A weird, lopsided grin crawled up the right side of his face while his eyebrows were doing floppy, funny things. She had a feeling he couldn’t believe someone could be as outlandish as she was. The guy needed to get out more!
“Well,” she continued, unperturbed, “that’s what Dan always did. When he had particularly bad gas days, he’d do walk-throughs and sorta…sprinkle the fart. Crop dusting! I don’t have to hear him fart anymore! Oh, this is the best day!”
Sean couldn’t help but chuckle. Sobering once again, he said, “You have a list in your email of what I would like you to work on. As for bosses…well, James is technically your boss. For now I am your Team Leader. You listen to me, do as I do, work on what I say, and we land our guy. After that the sales team will return you, hopefully unharmed, to Mr. Montgomery.”
The gorgeous smirk was there, but his eyes were still distracted and haunted. Dude needed to get some sleep. Maybe he kept on drinking. Hangovers had a way of making even the most gorgeous people look ugly. Well, in his case, maybe not ugly, but definitely not as hot.
“You okay?” she almost regretted asking. One lunch didn’t make them friends. In fact, if they were magnets, the sides pointed at each other at the moment would’ve had a repelling effect. There was too much attraction there for it to be any other way.
Still, he was obviously struggling.
He looked at her intently, deciding if he would share his troubles, or not. After a moment, he chose not. “No, I’m good. Didn’t sleep as well as I could’ve.”
Krista nodded in sympathy. She hated those nights. Well, actually, she loved those nights because they were usually drunken bouts of fun. It was the mornings she hated something fierce.
He nodded once and was off.
As Krista looked around her office, one thing was immediately clear: working for Sean had its perks. So far, it was definitely worth the sexual frustration. Especially with their new deal. Hopefully it stayed that way.
As promised, there was an email from Sean in her inbox.
Dear Krista,
Please see attached. Start working on the material requested ASAP. If you have any questions, please come to me or Ray immediately. I will be contacting you in the future to arrange a meeting with your findings. Until that time, please assume that you are to continue gathering information. More is better than less.
Welcome to the team.
Regards,
Sean McAdams
Okay.
She opened the attachment. She was greeted with a Word document filled with numbered informational needs. The page was full. There weren’t that many numbers—six in all, but each piece of information requested had about five sub-pieces. It was madness!
Before she decided to be overwhelmed, she looked at number one. One step at a time. Usually it was a lot easier, went a lot faster, when a girl just started at the beginning and soldiered through it. There was no need to feel like she couldn’t do the job.
Not yet.
She was to pull all the information on jewelry from the company’s database. She was to print out and put together everything—everything was specified—she could possibly find. And organize it for Sean and Ray’s viewing pleasure. In addition to organized, it should be user-friendly, meaning no overbearing math stuff.
Just to see what she was up against, she did a quick, broad search. It yielded a crap load of information. Seriously, a crap load!
“Feck.” Moving on.
Next she was to deduce trends influenced by fashion, economy, social status, global influences, and anything else she could possibly think of. Within each trend she needed markets and demographics by region, by world economy, by freakin’ Popeye’s treasure map if it was available.
Next was the list of visual aids. A graph was the least of her worries in this section. She was told to get creative, and above all, make it look aesthetically pleasing to people who were not math geeks. He actually said “math geeks” too.
Ass…
“Okay, sure.” Next!
After she got all that information from the system, she was to head to the library. She needed anything new that might’ve been overlooked in the past. She was to ferret out trends within trends that might have been marketing-inspired.
Basically, she was to have the largest, best organized mountain of information in all eternity solely focused on jewelry.
Then…
Then she was to refine everything by sapphires, blue and black. Quality, size, what type of jewelry—everything down to what type of store sold it to what type of person.
That was all number one.
Krista took a big, lung-filling, solid breath. She read the list again.
Took out a tab of paper to scrawl down some notes and a plan of attack.
Got overwhelmed.
In that order…
And then, to stop herself from crying in frustration—which was a huge flaw of hers—she glanced up with the intent at swearing into the open space, and noticed a looming, male figure over her.
“Ay!”
After her heart rate slowed she realized that the looming figure was merely leaning against the door jamb, and was now laughing at her for yelling at him in surprise.
It was Jacob.
She almost yelled again.
“I came to check in on your setup,” Jacob said, strolling into the office.
“Oh,” she’d just found a drawback to the office. “It’s great. I haven’t been here long, but I can log in and everything.”
“Great,” he sat in a visitor chair.
“I was just reading a list from Sean McAdams about the freaking mountain of work he expects me to do right out of the gate!”
A.K.A. Get out.
“I heard he expects a great deal when he works with someone. Everyone’s a bit surprised he picked you—you being so inexperienced and all—“
She needed to nip that in the bud right quick.
“And I’m sure there are plenty of rumors as to why he picked me, me being so young and inexperienced. I’d expect that from the gossiping Golden Girls of this company, but you, Jacob?” Krista gave her best conspiratorial smile and huffed as she shook her head. Hopefully he would take the bait.
He did.
“Of course they would say that, yes. You have to expect that sort of thing from a bunch of deadbeat old women, don’t you?”
Krista just shook her head in dismay as she looked back at her email.
Look at how busy I am, Jacob. Too busy for the likes of you!
“I saw that report you cataloged, though,” Jacob went on. “I head all of IT, of course, so I make sure the catalogers are doing their job. Yeah, that was quality stuff. All original design. Looks like you got a leg up on the rest of those Research yuppies.”
“Well, I don’t know about that, but since they were all working on Dell, I was the obvious one for the job.”
“Don’t trust that McAdams, though. He has a reputation…”
So do you.
“I haven’t yet. I don’t intend to start now.”
Jacob laughed, “Yeah, you’re a smart one, alright. What are you doing after work?”
She needed to tread lightly here. She didn’t need a stalker. “Oh, my boyfriend is taking me out to dinner.”
“Oh? Oh right. I was going to say we should go for drinks …”
“I can ask if he wants to do that first?” She gave a completely fake, hopeful smile.
Jacob waved it away. “Ah no, that’s alright. Next time. Anyway—I’ll be off.”
Krista bobbed her head, “Alright. Thanks for stopping by. See ya.”
She waited until Jacob was out of sight before she sighed in relief. That was nearly tragic.
She looked back at the list, at her notes, then sat back and pushed away the adrenaline that always came when she realized what she was facing was way over her head. She let her brain clear.
I can do this.
Sean was not kidding when he said he was goin
g to give her a crap load of work. But this…this was a bit ridiculous.
Well, she’d asked for a challenge, and he was giving it to her. He apparently thought she could do it. No one else in the company did. She intended to prove him right.
She ignored everything past the first number. She figured it would just sink her dinghy, which was currently barely floating anyway. She had to get underway with the first requirement before she looked on.
“Okay, here we go.”
She got another cup of coffee, loaded it with creamer, ignored the gossip in the break room as she did so, and started to row in her cushy office chair. Her paddles were search engines, her boat was her new office, and the churning seas were vast quantities of data she couldn’t believe she would ever be able to tame.
The metaphors were just a means to stall.
That Friday rolled around in a numerical fog. Krista had been working long hours, eating lunch while staring at her computer or on the way to the library, and finally, finally making some real progress. Because of that, she felt like she could leave mostly on time without feeling guilty, having used all her resources in efficiency to really chew out a chunk of the list she was given.
She wondered, not for the first time, how everyone else was faring.
The girls had selected a new bar for that week’s Happy Hour. It was only two blocks away so they would barely notice that she was a tiny bit late. She walked in and spotted them immediately. It was the loud F-bomb that gave them away, of course. A couple tourists with San Francisco sweaters, large cameras and red knees smirked.
Krista headed over and climbed up onto a stool, looking for the bartender immediately.
“What the f**k took you so long?” Kate asked.
“Worked a bit over.”
“This whole week you’ve been working your ass off. What gives?”
Krista ordered a Guinness. She was curious to see if it was as good as that place on Monday. Krista had almost suggested they go there, but she was afraid she’d see Sean, so she didn’t bother.
“It’s the penance for the promotion. More pay, an office—yay—but also a crap load more work.”
Krista hadn’t asked about the money, because she was an amateur, but luckily Sean was a man of his word. She got about a ten percent increase. Then did a happy dance in her new office!
“Yeah, so…I was right, then.” Kate laughed.
“Exactly.”
“Seriously, Krista, you just missed the hottest guy,” Jasmine said. “He was all business and serious or whatever, not our type obviously, but God-damned good looking. I bet he could beat out your office guy.”
“I agree,” Kate said. Her tone changed. “He was with this cute broad, though.”
“So? Doesn’t hurt to stare,” Jasmine retorted.
“Speaking of hot guys, whatever happened with that hot guy that f**ked you over?” Kate asked as she sipped her fruity cocktail.
“Do you never pay attention when I talk to you?” Krista said, mentally dodging Kate’s F-bombs. “He’s the reason for the pay raise and new office, remember?”
“Oooooooh, yeah.”
“Definitely not,” Krista replied, taking a sip of her Guinness. It wasn’t nearly as good as the one in the other place. Apparently it was necessary to pick and choose where to drink the Guinness. If it wasn’t poured enough it ended up tasting like burnt ass.
“What about Paul?” Jasmine asked while looking around the bar.
“Yeah, hey! Why do you never mention him?” Kate asked in confusion. “It seems like we always have to ask. Which we then forget about. Which then makes him slip through the cracks…”
Krista shrugged, “Saw him earlier in the week. I had ‘the talk’ with him.”
“What kinda tawk, dawlin?” Kate asked in some kind of New York accent.
“The same one as the last time. ‘I just want to keep it light and easy’ kind of talk. I definitely like him more, it’s just…”
Krista blew out a frustrated breath.
“Someone always winds up at the bottom of the shit heap with those types of things. Just be careful, you know?” Kate commented.
“Yeah,” Jasmine intoned, “someone always falls. Always. Usually the gal.”
“I thought Paul was the one getting a bit too serious,” Krista replied. “I’m just not quite there yet.”
“Well, he was always the chick in that affair anyway.” Jasmine shrugged as if that was common knowledge.
“Doesn’t matta, dawlin--”
“Enough with that damn accent. You suck!” Jasmine gave Kate a little shove.
“--someone’s always gonna fawl.” Kate never really listened.
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Krista said, “It seems—”
“Krista…”
Krista jerked ramrod straight. Cold water trickled down her spine at the same time her sexy-systems started to purr. She turned slowly, noticing Jasmine staring with wide eyes.
There stood Sean, suit jacket taken off revealing a white dress shirt. His tie was removed and his collar loose, allowing his shoulders and arms to be on display. And the pecs…
Krista involuntarily gulped, “Hi Sean.”
Sean regarded Krista for a beat, then looked past her to Kate and Jasmine. When his eyes returned to her, he was clearly asking to be introduced.
I don’t wanna, would probably sound lame.
“Sean, this is Kate,” Krista motioned to her friend, currently frozen with her glass halfway to her mouth. “And Jasmine.” Who still had wide eyes. “Girls, we aren’t playing freeze tag. Also, this is Sean, my current…uh, kinda-boss.”
Sean smiled his most charming smile, causing Jasmine to blink. “It’s nice to meet you ladies. I’ve heard a lot about you. Jasmine,” she blinked again, “I believe you do a Thump-Bird I have been wondering about.”
“Why are you here?” Krista asked, ignoring her friends, who were currently making asses of themselves. And her.
Sean leaned against the bar. It was clear he wanted to sit down. It was also clear he would wait to be invited. Call her rude, but Krista did not want to invite him. She didn’t need work and social life intermingling. Not with this guy.
“I just finished a meeting,” he replied. “I was about to leave when I saw you.”
“Oh, a work meeting,” Kate unfroze. It was clear she thought it was a different kind of meeting.
A brief look of surprise flitted across Sean’s face. He straightened up slightly—he no longer wanted to hang around, it seemed.
“Yes,” he said easily, turning his focus back to Krista. “How is the office? Have you settled in?”
Krista relaxed. Talking about work was fine. That was common ground.
“My chair has my butt print in it,” she laughed. “You weren’t kidding when you said I’d be busy.”
“Have you made any headway?”
Krista sighed, her mind drifting back to the lengthy list sitting on her desk. With her mind distracted and overwhelmed, she missed the mouth-made sound of a helicopter crossed with a pair of giant wings.
She didn’t miss the feeling of getting flicked in the head by Jasmine.
“Damn it, Jaz!” Krista yelled, ducking to avoid further Thump-Birds and rubbing the sore spot on the side of her head. “I’m talking to my freaking boss!”
Sean was laughing. He had one hand braced on the bar, the other clutching his chest. The girls were back to staring.
To Jasmine he said, “It’s okay, I’m not really her boss. But thank you for the demonstration.”
“I told her to stop that sighing,” Jasmine said, coming back to reality. Star-struck never lasted long with those girls.
“Anyway,” Krista said, giving Jasmine a dirty look. “I am working on it. You want a lot of info, so it’ll take time.”
Sean was still smiling. “You have time. Doing a good job is most important, so take the time you need to be thorough. Just let me know if you get overwhelmed.”
�
��If she gets overwhelmed?” Kate said, laughing. “Just look at her. If she gets any more wound up, she’ll go suicide bomber on you.”
“Don’t embarrass me, Kate.”
Sean dropped the fun and honed in on Krista with his business look. Jasmine gave an “oh my” as he said, “Don’t panic, Krista. We have plenty of time. We are in a marathon on this one, not a sprint. I’m not looking for miracles. If you need help with any of it, just let me know and I’ll do whatever I can to help, okay? We’re a team now--we work as a team. Everyone needs to count on everyone else. We won’t let you fall.”
“Good pep talk,” Kate commented, nodding.
“Yeah, it usually works,” Krista answered. She was flushed and embarrassed. As such, she excused herself to the restroom.
~*~*~*~
Sean semi-awkwardly stood in Krista’s wake, trying not to watch the sway of her h*ps as she strode away. He didn’t want to leave without saying good-bye, but he didn’t want to stay with her two friends. Krista had obviously been talking about him, and it didn’t seem positive. Her friends were loyal; they would take him to the cleaners. It spoke well of all of them, but still.
“Krista is a hard worker,” Kate stated when Krista was out of earshot.
Jasmine nodded.
“We were with her in school,” Kate continued. “She worked best when left alone. Give her a goal and a deadline, and stand back. If you don’t rein her in, she’ll go way beyond your expectations. It sounds like that’s what you’re after.”
“Yeah,” Jasmine said, nodding. “And don’t try to play tough guy with her. She’ll just shrink. Give her constructive criticism in a matter-of-fact way and she’ll work harder. Be pushy and angry, she’ll shut down.”
“Oh yeah,” Kate spoke up again, eyes lit up with memories, “and don’t put her with others unless you want her to take over the whole group. She is the worst kind of overachiever you will ever meet. Seriously. She’ll push everyone else around to make sure she gets an A. Or, you know, whatever the goal is.”
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