The Neanderthal Box Set: A Workplace Romance, 2020 Revised and Expanded Edition

by Reid, Penny

  “The guards are likely outside now. We should bring them some coffee or something.” Elizabeth looked up from the cell phone and handed it back to me. “The friendship one about peeing is funny. I think I’m going to use that.”

  I accepted the hateful phone from Elizabeth and stared at the last two messages. Quinn, true to his word, continued to send me jokes every day, which only served to confuse me further.

  Marie started knitting again. “Time will tell. I say just wait and see; if he calls you on Thursday, see what he says.”

  I stood and stretched. “You’re right! I’m done thinking about this. Done, done, done!” I swished my hand in a circle and snapped three times then walked to the bathroom, wanting to excuse myself in hopes that my absence would change the subject.

  I wasn’t in the bathroom long, just enough time to wash my hands, when I heard a knock on the door.

  “Just a minute; I’m almost done,” I called absentmindedly.

  “Janie, it’s Kat. Can I come in?”

  “Yeah, I’m almost done.”

  “No…” Kat’s voice dropped to a whisper. I could tell she had her lips close to the crack in the door. “I mean, can I come in and join you? I need to tell you something.”

  I opened the door then turned to search for a towel. “What’s up? Are you ok?”

  Kat’s voice was heavy with hesitation. “I found…something…out.” The soft click of the door closing surprised me so I turned to face her, mopping up the dampness of my hands with an amazingly fluffy and absorbent towel. I made a mental note to ask Sandra where she purchased her towels.

  When Kat didn’t continue, I lifted my eyebrows. “About what?”

  She looked entirely too serious, like my dad did the day he told me Santa Claus wasn’t real. I was fifteen.

  “It’s about your job.” She hesitated again, tucking her brown wavy hair behind her ears while she collected her thoughts. “I found out why they let you go.”

  “Oh.” I gripped the towel; it was so squishy. I’d forgotten that Kat had agreed to try to find out why I was let go. At present, I didn’t particularly care.

  “Janie…”

  She said my name in a way that is usually followed with something along the lines of Where were you the night of the murder? or You’re going to want to sit down for this. I increased my grip on the towel.

  “It was Mr. Holsome.”

  I blinked. Silence stretched. Kat’s eyes continued to watch me with wide-rimmed caution.

  “Mr. Holsome?” I repeated, confused. “You mean, Jon’s dad? My Jon’s dad? That Mr. Holsome?”

  Kat nodded and leaned against the closed door. She sighed.

  “I don’t…” I blinked at her again and sat down on the toilet seat lid. “I don’t understand. Why would Jon’s dad want me to lose my job?”

  She looked miserable. “I don’t know the why, but I can tell you I’m one hundred percent certain he was responsible. He threatened to pull out of the South Side project if they didn’t let you go, and he was insistent that it had to be that day.”

  That day.

  That day I found out Jon had cheated on me. That day I broke up with him before I left for work that morning.

  Kat must’ve seen the wheels turning in my rickety brain because she said, “Do you think Jon asked him to do it?”

  I shook my head. I could only huff a response. “I don’t know; I can’t…” My words trailed off. I thought about the accusation Kat voiced, and that I’d been thinking.

  It didn’t seem likely, but I was disturbed to realize it seemed plausible. Jon had said on more than one occasion, when we were together and since we’d broken up, that he wanted me to rely on him, that he wanted to take care of me, that I needed him. I didn’t feel that way; I wondered why he did. Maybe it was because he felt it was true.

  Maybe it was because his father had been able to end my employment with a phone call.

  “What are you going to do?” Kat was twisting her hands in front of her, nervous and anxious on my behalf.

  “I don’t know.” I shook my head then said it again. “I don’t know.”

  It didn’t seem fair that Jon should be able to, on a petulant whim, decide to make a call that made me lose my job; a job, mind you, that I was quite skilled at but that I didn’t miss. I honestly didn’t know what I was going to do. Part of me wondered if it even mattered. Jon couldn’t do anything to me now; I wasn’t dating him anymore. He and his father had no influence with my current employer. I breathed a sigh of relief at the realization. I felt secure at my new job. I felt confident and safe.

  Maybe Jon had done me a favor.

  Chapter Fifteen

  On the Thursday of my third week, I experienced the first tremor of uncertainty about my new job, and by tremor of uncertainty, I mean lightning strike of horror.

  Quinn had been gone since Sunday night, but he was still sending me text message jokes. I read them, enjoyed them, but didn’t respond as I was also starting to feel silly about my behavior. When he dropped me off that night, I gave in to my seesaw of self-doubt, and it made me nauseous.

  Why would he continue to text if he were trying to avoid me?

  Additionally, on Wednesday night, he texted me a reminder about our phone call for Thursday. I promised myself that I would talk to Quinn on the horrid cell phone, and I wouldn’t participate in any playground equipment emotional drama-coasters.

  However, the incident on Sunday and subsequent time apart on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday allowed me some time to reflect: I didn’t really know much about Quinn. I didn’t even know what his job was, and I worked with him. I didn’t understand Quinn’s role or title in the company, as no one really spoke about him, and when they did, they always called him Mr. Sullivan.

  Therefore, I gathered the nerve to ask Steven about Quinn.

  Steven and I were having lunch in the break room, which was more of a long hallway along the perimeter of the building with a window view of the city, and discussing my upcoming first official business trip and client meeting.

  Steven and I would be flying to Las Vegas next Monday. He explained that the client owned Club Outrageous (which made me think of Quinn) and wanted to use Guard Security for another club in Las Vegas. The client also wanted to discuss arranging personal security through Infinite Systems.

  “Does Cypher Systems have an office in Las Vegas?” I dipped the chicken in my taco salad in a small cup of sour cream before taking a bite.

  Steven shook his head mid-chew-swallow.

  “What about New York? Do we have any office locations other than Chicago?”

  Steven just finished dipping his spicy tuna roll in soy sauce and answered before he ate. “Sweet Pea—can I call you Sweet Pea? No. It’s just us lunatics.”

  “Don’t call me Sweet Pea. What about Quinn Sullivan? Where is his office?” I tried to sound ambivalent; I watched Steven over a forkful of taco salad as I tried to suppress the blush threatening to overwhelm my cheeks. I hoped he didn’t notice.

  He shook his head. “Mr. Sullivan has an office here in the building, but as you’ve likely noticed, he doesn’t use it much during normal business hours. I think he prefers to be out in the field.”

  “Why does everyone call him Mr. Sullivan?”

  Steven placed a generous portion of shaved ginger on his sushi and lifted his eyebrows at me. “What do you want me to call him? Sully? Quinning the winning?”

  “No, what I mean is, we call Mr. Davies ‘Carlos,’ and everyone else here goes by their first name. Why don’t we call Mr. Sullivan ‘Quinn’?”

  Steven shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve worked here for three years; we’ve just always called him Mr. Sullivan.” Steven seemed to think about the issue as he chewed his sushi; then, with a half full mouth, he added, “The only time I see him is for client meetings, and it just makes sense to call him Mr. Sullivan—in front of the client, I mean. Maybe it makes him seem more important in their eyes.” Steven shrugged aga
in and swallowed. “Well, I guess he is important—strange, but important.”

  “What do you mean ‘strange’?”

  “Well, you spent time with him last Friday, right? When you had to work late? So typical. He insisted on taking you out personally to train you.” Steven used air quotes to emphasize the last two words. “I told Carlos I thought he just wanted someone to glare at. I can’t believe you’ve been so nice about it.”

  I wrinkled my nose at Steven. “What do you mean? He doesn’t glare at me.”

  Steven gave me a sympathetic look. “Only you would be so gracious, Janie.”

  I put my fork down and stared at Steven, my tone incredulous. “What are you talking about? I’ve learned a lot from him. I’ve found the time to be beneficial.” I felt the need to defend Quinn; I didn’t want Steven thinking Quinn had been rude or done a poor job training me and, therefore, get Quinn in trouble.

  “Oh really?” Steven lifted his eyebrows.

  “Yes, really.”

  Steven pursed his lips and gave me a pointedly disbelieving stare. “I once spent twenty minutes alone with him during a car ride from the airport to the site. During that time he said a total of three words and his face didn’t change expression once—no, wait, that’s wrong.” He held his hands up as though to stop me from interrupting. “He had two expressions: at first he was stoic, but then, toward the end of the twenty minutes, his expression changed to apathetic. This is all despite the fact that my conversation was obviously thrilling.”

  “Stoic and apathetic are synonymous.” I tried not to laugh as I imagined Steven and Quinn alone in a car together for twenty minutes: Quinn glaring at Steven while Steven regaled the silent car with tales of his weekend clubbing exploits and latest furniture purchase.

  “Sure, he’s very pretty, I’ll give you that, but you can’t tell me that you don’t think there is something off about him.” Steven looked over both his shoulders in an exaggerated manner then offered in a faux whisper. “Did you know he sometimes joins the security guards downstairs and acts like he is one of them?”

  I twisted my lips to the side, debating whether to tell Steven that I originally met Quinn when he escorted me out after being laid off from my last position. Instead, I said, “Well, isn’t he? Isn’t he one of them?”

  Steven studied me for a moment before replying in a very dry tone. “In a small way, yes, he is. In a much larger and more correct way, no, he is most definitely not.”

  “Hmm.” I picked up my fork again and poked at my salad, feeling pensive. “Why do you only see him during the client meetings?”

  “He doesn’t go to all the client meetings, really; only if there is a problem or if he is vetting a new client. Usually he sends Carlos.”

  My fork stopped mid-air between my plastic container and my mouth. “Wait.” I could almost hear the clicking and squeaking of the gears in my head. “What do you mean ‘sends Carlos’? Wouldn’t the boss decide who goes to what meeting?”

  Steven blinked at me three times, his eyebrows pulling up so they looked like little umbrellas over his gray eyes. “What nonsense are you speaking? Mr. Sullivan is the boss.”

  Time stopped.

  Everything seemed suspended as my brain struggled to accept reality. It was one of those moments you reflect on, later in life, and wonder how your brain could have thought so many thoughts; how your heart could have felt so many feelings in the small span of a single second. The only explanation was that time must have stopped.

  Quinn is my boss.

  I attempted to think back over the times I’d been with him and looked for clues. I found several. Actually, I found more than several. I wanted to hide my face in my hands and cry, but I resisted the urge by biting fiercely on my bottom lip.

  How could I miss something so obvious?

  Quinn’s words from the previous week came back to me: “You are completely blind to the obvious.”

  Really, he was more than just my boss; he was The Boss. He owned the company. He owned a really impressive, profitable company. Any previous balloons of hope I had been floating in my alternate reality version of my carnival of dreams were immediately deflated if not brutally burst. This guy who I’d been fantasizing about for going on two months and with whom I thought I was kinda sorta maybe dating was not just out of my physical attractiveness league; he was out of all my leagues.

  I was in awkwardly shaped head Neanderthal league, and he was in the hot ninja millionaire league.

  As a coworker, Quinn and I were on somewhat equal footing. Even if nothing romantic materialized in the long term, at a minimum I thought we were building a friendship. I hoped we were building a friendship, because blast it all, I really liked him. I thought about him with alarming frequency. He was interesting and good to talk to, and I wanted to have a lasting connection with him.

  At least, until this moment, that’s what I thought. Now that I thought about all that had transpired recently—the events of the past weekend, the so-called training session, the text message jokes, our long conversations—I was becoming more and more comfortable. I thought our time together was leading toward something abiding—something shared between two people whose relationship was more than that of being coworkers.

  I was blind. I was so beyond blind. I was stupid. I was wrong. We weren’t becoming friends. Normal people don’t have enduring relationships with hot millionaires.

  What did he say to me that night after the concert? He told me that he didn’t date.

  Once he lost interest in me, and he was bound to sooner rather than later, I would see him periodically at best during client meetings where he was Mr. Sullivan and I was Janie Morris, his employee. These labels of boss and employee defined our relationship like the minefields around Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, define it as a U.S. Naval Base.

  You don’t go for a walk in a minefield.

  You aren’t friends with your boss.

  And you certainly never set yourself up to have bedroom fantasies about him or unrequited longitudinal crushes. Lusting after your boss was like having a thing for your English teacher in high school; it made you more than a little pathetic.

  My surprise must have been visible, because Steven’s face changed suddenly from confusion to reluctant understanding. “Oh…oh my. You didn’t know. You didn’t know that Mr. Sullivan is the boss?”

  I endeavored to swallow against a suddenly dry throat. “No,” I said flatly.

  “How could you not know that?” It was Steven’s turn to sound incredulous. “He recruited you. You spent all day Friday with him. I’m sure we’ve discussed him before now; who did you think I was talking about when I said ‘the boss’?”

  I didn’t hear the rest of Steven’s musings. I was in the Matrix, and I’d just unwittingly taken the red pill; my thoughts became as agitated and circular as a washing machine on the spin cycle. We ate in silence for several minutes, and I mostly succeeded in avoiding eye contact with Steven.

  After a few minutes, Steven interrupted my internal avalanche of misery. “I thought you knew when he hired you.”

  I met his eyes with a frown. “He said…he said that he could get me the interview, but I’d need to get the job on my own.” I was having difficulty keeping my voice steady.

  Quinn was wealthy. Actually, he wasn’t just wealthy; he was a stinkin’ rich son of a b… biscuit. And, once again, I had allowed someone else to be the captain in my sea of destiny. Once again, I was an accidental bystander to my illusion of success.

  Steven seemed to understand my thoughts. “You really did get the job on your own.” My features must have betrayed my doubt and unhappiness because he put his chopsticks down and reached across the table, his gray eyes softening. “No, really, listen to me, Janie. I’ll admit, Mr. Sullivan has never recommended someone for an interview before. Usually he just recruits them and they start. I’ll tell you what, he is always right. For instance, look at me.” He gave me a wry smile.

  I tried to manage one in r
eturn, but couldn’t help feeling a mixture of anguished devastation and annoyance with myself. I had just discovered that either Jon or his father had arranged for my interview with the last firm and likely the job itself, and look what had happened. I didn’t like thinking that the only reason I was hired at Cypher Systems was that Quinn Sullivan had decided on a whim that he wanted to kiss me, and I was good with numbers.

  “Honey Cakes—can I call you Honey Cakes?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. “Really listen to me. I knew you were going to be great if Mr. Sullivan recruited you. But, if it makes you feel better, I showed you that iPad spreadsheet with the wrong formulas on your first day as a test, one which you passed with flying colors.”

  I sighed, suddenly finished with my salad; I didn’t want to eat ever again. “Thanks.”

  He eyed me with what I perceived to be a speculative glare. “This is his company; his baby. Do you really think he’d hire someone who wasn’t amazing? Again, look no farther than your partner at this table as proof.”

  I tried for a half smile and rolled my eyes. “No, you cannot call me Honey Cakes.”

  What I couldn’t tell Steven was the real reason why I felt so upset. The clarity of the moment stung. My chest hurt and I didn’t really comprehend until right then that my aforementioned balloons of hope in the alternate reality carnival of dreams had been quite inflated despite all my best efforts to keep my footing on the ground.

  Suddenly the idea of seeing Quinn again filled me with dread. My heart skipped two beats when I remembered my upcoming trip to Las Vegas.

  “Will he…uh…” I cleared my throat and wiped my hands on my napkin. “Will Mr. Sullivan be at the client meeting in Las Vegas?”