouse. All human…to start. Rated M/AU Chapter 1 – It Ain’t Easy Being Green SPOV “Good morning Godric,” I called out into the room, while I set our daily Starbucks intake down onto the table just inside the front door. His soft spoken melodic voice filled the room as he greeted, “Good morning Miss Stackhouse. I trust you had a good evening?” His cadence could lead one to believe English was his second language, which – technically – it was. But that made no difference to me and I loved how polite he was. It was a trait that had somehow bypassed his maker. And it was a good thing they weren’t so alike. I couldn’t handle two of them. Godric’s name alone was a testament to his maker’s narcissism. When I’d had the misfortune of asking Eric why he’d chosen a name that sounded like something born out of the first century – rather than the twenty-first – I learned sometimes it was better to not always know every little detail. God plus Eric equaled Godric. And it wasn’t even because Eric thought himself the modern day Almighty or second coming of Christ. He named Godric – the artificial intelligence life form that was wired all throughout the house – after the mangled words his dates (and I used the term loosely, just like moral codes of said dates) shouted whenever he entertained them. Ohmygoderic! He even smirked at me when he claimed Godric’s first two initials were ‘O’ and ‘M’. OMG. TMI. Eric’s head already needed its own zip code, so I wouldn’t have felt the least bit sorry if his entertainment sometimes meant a shot of penicillin and an antibiotic chaser were needed when he was done with them. But Godric truly was a work of art. The prodigy of Eric’s own brilliant mind. Not only was he capable of spitting out data faster than Google, he was just as readily accessible. I could even converse with him on my phone if I needed to. There was an app for that. “Yes Godric,” I replied needlessly. “My evening was as fine as always.” And boring, but I left out that little detail. I wasn’t so sure Godric and our boss didn’t gossip about me behind my back the moment I walked out the door at night. Because genius or not, Eric had the emotional maturity of a hormonal teenage boy in a constant state of puberty and who knew just how far the AI apple fell from the tree. “I am glad to hear that,” he answered in a way that made it sound as though he was wearing a smile on his nonexistent computer animated face. “Eric is downstairs in his lab,” because the day ended in ‘y’, I silently added, “But I am afraid he left a bit of, shall we say – a mess – for you up here that you may want to attend to before going down to greet him.” I felt my eyebrow quirk up just as I noticed the wrappers trailing down the hallway, so I walked into the kitchen and pulled out a pair of latex gloves from underneath the kitchen sink. When they were snapped into place, I proceeded to pick them up one by one and shoved them into the trash bag in my hand, stating the obvious out loud, as I mused, “I see Eric decided to get takeout last night.” “I am afraid so,” he chuckled. But I chuckled when he filled the room with the sound of bells, whistles, and loud applause, making it sound as though I’d guessed correctly on a game show. Godric may have been computer based, but he did have a personality. A likable one. But my prize majorly sucked ass. Shoe. Shoe. Skirt. Shirt. Bra. Panties. The wrappers to Eric’s takeout went into the trash bag as I went down the hall. “I have already made arrangements for the car service to provide transportation for Eric’s guest. They’re entering through the front gates now,” Godric offered. He really was a godsend and I thanked him as I headed down the hall, snickering again when the soundtrack from the movie Jaws followed me. I even played along and peeked through the door like there was actually a giant shark waiting for me on the other side. But Godric switched things up and made me jump a mile high when the sound from ‘Psycho’s’ shower curtain scene suddenly blared out unexpectedly and at a decibel little kids in China could probably hear. Who needs caffeine to jumpstart your day when there’s a smart ass AI tracking your every move? “You cock sucking mother fucking swamp ass stinky shit!” I hissed at him, waiting for my heart to come back down from the ceiling where it was currently lodged. I may have graduated with top honors from the Wharton School of Business, but my inner voice – who I was convinced was the love child of a drunken trucker and a dirty stripper named Candy – sometimes became my outer voice too. “I am afraid that is impossible, Miss Stackhouse. Artificial life forms – like myself – do not require nourishment and therefore are unable to produce solid waste. Mr. Northman designed me to be as green as Kermit the Frog, but I do emit trace amounts of a byproduct that could be considered gaseous waste. Even so – I assure you – my shit does not stink. However if you’d like, I can make you a model of it on the 3D printer in the lab.” “Keep it up, Binary Boy,” I glared – at nothing in particular since he was only heard and not seen – while fighting the smile that was threatening to form on my face, which he could see thanks to the umpteen thousand sensors built into the house. “I know where your off switch is.” It was a lie and we both knew it. Eric had managed to bury Godric so deeply into the grid, nothing short of a worldwide nuclear fallout that flung us back into the dark ages would take him offline. But Godric’s abilities extended beyond being a virtual smart ass/Wikipedia/IMDB’s Greatest Hits player because he was able to extrapolate data and learn from it as well. It was what gave him such a great personality. And he may have even learned from me to pretend I wasn’t full of shit when he treated me to a tone as smooth as a baby’s bottom while he asked, “Have I told you how lovely you look today, Miss Stackhouse? Have you lost weight?” Losing the fight with my lips, I laughed out loud, not caring if we woke up She- Who-Had-No-Name. I didn’t need a bloodhound to figure out where I would find her since they’d left me a trail even Stevie Wonder could’ve followed. Eric never took his conquests in his own bed, but finding naked women passed out by the pool in the backyard wasn’t out of the ordinary. However this one was left in one of the guest bedrooms, so I tossed the bag with her clothes onto the bed and hoped it would be enough to wake her up. So of course, it wasn’t. I decided to cliché it and cleared my throat softly, saying, “Ahem.” Nothing. Subtlety may have been my specialty, but it would do me no good here. So I acted like Eric’s ego was caught in my throat and yelled out, “AHEM!” Nada. If I couldn’t have seen the rise and fall of her chest, I might’ve been more worried. But only because I wasn’t dressed for hiding bodies and Godric would be absolutely no help in that scenario unless he printed me off a 3D shovel. As it was, my only worry was falling behind schedule. Sookie Stackhouse did not fall behind schedule. She just jumped a mile high when cock sucking mother fucking swamp ass stinky shits scared her half to death. Deciding I needed to up the ante, I moved a bit closer and leaned down. And because I wasn’t a cock sucking mother fucking swamp ass stinky shit, I kept my voice to a half-whisper and sang out, “Time to rise and shine…” Because seriously, the sun had risen hours earlier and I didn’t have all damn day to play ‘Name That Walk of Shame.’ And I grew even bitchier knowing the whipped cream on my mocha caramel latte was no doubt fighting a losing battle in maintaining its whip. It wasn’t as though I’d scheduled her into my day, but given the common occurrence, perhaps I would from now on. Besides, I couldn’t ‘Name That Walk of Shame’ because I didn’t know her name and I doubted Eric made it a point of finding out what it was the night before either. He used them – to quote – “Clear his head.” Both of them. But on the plus side, he’d actually left his lab, which was a good thing. He was prone to becoming obsessed with his work and I knew his newest obsession was eating him alive.
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