by Ali Parker
I got off the elevator and walked to my office, hanging my head and sitting down in my chair. I didn’t know where to go from there. I leaned back and looked out the door as Amanda passed. She looked to the side and locked eyes with me for a moment before looking away and hurrying off down the hall. My heart sank into the pit of my stomach, confused by all the emotions I was feeling at one time. Losing Amanda at the company had already been a blow before the meeting, but afterward, it had become a death sentence. Not only had I lost the connection we had on a personal basis, but I could also lose an amazing manager and my own job if she weren’t here for me to work with.
I had to find the words to talk to her, to know exactly what I could say to her to make this better, to make her want to stay. I owed her a bonus, and that was a start but not nearly enough to mend what had already been broken and nothing close to what Diamond was offering her to come over to them. I would put in for a raise, but there was still the fact that I had to talk to her before she made her choice. Not only did her future at Truitt Marketing depend on it, but now, so did mine.
To be continued…
Author Note: end of Stealing My Attention
Chapter 24
Elon
The board had put their foot down, and though I got to keep my position in the company, the stipulations were difficult to swallow. Clayton Hayworth was still trying to steal the seat right out from under me, and I should have known he wouldn’t let things go that easily. I had done everything they had initially asked. I had gotten my hands dirty, worked on the ground floor with my team, and I had helped create a killer ad for a big company that would do work with us in the future. They saw that, the board had, but Clayton had still intervened. In order to continue where I was, I was going to have to work hand in hand with Amanda. She had come back to support me on the presentation, which was good, but things were still incredibly uncomfortable between us. We had really started to find something good, and all of this, all of the stress had taken that away. I wasn’t sure if working together would even work anymore.
It was Saturday, and I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. Everything was so complicated all of the time, and my head was spinning in circles. I wished my brother and I were close enough that I could call him up and talk to him about what was going on, but he would only tell me to put her out of my mind and move on. He didn’t see the quality in one long-term relationship, and to be frank, neither had I until I’d met Amanda. I had actually started to think we could be together, date, fall in love or whatever it is people do when they decide to exclusively see each other. That was all demolished really fast when she’d gotten the call from Diamond Marketing, asking her to join their team. If I hadn’t gotten romantically involved, or wasn’t on the path to romantic involvement, I would have been pissed, but I would have gotten over it. But because there were more feelings than just professional ones, I was taking it personally.
I got up out of my chair and grabbed my keys. I needed to talk to someone, to get this off my mind. I headed over to Marcus’s place, hoping he would be home and not busy. When I got there, I double-guessed myself, but I knew if I didn’t get Amanda off my chest, I would never be able to get through work with her. I knocked on the door and waited, hearing him shuffling around inside.
“Hey,” he said, surprised. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m not interrupting you, am I?”
“No, man,” he said. “I was just putting in some extra hours from home on some projects that have been whirling around my head. Come on in.”
“Thanks, man,” I said, walking in the front door. “I didn’t want to bother you, but I needed someone to talk to about everything. My head feels like it’s about to explode, and I wasn’t really sure where to turn.”
“Dude, you’re always welcome here,” he said. “I was just about to take a break and grab some food and a beer down at Murphy’s. You want to head over there?”
“That sounds great,” I said with relief.
“Okay, let me just grab my shoes, and we can walk over,” he replied.
Murphy’s was the place Marcus and I did all of our best thinking. We had sat right in that bar when he was helping me plan out the beginning of my business. Of course, neither one of us lived in the sweet penthouses that we did at that point, but it was always our bar. It was only crowded at night, and during the day, it was chill, just some pool sharks in the back racking the balls. We headed over there, grabbed a table near the front, and ordered some food and drinks. The smell of stale beer and musty wood was relaxing like it had been when we used to spend our last few bucks on a pint and a pizza.
“So, what’s up, man?” he said with a smile. “I’m not used to seeing you so pent-up. Did the board meeting go badly?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “And I want to say it again, thank you for stepping up and getting that work done. You literally saved my job and my company by doing that. I know you have things of your own to take care of, so it means a lot to me.”
“Aw, man, it was nothin’,” he said. “It actually felt good to get my mind off my projects for a little bit and do something I was really good at. Besides, you’re my best friend. I would never let you go down like that, not for anything.”
“I appreciate that, man. I would do the same for you,” I said.
“I know,” he replied, taking a sip of his beer. “It’s crazy how we used to scrounge up money to come here and eat this shitty pizza and drink these warm beers.”
“I know, right?” I laughed. “And now that we could afford to open ten restaurants, we still come here and eat their shitty pizza and drink their warm beers.”
“Some things will never change.” He laughed. “And I like it that way.”
“Me too,” I said, raising my beer. “So how is work? Are they treating you well?”
“Well enough for a man not in the top one percent of the company.” He chuckled. “I will be eventually. It just takes time. I have some really promising ideas for future products that I’m working on at home. They’re going to let me present my ideas to the board when I have the prototypes together. They’re letting me use their facilities in my off time. I got in good during a game of golf with the CEO, and he pulled some strings for me.”
“You always were a good talker,” I said.
“Yeah, not as good as you, though,” he said.
“Yeah,” I scoffed. “I haven’t been so lucky on that front lately, at least not with the people who work for me. My emotions take over, and I just spew fucking words out. I’ve fucked some stuff up, man.”
“Really?” he said, noticing my deep sigh. “I know you can be hot-headed when it comes to personal things, but work? I’ve never known you to do it at work. What’s going on with you? I can tell just by looking at you that something is going on. I mean, I have known you your entire adult life, so I think I have a nose for these things.”
“Ugh,” I said, leaning back in my chair. “I knew I couldn’t hide anything from you. That’s probably why I ended up contacting you in the first place, to call me out. Things with Amanda weren’t as simple as they seemed when you met her.”
“I had a feeling.” He chuckled.
“We argued a lot at first, but then I started to get to know her, we went out to dinner, and our connection to each other grew, a lot,” I said. “We haven’t slept together or anything like that, but I realized quickly how amazing of a woman she was. It took me completely by surprise.”
“That’s great, man,” he said. “I’ve never known you to have feelings like that for a woman, especially one you hadn’t slept with yet.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But then Diamond Marketing called her and offered her double her salary to come over there, and she didn’t turn them down. She was thinking of leaving me for another job like nothing we’d accomplished over the last several weeks had meant anything to her. We literally took the company by storm, leading together, being this monster team, and with one phone call,
it was like it didn’t matter anymore.”
“She came back and did the presentation with you, though, right?”
“Yeah, she was there,” I said. “I didn’t think she would be, but she showed up and actually really knocked it out of the park. She’s a very talented public speaker, and the guys loved her knowledge on the project and the projections.”
“She didn’t come back for the project,” he said, waving his hands. “She came back because she wanted to make sure you were okay. Whether the deal went successfully or not, she had a golden backup plan, but she wanted to make sure you got what you needed. Women are complicated, sure, but her thought process on her leaving the company, it doesn’t have anything to do with you. If it does, it’s what’s keeping her from jumping on that job. I mean who else do you know would get offered a job doubling their salary and not accept immediately?”
“I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head. “My feelings are hurt.”
“Right, but what do your feelings matter when it comes to her and her life?” he said. “Doubling a salary in this city can make or break you. Shit, it can make or break you anywhere. I don’t know her story, but I have to be honest. If I worked for you, even as your best friend, I would think about taking the offer. It’s not personal. It’s business, even if it does have to do with her personal life. By her showing up, though, it has to mean something. Just the fact she didn’t tuck tail and run, not walk, over to Diamond means something.”
I sat there, looking down at my beer and listening to what he had to say. I could still see the look on Amanda’s face when she’d walked into the meeting after taking the call. She’d looked bewildered. She’d kept her cool the entire time she was talking to me, something she hadn’t done in the past. In the past, she would have fought back against me, telling me exactly how she felt. Maybe Marcus was right, and maybe there was more to her coming back than I gave her credit for. I had been really hard on Amanda, harder than any other girl in my life, and maybe it was time I toned that down a little bit. If I wanted her to stay, pushing her away was not going to achieve that. It was only going to make her want to leave more. She wasn’t the only one adding to the awkwardness between us, and I needed to start taking responsibility for my side of things.
“You’re right,” I said, looking at him across the table. “I shouldn’t be so hard on her. She hasn’t done anything that anyone else wouldn’t have done in the situation. She came to me right away and told me about it, and I was the one who flipped a coin on her and shut her out. If I want to keep her on the team, that’s not the way to do it.”
“You are right, sir,” he said. “You’re in a place in your life where you’re fighting for the thing that you love the most, your company. You’re trying to grasp ahold of it with everything you have. Maybe right now a woman is not what you need in your life, especially not one who works for you. Office romance is difficult, even when things are perfect, and I can’t see this being something that could turn out well in the end. You already have a connection with her, so why not put the romance on hold and just let her know she is vital to the team? Get that work relationship back so you can save your company instead of adding something else to your plate.”
“I feel you,” I said. “I need to focus on my company, and having Amanda would be a huge asset to me. I need to cut everything else out for now, even if it sucks.”
Chapter 25
Amanda
I decided, since everything else was so stressful, to try to make Saturday morning breakfast with Mikey a whole lot of fun. I made pancakes out of colored batter, shaping them like his favorite animals. He had a thing for zoology, so I knew he would pick apart my pancake art, but that would be a clever way to get him talking about what he loved. It was so interesting to me to hear him spout off facts about things like he was a college graduate. He was an incredibly intelligent little boy, which made me work even harder knowing he had the potential to literally do whatever he wanted with his life. He just needed the doors to open for him. I knew the doors opened when you could afford to open them, and that was on me to make happen.
I finished up with the pancakes and plated them, taking them to the table as Mikey came out of the room. He was excited, and I could tell he was holding back his critique of my artistic pancake skills because he didn’t want to hurt my feelings. I sat down and passed him the syrup and a napkin.
“Not too much syrup. You don’t want to drown your elephant.”
“That’s an elephant?” he said with a giggle.
“Hey, you try making animals with pancake batter,” I pouted.
“I think they’re perfect, Mom,” he said with a wink.
“So, there’s been something on my mind lately,” I said. “There’s some sort of special occasion coming up, and I just can’t remember what it is. Is it Christmas?”
“That’s in December.” He laughed.
“Oh,” I said. “Is it Valentine’s Day?”
“Nooo,” he said. “That’s in February.”
“Hmmm,” I said with a smirk. “Well, what in the world could it be?”
“My birthday.” He laughed.
“Oh, that’s right. You’re turning eleven years old next Saturday. I think I should have remembered that. Maybe I should start writing these things down. My old brain can’t remember them anymore.”
“You’re not old.” He giggled.
“Well, thank you,” I said, smiling. “You get extra brownie points for saying that, but already knew that, didn’t you?”
“Duh.”
“I can’t believe you’re going to be eleven.” I sighed. “You’re getting so big, and before I know it, you’ll be in college and then married and then making me a grandmother, which is more than terrifying. I don’t know how I can handle all of that.”
“Slow down, Mom. It doesn’t go that fast,” he said.
“For you maybe, but seriously, it feels like just yesterday you were running around in diapers, playing with Bob the Builder, and drinking from a sippy cup,” I said. “It makes me sad.”
“It makes me excited,” he said. “Eleven means I’m going to be taking better science classes in school. It means that soon, I’ll be learning how to drive, and then I can go to the zoo anytime I want.”
“I’m going to remind you when you’re sixteen that you said that,” I said. “I have a feeling you’ll want to be driving somewhere else other than the zoo at that point.”
“Nah, I’ll always want to go to the zoo,” he said.
“So, what’s on your list this year? What is it you really want for your birthday?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t really need anything.”
“I know.” I chuckled. “But what do you want?”
“Nothing, seriously,” he said.
“Okay, what’s up? You saying you don’t want presents? Yeah, right.” I smiled.
“I just know we’ve been having financial problems,” he said, flooring me. “I want us to get back on track, so everything can be normal again.”
I put my fork down and looked over at him, my heart breaking in my chest. I had tried to keep all of that away from him, but somehow, he’d realized what was going on. It made me feel absolutely terrible, and I didn’t even know what to say in response. My son wasn’t supposed to worry about those kinds of things. Only I was. He wasn’t supposed to know I was having any kinds of issues, much less money ones. I rubbed my face and shook my head, watching as he happily ate his pancakes. This was the little boy who made my life worth living, and I would be damned if he gave up his birthday presents because I couldn’t financially afford all the extra stuff.
“Mikey,” I said. “That is not a worry you need to focus on or even think about. We’re fine, I promise you. You can have anything you want, except maybe a rocket, but that’s only because I don’t think it will fit in here.”
“I could put the pieces in the living room.” He giggled.
“I’m b
eing serious here, son,” I said, walking around the table and bending down. “You deserve the best birthday ever, and if I’m offering, that means that I can afford it. I don’t want you thinking about that at all. I appreciate your big heart and how you’re always thinking about others, but you’re too young for that. Do you understand?”
He nodded his head up and down.
“So, tell me what you want, sweetie,” I smiled, rubbing his shoulders.
He sat there for several moments looking down at his plate before turning to me with a kind smile. He didn’t list any toys off, any vacations, or trips to the zoo. He didn’t talk about the newest game he wanted for his Xbox or even a new superhero movie that he wanted. All he did was lean forward and hug me. I sighed, hugging him back and burying my face in his neck. I was a lucky woman to have such an amazing son. Just then, there was a knock on the door, and I pulled back, smiling.
“Go answer the door. It’s Dalton.”
“Dalton,” he yelled, running for the door, swinging it open, and launching himself at Dalton. “Hey, guess what?”
“What?” he said down on one knee in the doorway.
“My birthday is next Saturday,” Mikey said excitedly.
“It is?” Dalton said, faking shock. “You’re going to be thirty-five, right?”
“No.” He giggled. “Eleven.”
“Almost to that driver’s license,” he said, standing up and walking inside. “Hey, Momma. How’s it going?”
He could see the look of struggle on my face.