A New Chapter

by Aiden Bates

  Laughter bubbled up in Myrick’s throat, oddly tickled at seeing this burly, muscular man in a business suit leaning in his chair and playing an air guitar. “I’m not sure if I like metal or not,” Myrick admitted once his laughter fizzled out. “I haven’t really listened to a whole lot of it.”

  “Ah, that’s such a shame!” Tristan clutched at his chest in mock horror. “I’ll have to send you a playlist sometime—you don’t have to like metal, but you should at least try it!”

  Myrick’s heart fluttered at the thought before he had to firmly remind himself that it had nothing to do with romantic intent—they were colleagues sharing their interests, nothing more.

  From there, they started talking about other topics—more music they listened to, movies they’ve watched, anything that came to mind.

  It was...safe, but Myrick wasn’t complaining; when he’d been psyching himself up for something that would be emotionally exhausting and uncomfortable, he was more than fine with safe, with nothing more notable happening than him learning about Tristan’s favorite band. If the worst thing that this night would be was pleasantly boring, he would be more than happy with that.

  He could work with pleasantly boring.

  “I have to admit, it’s good to see you out of the office, boss man!” Tristan laughed heartily. “Though I can't say I'm terribly surprised that you only barely loosen up when it comes to your taste in books.” He grinned playfully. Myrick pursed his lips, debating if it was still too early in their working relationship to reach across the table and swat him on the arm.

  “Good to see you're already taking every opportunity to make light of my even-headedness and professionalism, even off the clock.”

  “I thought we’re never off the clock, boss.” Myrick grinned wryly at Tristan’s haughty expression.

  “Now I know I’m gonna need a drink for dinner with you.” Tristan managed to hand him the alcoholic beverage menu before they both broke down and shared a good-natured laugh. They both looked it over as the waitress came back to check on them.

  “Ah, we actually haven’t looked much at the menu, sorry,” Myrick said sheepishly. “But we’d like to order other beverages, if that’s alright?” The waitress nodded, writing pad at the ready. “A Moscow mule, if you please.” He rested his hands on the smooth wood of the table, a pleasant smile on his face. “And a blackberry iced tea as well, if you don’t mind.”

  “Of course!” The waitress smiled brightly, jotting down the drink order as she turned to face Tristan. “And for you, sir?”

  “A beer on tap for me, preferably a lager, if you've got one.” Tristan said, looking up from the menu.

  “We have a few to choose from,” the waitress smiled and opened the menu to a different section for him. “Take a look over them, when you're ready, just flag me over, and I'll get you taken care of.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me, miss. Could I get a Coke, too, please?” Tristan said as he began to read the section she had shown him. She nodded and went off to get Myrick’s drink started at the bar. Just as well, as it gave Tristan more than ample time to pour over the lager section of the menu he hadn’t seen before. He made a thoughtful hum, one that Myrick heard rumble in his chest as he tapped his chin in thought.

  “Torn between a few choices?” he asked Tristan after a moment of watching him. Tristan tilted his head, eyes never leaving the menu.

  “Unsure of where to start, more like it, but you’re not wrong.” He looked as though he wasn't used to there being so many options for lager, and Myrick couldn’t blame him. Typically, the places he went to only had one or two options for him to pick from, especially a place like an Asian fusion restaurant. “Hmm. Think I'll just try...this one.” He tapped his finger at one specific lager's name, a harvest spice lager that must have struck him as potentially interesting. When the waitress returned with Myrick's drink, he ordered his, and seemed to be glad to receive it cold and frothing. “Now then, what are we thinking for food? Something hot? Something light?” He tilted his head again. “You had a craving for udon, right?”

  “I’m genuinely surprised you remembered, honestly,” Myrick shrugged. “Though at this point I’ll settle for anything; I’ve been regretting not taking a lunch today.” He laughed and flipped the menu closed.

  Tristan let out another thoughtful hum as he flipped through the menu. “I’m wondering what’ll have the most food…”

  Myrick couldn’t stop the laugh bubbling in his throat from spilling out. “Sorry, sorry, I’m not laughing at you, I promise!” Myrick scrambled to explain between laughter. “It’s just…I dunno. I imagine it takes a lot of food to keep you going.”

  “I can’t rightly argue against that,” Tristan said around a chuckle. “I don’t know if it’s apparent, but I do work out quite a bit.”

  “Really!” Myrick gasped, clutching at his chest in mock surprise. “I had no idea!”

  “I know, I’ve done really well hiding it,” Tristan snickered. “That, and I just sorta run hot by default, so I just...burn a lot of calories.” He shrugged. “Feels like I’m always hungry.”

  “If it helps, soup bowls are usually a large amount of food.” Myrick offered, and Tristan flipped over to the soups available. “I like ordering them, even though I barely finish mine.”

  “Maybe that’s the ticket, then!” Tristan said, nodding his head.

  Their choices settled as their chuckles had, Myrick took Tristan’s menu, placing it atop his and setting them off to the side. The waitress noticed this, and came back to take their orders. With nothing left to do but enjoy their drinks and wait, they settled into their seats and sipped, smiling pleasantly at the warmth that crawled down and settled into their chests. Myrick sipped at the blackberry tea he’d ordered alongside his Moscow mule, not wanting to actually get any kind of buzz from the alcohol, opting to just let the warmth of the alcohol loosen the tension in his muscles.

  “I hope the rest of your work day went all right? No stressful meetings or anything like that?” Tristan ventured conversationally. Myrick smirked over the rim of his copper mug as he took a deep pull from his mule. He liked this casual conversation, this easy back and forth with nothing heavy between them. He could just…breathe, and he wasn’t used to that. It was making him feel a little warm—or maybe that was the huge gulp of liquor he just took? He was never good with any kind of alcohol tolerance.

  “Easy enough, thankfully. There were a few stumbling blocks with some of the teams and their execution, but it’s good that I can rely on them to get their jobs done. Even if they struggle here or there, they understand what is expected of them and know what they have to do to get it done.” He grimaced and set his glass down. “There was this one meeting I had, though, that I swear the client, he just doesn’t give a shit about the wellbeing of any of the workers and just wants shit to get done no matter the cost.” He shook his head. “Makes no sense to me; you're wanting to be a long-term client, but you’re not going to at least try to pretend to give a shit about my employees? That they are providing you a service?” Myrick shook his head around another drink of his mule. “I’ve never understood that mentality.”

  “There are some like that, yeah.” Not many, but enough that it made their business transactions and negotiations that much more unnecessarily hellish, they both knew. “I just try to give them the marketing spin to get what I know my team’s gonna need out of the deal, though that only works so many times on so many people.”

  “What about you? How was the rest of your day after I left your office?” Myrick took a drink of his tea, realizing that his face was feeling too flushed to just be nerves; he had to slow down, or he’d have to leave his car.

  Tristan shrugged. “Uneventful, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.” Picking up his beer, he took a pull from the glass and hummed, pleased to find it cold and pleasantly flavored. “Finished up the offer for the on call employees who would be able to shift positions. Even got a few responses and forwarded the
m to human resources to schedule interviews. There was one particular employee that kept trying to interview today with me, but I had to tell him—multiple times—that interviews weren’t set in stone yet.” There was an errant twitch of his lip, giving away his displeasure.

  “How well did that go over?” Myrick said knowingly; he valued all of his employees, though there were more than a few of the ones on call that had simply worked remotely for long enough that they forgot how to talk in a business setting; it’s hard to separate work and home when you work from home, after all.

  “For the most part, fine, but that one guy,” he shook his head and tipped the glass back a bit further. “He should consider himself lucky I’m not the one interviewing him. If he were on my team, I’d have wrung his neck for trying to strong arm anyone into interviewing before they were ready, like they were owed it.” He reached for a napkin and wiped at the foam that caught on his upper lip.

  “You mentioned when I interviewed you that you liked to lead your team fairly but firmly,” Myrick noted with another drink of his tea. “I've been wondering what you meant by that, but I didn't really know how to approach the subject without sounding condescending about it or like I’d judge you for the answer,” he admitted quietly around another mouthful of his drink, sheepish at bringing it up at all. Their soups were delivered to them—tempura udon for Myrick, beef ramen for Tristan, and Tristan picked up his chopsticks, licking his lips hungrily as he eyed his food like a hunter eyes its prey. “I admit to being curious as to how you lead things, though. I’m hardly a newly minted CEO, but I’m not too proud to admit that I’m still learning. I just…I didn’t want you to think I assumed that you were some bully strong-arming your team or anything like that.”

  “There have been stretches where most days, it was damn hard not to feel that way about it, honestly,” Tristan said, his sour tone muffled around the mouthful of noodles he was working on. He finished off his beer and ordered another as the waitress walked past before he elaborated. “None of the projects we got were too challenging, but we would have to fight creative burnout within the team, more often than not.”

  “I don't follow.” Myrick frowned, but genuinely hoped that he didn't sound like he was judging, merely processing and asking for more information to do so. Information that it seemed he was more than willing to provide, once he’d indulged in another large mouthful of broth and beef.

  “It's like this,” He placed his hands on the table, on either side of his massive bowl of ramen. “As an example, take one of my old teammates, Jennifer,” Tristan started, taking a drink of his Coke. “She's a brilliant marketing strategist, never misses a deadline, and I've seen her notes when we hold meetings about projects we’re working on; she nearly writes down everything that’s discussed, and more often than not we had to use them to rely on what went down at the meetings. She's thorough, meticulous, and manages to get damn near everything the client wants on paper exactly how they want it.”

  “Jennifer Hanes?” Myrick asked around a bite of tempura shrimp. Tristan confirmed with a nod of his head as he chewed thoughtfully on a bit of vegetables and noodles, managing to swallow it quick enough to thank the waitress for giving them a refill on their non alcoholic beverages as she passed. “She’s been with the company about a year or so—by all accounts, she’s a model employee.”

  Tristan gave an affirming noise. “She has been the whole time she was on my team. There's just one problem,” he sighed and sipped at the new drink he was given. “She struggles with putting her own thoughts to paper and coming up with ideas confidently enough on her own to not need validation from others.”

  “What do you mean?” Myrick tilted his head, curious about the twist in the tale. “She couldn’t come up with ideas on her own?”

  “She had the opposite problem,” Tristan shook his head. “Whenever I assigned her a solo project, she’d come up with too many ideas and wind up unable to work out which ones were viable for the project. Or worse, she would have a solid idea, but not feel confident enough to move forward with it because she feared that the company would suffer for it. I've observed her in discussions in the meetings about the direction of different projects and how best to proceed with them, and nearly every time, she’s got some damn good ideas we wind up using, if not in that specific marketing bit, then usually in one down the road.” He sighed. “But if I were to hand her a project and ask her to have it done by a specific deadline, she completely freezes. She's able to collaborate with her colleagues on any project, no matter how difficult it is, but the moment she has to rely on her own judgement, she doesn’t trust it.”

  “Then why have her work on solo projects at all?” Myrick felt a peculiar spike of defensiveness on behalf of his employee as he drained his Moscow mule—was this hitting a nerve that he wasn’t used to being struck, he wondered, and marveled at the fact that he didn’t have an immediate answer for that question. “Why not just have her work on team projects?”

  “I mean, sure, that’d probably be the path of least resistance for all parties involved, and I can’t lie and say I’ve never thought about doing just that because it was easier.” Tristan shrugged as he took another drink, polishing off his beer. “But I run into a few problems with that option because there are other members of the team for which the opposite is true, where they can always consistently work on solo projects all the livelong day for me and never miss a deadline, but the moment they have to work with someone else, or the rest of the team, they lose their voice and don’t know what to contribute. And sure, I could just have everyone work with what they’re good at, but that completely divides the team until there isn’t a team, just a bunch of people that happen to have comparable job titles. No one learns, no one grows, and we stagnate.” He grimaced. “Stagnation is bad—for the market, but for people even more so.”

  Myrick wanted to add to the conversation, truly he did, but his throat felt tight, and he didn’t know what to say that didn’t just sound like some weird personal defense of something that wasn’t even aimed at him in the first place. Why was he so affected by this? He’d asked about Tristan’s leadership. Finding words had fled him, he sipped at his tea to hide that he didn’t know what to say or what to feel.

  “So, yeah,” Tristan continued, “there’d be times where I would have to more or less order people around and push them to do things that made them work out of spaces they were comfortable with. I didn’t like it, neither did they, but everyone benefited from it, and usually, that was all it would take for them to start to do it on their own.” Myrick sipped at his broth and quietly slurped some more noodles in favor of just gawking at the man. “For some, the barrier, or at least the biggest one of them, is anxiety; they're being made to work in a space that’s out of their comfort zone, and that just sorta instinctively unnerves us, right? Being out of that zone is never an easy feeling to reconcile.” He took a drink of his Coke pensively. “Even helps me; I’m not comfortable with being forceful, though sometimes you need to have a heavier hand to get something done. It’s a lesson I’ve had to learn the hard way.”

  “That's...wow. I hadn't realized,” Myrick admitted once he’d actually swallowed the mouthful of noodles and vegetables he’d been chewing on in lieu of being able to nibble on Tristan’s words in a physical sense. “I never thought of it that way, but that’s probably just because of the type of teaching and bosses that I've had myself.” He drained his tea and ordered another. “I either had pretty decent bosses that sorta took the befriending approach, or I had complete hardasses that were only interested in results and didn’t care about how they made their employees feel. I had never believed that there was much of a gray area between those two extremes, but then, I suppose a part of me did kinda hope that there was, you know? That middle ground.” Tristan nodded as he took another large slurp of his ramen. “I never led with much of a heavy hand for anything, even when there was a crunch time before a due date, maybe for that same reason—that I was af
raid that I was going to upset my employees in some way.”

  “Oh, they no doubt get upset, at least a little, don't get me wrong,” Tristan said once he'd swallowed the mouthful he had been chewing on. “But they still learn from it, even if they get upset. Because they want to do their best—they want to try. I would rather they grow and accomplish what they were setting out to do in spite of a little upset, rather than try to spare their feelings and watch them fail—within reason, of course.” Tristan grew quiet, opting to focus on his food, and Myrick felt a fissure of panic hit him—the last thing he wanted to do was make his vice president feel like he was judging him or assuming anything of him and his methods of leadership.

  “Thanks for sharing that with me,” Myrick said, his voice earnest. “It’s always good to get other perspectives on stuff.” Tristan looked up, mouth stuffed with food mid-slurp, and Myrick snorted a chuckle. “Anyhow, I can't believe it's me that's saying it, but,” he grinned, “how about we talk about something other than work?”

  “The fuddy duddy wants to talk about extra curricular activities? Outside of work-related issues?” Tristan threw a hand over his forehead dramatically. “Color me surprised!”

  “Oh hush, you.” Myrick laughed in spite of himself. “Though I think you'll find that my interests outside of work are alarmingly fuddy duddy-esque as well.”

  “I already found that out when we started talking about books we’ve read, but that’s okay, I promise! It suits you.” Tristan snickered. “It adds to your simplistic charm.”

  “I'll show you my, 'simplistic charm,' if you keep that talk up, Mister Chefant.” They shared a laugh, but ultimately all talk of work was promptly forgotten in favor of just talking about themselves. Maybe it was the liquor in him but this time, personal talk just sort of came…easier, like he didn’t have to dig to find something that he was comfortable with divulging. Perhaps a better understanding would lead to them actually growing closer like Tristan had mentioned earlier. Some part of him hoped so, as much as he tried to deny it. “Really, though—you’ve been so easy going about all of this.” Myrick shifted in his seat, making an effort to make his shoulders go lax as he leaned into his chair. “It’s only fair that I loosen up.”