The Boys Squad

The day was June 22, 2025. Louie is engulfed with the overpowering shine of the sun causing his eyes to squint, along with the discomforting suffocation of the beginning humidity causing perspiration to form on his forehead. A normal reaction for a 9:30 a.m. Monday summer morning. A day that will without question tan his pale skin. A farmer’s tan is the likely outcome. And perhaps sunburn too. Because, in all honesty sunscreen of any kind hasn’t entered his brain to apply on any scorching day of any season of the year. You would think he’d learn. Even at the age of thirty-three.

Nope. Still oblivious to its existence unless it appears in his line of vision, and even then, it is there one minute and gone from his thoughts the next.

Walking away from the front automatic doors of the retail store The Lucky Star, his current home of employment, a work scanning device clipped to his belt, boxcutter in the back pocket of his black jeans. A green work vest with the store’s gold star logo imprinted on the back sported over his white graphic t-shirt. He walks towards parked cars, one of which belongs to him. A silver SUV sits in the first parking space next to three small bushes.

‘Please don’t be flat.” He hopes.

This morning the “low tire pressure” signal popped up on his way to work. At a random stop light, he hopped out. Did a quick scan of each tire and to his examination every tire seemed as if nothing was wrong, so he figured he would check back in on them once he went on break.

Closing in., it was the moment of truth. The decisive moment that would either ruin his day, and the week for that matter, or it would brighten his day and take a win for once at the start of a work week.

“Come on. Just be fine you bastards.” Anxiety creeping into his being.

He approaches, reaching the vehicle. Louie circles around it quickly, takes a step back for final inspections.

“Let’s fuckin’ go.” Louie releases audibly, as each tire looks the same and unflatten.

Relief hits him like a shot of morphine and peace floods his nerves.

With more pep in his step he walks back in the direction he just came from. Allowing a pickup truck with a blonde woman behind the wheel pass by first, he moves across the walkway, up to the automatic doors that swing open. A gush of wind flows speedily against him as he reenters the store.

Louie passes by shop goers with plastic bags in hand. He starts along going by the rows of shopping carts, followed by self-checkout where an older man into his early eighties wearing a green shirt and cargo pants named Mr. Keith stands rubbing his bald head with a rag and fixes his glasses as he locks eyes with Louie.

“Morning.” He greets.

“Mr. Keith, good morning!” Louie replies as he slightly bows towards him, something Louie does regularly to Mr. Keith. There is no rhyme or reason as to why Louie does it. That idea popped into his mind of racing thoughts one morning and has stuck ever since.

Louie progresses as straight as an arrow along the row of check lanes. One woman well over six feet tall, whom Louie has never met before, stands scanning the items placed on the belt from a woman and her assumed son who sits in the green shopping cart.

Taking a sharp left, he makes his way through two gray doors making his way to the front offices of security, management. One desk sits across from green lockers where a new HR named Connie sits. The muscles of her tattoo covered pale forearm flexes as she clicks away on a mouse gazing at her computer screen. Her brunette hair tied back into a ponytail and a small fan sitting next to her chair attempts to cool her off.

“Hey, I was wondering if you were off today or something.” Connie says looking up.

“Nope. I’m here. Why?” Louie asks stopping in front of her.

“I just didn’t see you with the rest of them.”

“Oh, yeah, no I had to go check something really quick.”

“Gotcha. No snacks today?” Connie asks, seeing he is empty handed.

“No, I’ve got some, I just gave my stuff to Jeff to bring with him. But I’ve got some fruit snacks.” Louie replies.

“Okay, well I’ll be here all day.”

‘Don’t worry I got you.” Louie says tapping the desk and proceeds pass her and the lockers.

Louie goes through an open doorway and arrives at his destination.

The Break room.

Three refrigerators sit with two trashcans on their left, and a sink positioned on their right next to a station that holds three microwaves, small plastic bins filled with various cereal boxes, paper plates and bowls along with plastic forks and spoons.

A flat screen TV mounted on the far end wall plays an action movie with giant robots shooting at one another. Two vending machines stand side-by-side in the corner.

The tables arranged in various places around the room remain unoccupied except for one.

To Louie’s immediate left after having stepped into the room, at two large tables pushed together giving it a high school lunchroom table kind of vibe, thanks to Louie and Ramiro, with food, snacks and drinks sits Jeff, Ramiro, and Nina, three members, not including Louie, of The Boys Squad.

Where did the name The Boys Squad come from? Well, it certainly didn’t come from anyone that people have associated with the name.

In fact, the first time everyone in the group heard it they all had collectively the same reaction.

Cringe.

Now, why is there a group of coworkers called The Boys Squad?

Good question. Thank you so much for asking.

The first name drop of The Boys Squad came at the early hour of 6:10 a.m. on a random Wednesday months prior. Louie, Jeff, and another member of the squad named Brian, who usually works in the tech area of the store but occasionally helps with Louie and Jeff, who are on the presentation team, were called for a team meeting with their team lead Gary by the executive team lead Carter.

Neither of them had any coffee in their systems and to spare the details, the meeting was about how poor the work ethic and efficiency of the team is. But the three of them knew, as did Gary, to put it in Louie’s words—

“Carter just wanted to bitch at someone because his home life probably isn’t going well.”

As the meeting went on going in one ear and out the other that’s when they heard it.

“So, there’s nothing wrong with talking here and there but not for ten to fifteen minutes or however long. All I’m saying is work with a little more sense of urgency.” Carter says.

“I get it, everyone has friends or their little cliques where they work. Everyone in the store knows about y’all and the group you have. How y’all are always around one another and go on breaks and lunch together. They call y’all The Boys Squad. That’s not me saying that. That’s just what was told to me. But, yeah, just more urgency is all fellas” Carter finished.

Louie, Jeff, and Brian each exchanged a confusing look towards one another.

The Boys Squad? What the hell?

Afterwards they went ahead to inform the rest of the group of this recent revelation.

It was weird to refer to a group as The Boys Squad when there were two females apart of the group.

The group consisted of Louie, or Cousin Louie as an alternative name:

Jeff, or Jeffey as Louie likes to call him.

Ramiro, who is the maintenance worker for the store.

Brian, also known as Little Sweet Darling.

Nina, The Homie, who fulfills online orders.

Jessica, who works alongside Nina.

Danny, also known as Pookie Bear, who’s also a part of the team with Nina and Jessica.

And finally, Jose, the youngest member and somebody who doesn’t even work there anymore going off to do bigger and better things as a carpenter.

“What, are people saying I look like a boy or something?” Nina asks.

“Yeah, for real. what the hell?” Jessica says.

“I mean, it’s called jealousy and it's not a good look for anyone outside of us.” Danny replied upon hearing the news.

“I guess we’re The Boys Squad now” Brian says.

“I say we be assholes about it and embrace the shit out of it. Like, be over the top about it.” Ramiro interjected.

And so, they did.

Now back to the present.

Louie washes his hands in the sink and heads over to where Jeff, Nina and Ramiro sit and join them opening a potato chip bag.

“So, what was you going to tell us. We’ve been waiting all morning.” Ramiro says slurping his cup of noodles.

“Yeah, you’ve put your damn hype around it too.” Jeff agreed as he played with two cards in one hand and fed himself cheese cubes with the other.

It’s true.

Louie built hype around it.

“You aren’t going to believe the shit that happened over the weekend.” Louie greeted Ramiro and Jeff in the parking lot as they walked towards work that morning.

Louie opened a ten-pack box of gummy fruit snacks. Grabbing one he rips an opening, tilts his head back and devours the small gummies.

“How you eat the food you do and still aren’t fat is wild.” Nina says as she stuffs a spoon of low-fat yogurt into her mouth.

“Dude is gonna die of a heart attack.” Ramiro states laughing.

“One can only hope.” Jeff chimes in with a smirk.

“I hope all three of you step in shit with a newly bought pair of shoes.” Louie replies.

“Rude.” Jeff says.

Ramiro laughs again and takes a gulp of his berry punch energy drink.

“Aw, somebody got his little feelings hurt and is lashing out.” Nina says smirking.

“I hope your yogurt is expired. Anyway, so here’s what happened, and you tell me if I handled the situation well or not.” Louie responds.

“So, I have been talking to this woman named Laura for about two weeks.” Louie begins.

“Is she hot?” Ramiro interrupts.

“She’s pretty hot. I saw a picture.” Jeff answers.

“Oh shit. This troll pulls hot women now.”

“Trust me, I was shocked.”

“Is she blind?” Nina asks.

“I hope all three of you wake up with a roach crawling in your bed tomorrow.” Louie responds.

“He’s lashing out again.”

“Anyway. So, I’ve been talking to this girl named Laura for two weeks. We met online the Tuesday before last, and we started hitting it off. She’s a pilot but she’s currently grounded for unknown reasons to me.” Louie begins again.

Jeff shuffles a deck of cards before handing out two cards per person for a game of blackjack.

“We’re talking on the app. We progressed to texting and then that Saturday we started calling one another. We’re really hitting it off.” Louie continues.

Nina taps the table for another card and bust. Ramiro does the same, getting a Queen and chooses to stay with that hand.

“Then comes this past Monday. We made plans to go on a date Friday night. But, within the same hour I’m reminded I’ll be going to a concert that night with my cousin. So, I tell her, and we postpone until Sunday instead.”

Louie looks at his cards to find a seven of hearts and a King. He taps the table, and Jeff deals him another card revealed to be a jack, much to his dismay.

“She just says “Okay” and that was the end of that discussion. I think we started talking about movies after that. Not important. Anyway, Friday rolls around and we talk a bit that morning as we normally do, nothing out of the ordinary. I go to the concert, end up staying the night at my cousin’s place because I drank way too much.”

Jeff deals with his own pair of cards and gets a perfect twenty-one. Again!

With as many times as Jeff wins at blackjack amongst them if he was in the wild west a cowboy would’ve shot him by now on suspicion of being a cheat.

“Bro, you have to be cheating at this point cause’ there’s no way.” Ramiro accuses.

“I’m telling you I’m not doing anything. You all just suck.” Jeff defends himself. He grabs the cards and reshuffles them.

“Sorry bro. Continue” Ramiro flicks his wrist towards Louie.

“So, I wake up the next morning and I don’t really hear anything from her.” Louie proceeds.

Jeff deals out cards for another game.

“Eleven o’clock rolls around and still nothing from her. We normally greet each other with a good morning text. I figured she may be busy or something. But I decided to shoot her a text saying, “Good Morning, hope you’re having a good day so far.”, you know a nice good morning text.”

After hitting and getting an ace, giving him twenty, Ramiro decides to stay with his hand.

Nina hits and bust again.

“And I shit you not, the reply I get from her is a clown emoji. No context, nothing added to it. Just one clown emoji.”

“That’s all she sent?” Ramiro asks.

“That’s it. I didn’t even reply to that to get any sort of context because, as far as I know, a clown emoji isn’t a good thing especially in that type of context. So, I haven’t engaged with her in any form since then.”

“No context at all? Just a clown emoji?” Ramiro asks.

“Nope. Yup.”

“And she wasn’t mad or anything before that? Like, because you changed plans?” Jeff questioned.

“No, she said “Okay’ and didn’t make a big deal about it.”

“Sounds like she got mad because you decide to go hang out with your cousin instead of her. if that’s the case you need to block her.” Nina voices.

“Yeah, you were up front with your plans and the reason why you changed them with her. She sounds like a problem you need to avoid if she’s getting mad over something like this. Also, do you want another card or are you staying with that hand?” Jeff asks.

“Oh, my bad.” Louie taps the table after seeing he has an ace and a four-of-diamonds. Jeff flips him a ten-of-diamonds causing in to go over.

“Of course that would happen!” Louie says louder than he intended to making Jeff giggle at his outburst.

“You really think I should block her?” Louie carries on.

“If she’s getting like this over you having plans with your cousin, then how do you think she’s going to react when she finds out you have female friends?” Nina points out.

“Oh, yeah I didn’t think about that.” Louie nods going into deep thought.

Jeff still fiddling with the cards flips a card and receives a twenty-one hand for the second time.

“I can’t with these card games bro. you’re doing something.” Ramiro accuses.

“I’m literally doing nothing except playing the game. But, getting back on topic, I agree. This girl sounds like someone you need to run from.” Jeff replies.

“Maybe.” Louie ponders.

The sound of keys jingling ring aloud coming in their direction until Connie walks into the break room, opens one of the fridges, and grabs a water bottle and takes a gulp.

“Connie, if you were talking to someone for two weeks and you made plans with someone but had to reschedule for two days later cause’ you had plans with a family member. Then the next day you send this person a good morning text and the reply you got back was a clown emoji with no context or anything else said, would you keep talking to that person?” Nina asks while finishing shing her yogurt.

Connie squints her eyes.

“Yeah No. they’d get fully blocked.” Connie answers walking over to reach into the box of gummy fruit snacks taking two packs.

“Thanks, by the way.” Connie says in appreciation to Louie who nods back to her as she walks back out of the room.

“See. Listen to the women hear and just block her. because, if you keep talking to this girl and she has a problem with you having female friends she’s going to find out quickly that I’m not the one.” Nina states

‘Yeah, you’re right.” Louie agrees.

“Wow our break has been over for five minutes.” Ramiro interjects.

“Yeah. We gotta head back.” Jeff seconds.

“Okay, let me just do this now then so I don’t have to think about it anymore.” Louie utters as he pulls his phone out. The other proceed to gather their belongings and throw away their trash.

“Just do it. Don’t think about it.” Nina encourages, shouldering her purse.

Louie stands up.

Goes into his text messages.

Enters the chat with Laura’s name.

Clicks on the three dots in the right corner.

Scrolls down.

Taps on Block Caller on the screen.

And taps Block.

“Done.”