“Hold the elevator!” Ororo darted past Yukio’s desk and waved at her with her coffee cup.
“Missed you yesterday.”
“Feeling better,” she promised, which was just enough truth for her. The elevator doors closed on Ororo’s knowing smile and twinkling eyes. Yukio’s narrowed thoughtfully.
“I wanna hear that story,” she muttered aloud. “I bet it’s a doozy.”
Ororo floated to her office in a happy fog, smiling at coworkers she usually ignored in the hall. She hummed to herself during her usual ritual of hanging up her spring-weight trench coat and purse and booting up her PC. She grinned at the flashing light on her voice mail.
“It was killing you, wasn’t it?” she asked the phone, knowing every message was from Selene. She settled into her email first and turned on her iPod, flicking on the speakers on the loading dock. Her stomach was full of warm little tickles and her body, her whole essence felt charged and alive.
Logan. He was the remedy to problems she didn’t even know she’d had.
He drove her home so they could each get ready for work without any obstacles the next day, and obviously, to avoid the inevitable raised eyebrows if they came walking in to the office together. Or from the parking garage, she mused. That would have set lips flapping.
In the meantime, though, anyone could guess she’d hooked up by the sappy grin she couldn’t wipe off her face for most of the morning. Stop smiling like that, she told herself, but that naughty voice that convinced her to hit Logan’s snooze alarm for another quickie before they left argued back I don’t feel like it.
She felt…yummy.
She drifted into the break room for a refill on her coffee and lingered over it, savoring the smell of the cheap brew and taking her time stirring in the tubs of creamer. The swirls were pretty, she pondered; they billowed. Yes, they billowed, if she had to describe it.
“Why’re you grinning into your coffee?”
“No’m not.”
“Yeah. You are.” Scott ducked his face into the carafe and sniffed it suspiciously. “Doesn’t smell like anyone spiked it. You hiding a stash at your desk?”
“Noooooo,” she purred. “Same old coffee. Same old, same ol’.”
“Uh-huh.” He sighed, then shook his head. “I held off the angry mob at the meetings yesterday.” That sobered her quickly.
“Were they angry?”
“Surprised. Slightly irritated. Grumbling about rescheduling two weeks out.”
“Shit. That blows their May renewal.”
“No. The benefit summaries are already out on the database. Tentative and subject to change. That’s where you come in to send them a rate sheet.”
“Will do.” Scott gave her a slow once-over. His lips twitched.
“What’s with the red?”
“I like red.”
“It’s just…wow.”
“It’s just a dress,” she argued.
“Yeah, but…wow. Red.” He wolf-whistled and she flushed, giddy again.
“Stop.”
“Hey, can’t blame a guy for appreciating.”
He hadn’t been the only one. Several mouths dropped open in the corridor and the ladies’ room as she strolled by in a flash of long legs and flared red skirts. Sam nearly had whiplash giving her a double take and accidentally aimed the hose of disinfectant out of the bucket, soaking the suppy closet floor.
“I felt like a little color.”
“Nice change.”
“It’s not that much of a stretch,” she lied, but her mirror told her a different story. She’d brushed her hair and began pulling it back, then changed her mind, running her hands through it. The waves were still soft and slightly tousled from blowing it dry. She tossed the hair pins back onto the vanity and flicked her hair out, letting it fall down around her shoulders. It felt good against her neck. She wasn’t in the mood to contain it.
“I take it you’re feeling better.”
“Oh. Sure. Much.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Thanks for, um…”
“Yeah. No biggie.”
“Ororo?”
“Yes, Scott?”
“Is everything okay now?”
“Yes. Everything’s okay, Scott.” She gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze on her way out.
“No more emergency conferences, right?”
“Not on my agenda,” she called back as she sailed out of the lounge.
“Let me know if I have to take minutes. Or referee.”
*
Selene didn’t read her the riot act.
She railed.
“That meeting was important! You didn’t even call us to let us know you wouldn’t be there!”
“I’m sorry,” Ororo said weakly, squirming in her seat and suddenly feeling naked.
“I had to make excuses to the client. You need to call them and let them know when to expect the rates.”
“I’ll cc you when I send them.”
“Make your apology convincing.”
“I was out sick,” Ororo argued. “That’s a pretty compelling apology.”
“It’s embarrassing when we can’t follow through on a sale,” Selene reminded her, as though she hadn’t spoken. She continued typing almost by rote. Each click felt like a lash with a wet noodle while Selene kept twisting Ororo’s screws. “We have an image to protect, so that means we can’t miss meetings.” She acted like Ororo made her miss the meeting, too. Ororo bit her tongue.
Then Selene finally really looked her over. “That’s what you wore to work today?”
“It struck my fancy.”
“Suit up in something less frivolous when we meet with the client in two weeks. We’re flying out.”
“That’s short notice,” Ororo protested. Heat rushed up her spine.
“We’re doing them a favor. It’ll be good to meet with them on their own turf.”
“You really need me to go with you?”
“Why? Do you have a conflicting project? You shouldn’t. I checked your Outlook.” Ororo quietly seethed. Nice. The heifer was all up in her business…
“No. I’ll work around it.”
“No. You’ll focus on it like your life depended on it,” Selene corrected her. Her dark eyes were hard, holding an expression she reserved for Skeevy Nate in Eligibility who always made changes in the group’s member population without telling anyone. “I brought you with me into this region’s market because I knew you were up to the challenge, Ororo.”
“And I appreciate that.”
“I feel like your attitude lately is lacking.” Ororo bristled.
“I disagree, Selene.”
“You’ve seemed distracted in the meetings. You have to send things out twice when there are errors in the narrative.”
“There aren’t errors in the rates themselves.”
“But sloppy emails can be confusing.”
“They’re hardly sloppy.” Ororo fumed, resisting the urge to jump over Selene’s desk and throttle her. “And if I have to resend something, it’s usually due to changes that were made after I was tagged for the client’s management team, whether it was a change in the sale itself or the population. It doesn’t help when I’m the last to know valuable information.”
“You shouldn’t be the last to know. You get the information at the same time I do. Do you clean out your emails?” Ororo felt frustration twisting her gut and pushing its way onto her tongue.
How dare you. Battle-axe. Ingrate. Shrew.
Ororo was having a hard time reading her. On the one hand, she was her old demanding self, but Selene seemed more harried, and there was a look of exhaustion around her eyes.
“I only clean them out once I know action items from them are complete. I read anything flagged the same day I receive it, and I’m not spending unusual amounts of time away from my desk. I’m where I say I’m going to be everyday. Excuse me if my being out sick was an inconvenience.”
“I work sick all the time,” Selene challenged with a shrug.
Goodie for you. “I’m not made of steel.”
“You have to be in this business and in your role.”
Ororo had it. She stood, almost satisfied with Selene’s frown.
“We’re not through talking.”
“Do you have anything specific for me to take care of aside from contacting the client?” Ororo pointed out. “I need to go over my emails, I know I have a pile of them, and Scott can fill me in on the meeting’s highlights.”
“Yes, he can.” Selene sighed. “I’m not even sure of how to react to you and your behavior today, Ororo.” Ororo felt as though she’d been slapped.
“My behavior isn’t any different than that of anyone else when their character and efforts are being attacked. All you’ve done is take me to task and pretty much insult me since I stepped into your office.”
“I haven’t attacked you! I’ve just pointed out that you don’t seem as interested in your work as you used to be.”
“That’s not true.”
“It’s the impression you’ve given me, and you’ll end up giving it to everyone else if you don’t adjust your attitude.”
“Duly noted. I’m going back to my desk.”
“That’s hardly an adjustment.”
“There’s no need. I’m going to Human Resources.” Ororo made up her mind in an instant. “I’m going to file a complaint against you for harassment.” Selene’s mouth dropped open, and Ororo spun on her heel. “Have a good morning, Selene.”
Adrenaline pulsed through her veins and quickened her heartbeat. If Ororo didn’t have indigestion before, she definitely needed a bottle of Mylanta now. She practically stomped back to her desk, feeling rage bubble out of her and wishing she had stayed to vent some more to get the rest of it out of her system.
The worst part was, she realized as she sat down to her Outlook and her fingers sailed over the keys, was that wasn’t Selene right? Was she as focused as she needed to be on her work?
The last few meetings she’d participated in were a hot mess. She wasdistracted, and on a couple of occasions, Logan provided the distraction. But, she reasoned, he didn’t have anyone breathing down his neck about his “attitude.” It was all on her. It wasn’t fair.
Her personal life was no one’s business, and even if she hadn’t said as much, Ororo got the weird vibe that Selene was keeping tabs on her. What was ironic was that Selene herself wasn’t any better. She wasn’t hiding anything; her involvement with Donald Pierce was common knowledge and fodder for the water cooler. If she called Ororo out on “unprofessional behavior” because of her personal relationship, it was the pot calling the kettle black.
“Take that,” Ororo muttered under her breath. She was just tired. Enough, already.
The worst part was the death of her good mood. She wished she had Logan’s ear to bend, but her best bet was to focus on the matter at hand. Her note to the Human Resources inbox was succinct and to the point, detailing Selene’s words almost verbatim, emphasizing the term “sloppy.” She cited other instances that came to mind, particularly Selene’s mercenary control of Ororo’s schedule to suit herself, whether it was for meetings or other aspects of her projects that often led to her working late. She left out that she wouldn’t have even come to the Boston site if not for having her arm twisted in the guise of “having a new opportunity and broadening her horizons.”
A guilty little voice inside her nagged that her change of location hadn’t been the worst thing…not really. Boston was slowly growing on her, but she missed her friends and her father. But she’d never come out and say that moving north had been her own idea.
She was just about to hit ‘send’ on her message when her instant messenging popped onscreen.
YukioHarada: Got time for a coffee?
Ororo sighed, then nodded to herself.
OroroMunroe: Yup. Be there in a sec. Just wrapping something up.
YukioHarada: Such as?
OroroMunroe: Just a noose around my freakin’ neck…
YukioHarada: Ouch. Don’t even joke about that shit. C’mon. Coffee time. I can stand a little bitching.
Bless her heart. It was nice to have at least one female in the office to vent to in lieu of Anna Marie or Ali or Monica and Stevie. Ororo grabbed her mug, not caring that it was still half-full, and she hustled out, leaving the message where it was but opening up her screensaver with her password. There. She hoped she didn’t run into “Ursula” on her way to the lounge.
Yukio was already pouring herself a fresh cup.
“Top me off,” she sighed.
“Dragon Lady giving you a hard time?”
“I might have just cut off my own head. I threatened to turn her in to HR.”
“Ouch…damn. Feeling your oats today?”
“No. Just feeling fed up.”
“You sure were in a good mood before.”
“That’ll teach me to look like I have a life.”
“I know, but still…you were glowing.” A reluctant smile toyed with the corners of Ororo’s mouth. “C’mon, spill.”
“I had a good day. So sue me.”
“You were out sick.”
“After a fashion.”
“You played hooky.”
“Don’t broadcast it.”
“No. I knew it. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. Bad girl. You didn’t bring me with you.”
“Next time.”
“You promise?”
“With sugar on top?”
“Male?”
“Maybe.”
“Anyone local?”
“Ladies don’t tell.”
“So that’s a yes.” This time Ororo didn’t restrain her grin.
“Don’t broadcast it. But I had a great day.”
“Was it long overdue?”
“Yukio, you have no idea.”
“Sure I do. I have a Match membership I’m gonna let expire in a few days. We’re talking ‘water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink.’”
“That bad?”
“Worse.”
“Seriously?”
“The last one rattled off a mile-long laundry list in what he’s looking for in a committed relationship, then told me he had to go, his mom wanted her turn on her PC.”
“Yeah. No.”
“You feel my pain.”
“Sounds like a story that needs something stronger than coffee.”
“Seven more hours til happy hour. That’s six and a half hours too many.” She nudged Ororo playfully. “So it was good?”
“It was wonderful.” Ororo re-sugared her coffee and stirred it absently. “It was just…nice. I feel more complete.”
“That good?” Ororo nodded. “Damn.”
“It’s just…I don’t want anyone to pinch me.”
“Me either. Hate to see you two go back to scowling at each other on your way into the elevator.”
“Yukio!”
“It’s true. It’s like watching two kids in class throwing spitballs at each other and sending I-hate-you notes back and forth.”
“It wasn’t that bad.”
“It was worse. Mostly because you two are adults.”
“He started it,” Ororo mock-whined.
“Likely story.” Suddenly Yukio sobered, and Ororo turned to follow the path of her eyes.
Speak of the handsome devil…
Ororo tried but failed to hide her knowing smile as Logan approached, and he was having just as hard a time processing her appearance.
“Wow,” he muttered, eyeballing her like a dog salivating over a fresh steak.
“Hi.”
“Hey.”
“I’m outty.” Yukio waved as she took off, and neither of them spared her more than a glance.
“Hi,” Ororo repeated, suddenly feeling shy. A warm flush coursed over her, making her skin prickle.
“We covered that already.”
“I like the part where we said ‘Good morning’ better.”
“Stop that,” he chided her, but his lips twitched as he filled his coffee cup. “Glad ya made it in. My butt was draggin’ on my way in.”
“Awwww.” She didn’t sound sympathetic.
“Didn’t sleep much,” he murmured. “Don’t know why.”
“Fancy that. Might want to try a cup of warm milk next time. Or a bedtime story.”
“Gonna pass on the milk. That other thing sounds good, though.” Ororo cleared her throat. “That’s some dress.”
“This old thing?”
“Ain’t yer typical uniform.” His eyes were smoldering. Ororo wondered if the supply closet in the conference room was unlocked.
“I wasn’t feeling typical today.” They both straightened up and moved slightly apart when two of the young men from the mail room entered and made a beeline for the vending machine. Okay. This is awkward. Ororo was at a temporary loss. Fessing up to Yukio was one thing, but they had to be professional with everyone else in the office.
Which was hard when her first instinct was to want to twine her fingers through his and nuzzle his neck, to close in on the scent of his cologne. Sneaking off to his office was out of the question, and they didn’t have any “conveniently” scheduled meetings.
Logan wasn’t having any easier a time of it, staring at her. His fingers itched to stroke that uncontained, wanton hair, and it was all he could do not to abscond with her to a broom closet and mess her up some more.
It was just hard. Her body craved the feel of his, and his voice stroked her nerve endings. Damn it.
He took a different tack and talked shop.
“Got a client go-see. I hafta fly out on Thursday.”
“Where to?”
“Oldsmar.”
“All the way down there? What are they buying?”
“Three mirror plans and dental.”
“Nice.”
“Will be if they sign on it.”
“Hope they don’t flex it to death.”
“Won’t hurt us if they do. It’ll put more change in our pocket in the long run.” Ororo sighed.
“As long as they know that.”
“Of course they know that. It ain’t rocket science,” Logan argued, cocking a brow. Ororo bristled.
“I know that, but make sure they know what we can and can’t sell them. Don’t promise them miracles.”
“Ororo, I’m a broker, and they’re a multimillion-dollar sneaker company. Think I can offer ‘em a miracle or two.”
“Check the mandates.”
“Already did,” he said impatiently, and suddenly neither of them were smiling, flirting or otherwise. “I know how to prepare for a sale!”
“I’m not saying you can’t. I just hope there aren’t any complications…”
“Ain’t gonna be any on my end.” His tone implied that there could never be on his end.
She stood her ground. “I guess what I’m saying is that you shouldn’t make other departments or team members work that much harder to implement what you sell.”
“Bullshit,” he snapped. “That’s bullshit. It’s called job security, darlin’. You get paid good money to implement whatever me or any other broker or account manager sells for this company!”
“I also lose sleep reworking the rates every time we massage our standard plans to give them a deal-“
“It’s called being flexible!” He threw up his hands. “Try it sometime!”
“Oh, no, you didn’t,” she snarled. “You’re calling ME inflexible?”
“Yes! No!”
“You said yes first.” She turned on her heel, suddenly finished with the conversation. She wanted to drink her coffee while she was still in her right mind, not dump it over his head.
*
Before Ororo could cross the t’s and dot the I’s on her letter to Human Resources, she saw an urgent, red-flagged message from Selene in her inbox.
Subject: I think we need to have a discussion
Ororo snorted, then clicked Open.
I hope you won’t make a hasty decision following our talk this afternoon. I would hate to see this escalated to another department if we can resolve this offline.
“I bet you would,” Ororo muttered under her breath, still fuming over not just one, but two arguments that day, and it wasn’t even fucking noon. Her nerves were still raw and she was vibrating with stress, but she controlled the urge to hit “Send” on her letter, instead saving it as a draft. She minimized that message and instead finished reading Selene’s.
I know my style of management may seem…less than accommodating. I love my job, and I feel strongly about doing it right, and about the image we present to our clients. I don’t have a lot of patience for members of my team who don’t feel the same way I do. I’ve worked with you for some time now, Ororo, and I thought we understood each other up until now.
That being said, I think you might have been right before, and that my decision to move you along to this branch to continue our work with the company’s northeastern market was presumptuous. I apologize for that; I thought I was offering you a better opportunity for growth.
Ororo’s heart hammered and she broke into a cold sweat.
Was the heifer trying to fire her?
Aw, hell, no!
Ororo’s fingers trembled as she went to the printer icon and clicked on it. Hard copies had saved her with Selene before. She went back to her original message to HR and added to it, copying and pasting in Selene’s note with more of her own narrative. Now it appears my status with the company is being threatened, as well. I am not comfortable with my current place in this office, under my current supervision.
She printed the whole thing and placed the hard copy into a manila folder, placing it into her own personal file in her desk. There. Let Selene tell her again that she didn’t manage her emails properly…
What shook Ororo up the most was that for a moment, she read the subject line in Selene’s message and thought that maybe she’d softened a bit and decided to be human.
“Never in a million fucking years,” she muttered under her breath. She blew a lock of her hair back from her face. It was beginning to bother her. She rummaged through her pocketbook, fuming, until she found her small brush and a large plastic hair clip. She yanked the brush through her thick waves and bunched them up into a Spartan knot, clipping all of it back except one of two tendrils that hung down the back of her neck. There. That helped.
The rest of the day trudged on at a snail’s pace. Ororo just wanted to go home, kick something, and consume a pint of chocolate ice cream for dinner. Or do anything else that would make this day seem like it never happened.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Summary: The real morning after the morning after.
Okay. I’ve gotten over the worst of my writer’s block, which rears its head more when I have to fight over the PC with my husband.
Chapter End Notes:
But wait, it gets worse!!
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