And her ex had hated them? I’d better not ever come face to face with the emotionally abusive asshole.
Georgina crossed her legs and pulled her skirt down. That was as clear a message as any. Eyes to myself.
I’d been shut out.
Even now, I was being heckled by freckles, made worse by the fact that I’d tasted them.
I needed to cool down. I reached for the tray at the center of the conference table and poured myself a glass of water.
Vance called our attention to the head of the room. “Morning.”
Laptops opened all around me. I uncapped my pen and opened my notepad to a rough outline for today’s meeting. “Hope everyone had a nice, relaxing weekend,” I said.
“Not as nice as yours,” Albert said to me. “I hope you had a great fucking-weekend.”
He said it with a knowing smile, as if a fucking-weekend were an event I’d attended. Which meant he knew about my date. Justin had probably opened his fat mouth.
I’d gotten my wish. Georgina’s face got so red, her freckles disappeared.
“What do you mean by that?” I asked Al, injecting a healthy dose of irritation into my tone so he knew better than to answer honestly.
“Nothing, boss,” he said. “Just being polite.”
“You have the manners of a caveman.” I tapped the capped end of my pen on the page in front of me. “First item of the day—”
“Hang on, Sebastian,” Vance said. “Georgina and I have something to say.”
Well, fuck. They wouldn’t have a secret meeting, decide to fire me, and then announce it this way—would they? Just how badly had I pissed her off? I stuck the end of my pen in my mouth and sat back in my seat.
Vance twisted back to Georgina. “Would you like to speak?”
She smiled brightly. “Thank you for asking but go ahead.”
He turned forward again. “With this being George’s last week, she and I just debriefed. She wanted to let me know how impressed she is with how you’ve all handled this difficult transition.”
“With the exception of Albert, of course,” Georgina added. “For him, I recommend a very skilled and patient therapist.” Everyone at the table laughed, myself included, but the usual small smile Georgina wore when she landed a playful insult wasn’t there.
What exactly was happening?
Whether or not we’d actually become the good boys Georgina wanted wasn’t the issue. We all wanted to hear that we’d been cleared of our charges and were better men now. We’d only needed Georgina to say it to believe it.
Vance frowned. Was it sadness? Disappointment? Was he losing something—me? Her? “Georgina believes you lot have made some of the greatest progress she’s seen in this amount of time.”
“Easy, Chewbacca,” Justin whispered behind me. I’d gnawed my pen cap to a pulp.
“I’m grateful to you all for making this work,” Vance continued, “and to Georgina for taking on what probably sounded like an impossible position.”
Justin snickered and whispered, “No less possible than the one she was in last night.”
I glanced back at him. He was on his phone, scrolling Facebook. As revenge for getting me in even hotter water with Georgina, I took his cell, updated his status to “When everyone keeps telling you you’ve got Little Dick Energy :(” and dumped it in the pitcher of water.
“Hey, what the fuck?” Justin dove in after it. “You better hope this shit is waterproof.”
“Guys,” Vance warned. “I just complimented you on how mature you’ve been. Don’t make me take it back.”
“Thank you for the kind words, Vance.” Georgina held a tight smile in place. “I’m only as good as my team.”
She had molded us into something better, and she did have what it took. She was qualified. I inhaled a breath and tried to think of how I could possibly respond to being fired in front of everyone who’d counted on me the last few years. She kept any emotion from her eyes as they roamed the room, grazing right over my head, giving me nothing.
“Well?” I asked.
“All right, all right, Sebastian,” Vance said. “I know you’re eager to get the meeting going. We just wanted to thank you all. Georgina’s going to start wrapping things up around here, so if you have any final questions or concerns, see her in the next day or two.”
She was leaving?
She was leaving.
Right on schedule, if not earlier.
“But you can always e-mail me about anything,” she said. “If things go smoothly today and tomorrow, I’ll be out of your hair even sooner than planned.” She finally glanced at me. “That’s how much confidence I have in you all.”
Her words from the night before hadn’t left me. “If you take over, I become obsolete. Walk in with me as a united front tomorrow morning.”
She’d been looking out for me instead of herself, and after her history with Neal, no doubt that scared her.
“I’ve got a breakfast meeting to get to,” Vance said. “Over to you, Quinn.”
Over to me—if I still even wanted that. She wasn’t taking the job. It was all mine. Why didn’t I feel relieved?
The answer to that was right there in her expressionless eyes.
I had no idea where I stood with her.
* * *
After the meeting, Georgina hung back to talk to Nicole. I didn’t want to wait another minute to hash out this morning’s argument and move on, but the longer I lingered, the more desperate I seemed, so I returned to our office to wait for her.
I raised the window shades. The office became an oven in the afternoon when they were that high, but Georgina liked natural light, so I’d gotten in the habit anyway.
I’d outlined most of our talking points for the first episode of the podcast we were set to record next week when my impatience got the better of me and I went looking for her. Not only did I need her help on this podcast thing, but I wanted it. This was the closest I’d gotten to sports broadcasting, what I’d thought I’d do after college. For the first time in a long while, I was nervous in my role at Modern Man.
I checked Justin’s cubicle first, simply because he hadn’t bothered me in the past hour, which meant he was either annoying someone else or napping. Oddly, I found him hunched over his laptop working on an article Georgina had assigned him about male aestheticians.
“Need something?” he asked, glancing up only long enough to take a sip of coffee.
Despite the fact that the article would require Justin to get his back waxed by a dude, the topic was bizarrely fitting. He’d been more engrossed in his work lately, and it was all thanks to Georgina. I wasn’t about to jeopardize that. “No, just seeing if you needed a refill.”
“Sure, I’ll take a—hey!” he said, but I was already on my way to the breakroom.
That was where I found Georgina, posted at a small round table and surrounded by the meeting’s notes. Her laptop lit up her face and the shiny buttons of her blouse.
I went to the vending machine closest to her table and dropped in some change. “You should be careful in here,” I said. “People can see your laptop while they pretend to buy Starbursts.”
She brushed two fingertips down the trackpad as she scrolled. “I have nothing to hide.”
“Yeah? Then why are you camped out in the back corner of a dark room?” I punched my order into the keypad. Sadly, there was no 100 Grand, so I went for what I hoped was the next best thing. “No windows in here.”
“I’m not hiding. I’m avoiding.”
Surely, she didn’t mean me. You didn’t just come out and tell someone you were avoiding them, right? I went to stand in front of her with my peace offering. “Want some candy?” I asked, showing her a Butterfinger. “A wise man once told you it’s as good as sex.”
“A wise man does not call himself a wise man.”
“Touché.” She still hadn’t looked up from her work. “Who are you avoiding?”
“Not who, what. I’m avoiding an awkward conversation. An uncomfortable workspace. An unwelcome truth.” She took a breath. “I think it’s best if I just work in here the next couple days.”