One Little Mix Up_A Second Chance, Office Romance

by Robin Edwards

  “Wait!” I protested.

  “Yes Beth?” Vince raised his eyebrows.

  Suddenly everyone was looking at me. Vince, the department heads, Trevor…everyone in the conference room looked directly at me. I can’t team up with him. I barely met the guy and he already rubbed me the wrong way but I don’t know what came over me. I couldn’t say no but I also knew that if I didn’t say something now, I’d be stuck with him.

  “Beth, did you have any questions before we move on?”

  “Uh…” I looked at Trevor who was looking at me expectantly with that evil grin of his so I relented and sagged further into my chair. “No, no questions at all.”

  “I also wanted everyone to know that the other half of his time, he will be shadowing Clara in Human Resources and will be assisting her in developing an employee wellness program. As you know one of the things we lacked at NSK is really showing enough support and appreciation to all of you so I am looking forward to seeing what they come up with over the next few weeks.”

  I tossed my pencil on my notepad and sank further into my chair. This was the beginning of my perfect life.

  Chapter Seven

  BETH

  It’s been a couple of weeks since Trevor was assigned to me and for the most part he’s been on his best behavior regarding trying to sleep with our female colleagues but he’s still as irritating as he possibly could be. I even gave him a hard time about volunteering me for something I didn’t even want.

  “Thanks for that.” I ranted as I caught up to him after the meeting.

  “You’re welcome.” he grinned and kept walking. I had to walk slightly faster to match his stride, but I was an avid cycler and runner, so it was no problem for me. I was determined to let him know how I felt about the situation.

  “I wasn’t thanking you.”

  “You just said thank you. That’s what it means: to give thanks.” he explained in a condescending tone.

  “It’s called sarcasm, you jerk.”

  “Hey, what’s with all of the hostility?” he feigned surprise as we stopped in front of his office.

  “I never asked you to volunteer me to be your guide, so where do you get off doing it?” I asked. I was angry.

  “I don’t know. I remember Vince telling me that you were one of his top coordinators and that you were only here for a few weeks before you were promoted. I figured you were the best of the best to learn from.” he shrugged.

  “I am not the best one here. Have you talked to Corey or Jesse? They are the top performers here. Did you ever think about asking them?”

  “Yeah but your cubicle is so much closer to my office than their cubicle.”

  “Ugh!” I fumed before I stomped away.

  Since the day of staff meeting we haven’t seen eye to eye since and he hasn’t respected my training and advice when it came to clients and anything else related to the company.

  He didn’t even take my advice when he was trying to come up with ideas for the Employee Wellness Program on his own since Clara went on Emergency Family Leave. Vince asked the both of us to work together, come up with some ideas and present them to the company heads and Human Resources in a few weeks. Ugh.

  Half of the time, I didn’t even know where he was. I didn’t know where he was right now. The agreement was he and I were supposed to touch base three times a day because frankly I couldn’t handle him much more than that. He was stopping by my office every minute to ask me a dozen questions and I would always have to go into a long-winded explanation and in the end, I figured it was easier to handle that specific task myself. I caught on and I set up some ground rules and told Trevor we were going to meet for an hour at specific times during the day to talk about the things we needed to do and that I wasn’t going to do anything for him any longer. We had to work together if we were going to be successful at this and frankly at the amount of time we were wasting, I didn’t think that was going to happen for us.

  So far it was working until he started disappearing during our designated times. It was a few minutes past four o’clock our final meeting of the day, every day and he was late again.

  “Ugh where is he?” I wondered. I got up and went to his office only to find it empty but his computer was on. Curiosity got the best of me and I wondered what type of privileged emails he must be getting, if he was even checking his emails and did he even respond to them.

  After checking a few of them, I couldn’t help but groan in frustration. He hadn’t responded to half of the emails and the ones he didn’t return were some of the more important ones. Was he neglecting seemingly difficult emails on purpose? Was it because he didn’t know what to do and was too proud to ask me? Undoubtedly all he had to do was ask me and I would have helped him, but I wouldn’t have answered them for him.

  He still hadn’t replied to emails about his accommodations for the upcoming conference, his thoughts regarding my idea for the company to throw together a charity 5K to raise money for one of our new clients’ charities, or an email that I guess was from his mother about how his new job was going. How can you ignore even your own mother? Did he not care? Did he not have a good relationship with her?

  The emails he did reply to seem to be from the females in the department and from other parts of the company that we didn’t ever interact with, so I couldn’t even fathom how he also met them. Is that what he did with his time when he went missing? Did he go and wander to other departments and secretly set up a rendezvous with them? Ugh.

  The emails that seemed to take up the most of his inbox were notification emails from Sports Illustrated, Rhonda from the legal department (odd), and personal conversations between Trevor and Vince.

  I couldn’t even really understand half of what they were saying – especially all of their inside jokes – but they were apparently really close because there were more emails to and from him than anyone else about personal topics. What was interesting was their emails weren’t always pigheaded, a lot of it was Vince giving Trevor advice about different pursuits Trevor must be making in his life. Was Vince like a mentor to Trevor because he didn’t have a father in his life?

  I didn’t understand him and why he didn’t even RSVP a yes or no to invites he was contacted about. If I’d been invited to events and parties that sounded so amazing I would have RSVP instantly. I was always up for a good time if I had the time available. Yes, please! I would very much like to go. Thank you so much!

  A moment later, I heard footsteps enter the office. Trevor was back from wherever he disappeared to.

  “Oh, hi.” I start. I was caught red-handed.

  “You are one smart cookie,” he interrupted ignoring the fact that I was snooping through his emails and dropped his jacket on one of the guest chairs opposite where I was sitting.

  “Okay, why am I a smart cookie?”

  “You said the other day that Mikey, MLB’s Rookie of the Year was hesitant about representation with most management companies including ours but would never really give any real explanation.”

  “Yeah?” I wondered what he was getting at.

  “I called him for a chat and mentioned how he has turned down every single offer of representation like you and I discussed. It all came out surprisingly. You were right about how he was looking for someone that truly cared about him and the way he wanted to be perceived and the causes he cared about. He turned down every single representation including ours in the past because it was apparent early on in their meetings that no one cared about that. He and I had a lunch meeting today, but I think he’s going to agree to sign with us finally.”

  “Oh,” I say. “Very good.”

  “No,” he said adamantly. “It’s more than good. It’s completely awesome. Incredible, even. Do you know how great this is? How much Vince is going to love this?”

  “A lot?” I guessed.

  “Oh, hey. You were also right about the fact that you suspected he hated to be called Mikey. He always preferred Michael, but I guess the medi
a never paid attention to that either. No one. Except you of course. So I owe you big time.”

  “You don’t have to owe me.” I stood up and walked towards the door. “Anyway, I won’t keep you. I’m glad it all worked out for you.”

  “For us.” he said and smiled.

  “Right.” I nodded. I was a little bummed and upset that he didn’t include me, but I guess he decided everything on a whim. He seemed like he did everything on a whim without any regard to consequences or who his choices impacted.

  As I left his office, I remembered something and peeked my head in as he sat down at his desk, “One more thing.”

  “Yes?” he asked.

  “You should accept some of those invites.” I suggested.

  “What invites?”

  “Some of those party invites. Some of those look fun.” I nodded toward his computer.

  “Oh, those. Nah, I’ll take my chances and miss them. Unless…”

  “Unless what?” I asked.

  “Unless you agree to go to some of them with me. It’s the only way I would go.” he teased.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. Are you nuts?”

  “I could be. Just say the word, and I’ll click accept.” he grinned with raised eyebrows.

  “No thanks.” I laughed as I exited his office once again. I was going to say something else about taking one of those other women that seemed to be falling at his feet, but then I stopped because it felt awkward to say that.

  Despite the sudden banter, I didn’t know Trevor and it was only up until recently did he annoy me. I certainly didn’t know him or anything about his life. Although the truth was, after reading the dozens of email exchanges between Vince and Trevor, I felt I knew more about the both of them than I ever did prior to today. They were funny and seemed fun to be around. Anyway, it’s his life. His uncle. Whatever, I don’t really care.

  “Beth!” Luke, our Marketing Director walks into the open space of my cubicle interrupting my thoughts. For a brief period of time, before Luke was promoted to Marketing Director, he and I hung out a few times when I was new to the company but that stopped a couple of months ago but that didn’t stop him from flirting with me and wanting to take things farther than a casual date.

  He was fun to hang with and was witty. He also loved spoiling me but after a while, I didn’t think it was a good idea because he didn’t seem to know how to balance the two. One minute he was utterly indifferent to me and the other half of the time he was incredibly flirty in the sexual way. He needed to decide whether he wanted to continue to hang out or just be my boss. He had yet to make a distinction or a decision between the two.

  “Oh, hi!” I quickly answer. “How are you doing?”

  “Great. I’m not disturbing you am I?” he asked, sitting on the corner of my desk nodding at my computer.

  I gave a slight smile and shook my head ‘no’. I know a part of me shouldn’t keep avoiding the fact that I needed to tell him I didn’t want to keep doing this back and forth thing but how could I start now? I mean where would I even begin? I allowed it to happen and haven’t pulled away from him early enough, there was no way I could come out of this unscathed.

  “Ha, you know me. When am I not busy?” I finally said at last with an awkward chuckle. “What can I help you with? Are you here to ask me about the tickets for Saturday’s game? You know I can’t help it if he keeps offering them to me first.”

  “Oh, that. No that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about but now that you brought it up, I was wondering if you had someone to accompany you on Saturday?” he asked, subtly rubbing the back of my hand with his thumb.

  I look up and glanced past Luke to see Trevor standing in the doorway chatting with Nicole before he glanced back at me, “Do I what?”

  “I asked if you had someone to accompany you on Saturday or did you already have me in mind?” Luke asked with a devilish grin.

  “I, um, well…”

  “Sorry, Luke is it? She’s already asked me.” Trevor said, interrupting us.

  Luke made what looked like a half disappointed, half angry expression and tapped his fingers on my desk. His eyes grew cold and distant.

  “I see.”

  “Are you okay?” I asked cautiously.

  “I’m great. I’m perfectly fine in fact.” He turned to me before looking glancing towards Trevor. “I’ve got some client calls to make, we can talk later Beth.”

  “What in the hell was that?” Trevor pointed towards Luke disappearing down the hallway towards his office.

  “Why did you do that? Look at what you’ve done now.” I questioned.

  “Me? You’re blaming me for that mess?” he laughed again.

  “You do realize that Luke is our boss?” I shook my head.

  “On paper only. Why are you upset? You should be thanking me.”

  “Thanking you for what?”

  “For saving you from that uncomfortable situation you were obviously in. How long has he been hitting on you?” Trevor asked.

  “He wasn’t hitting on me.” I rolled my eyes.

  “Right.” Trevor said sarcastically and turned around to head back towards his office.

  “We’ve hung out on occasion.” I got up and followed Trevor into his office.

  “You’ve ‘hung out’ on occasion. What does that even mean?” Trevor repeated with air quotes.

  “It means sometimes he invites me to have lunch with him or we’ve gone to some of the ball games together, you know stuff like that.” I answered. Why was I even defending myself, it was none of his business?

  “Is that all?” Trevor asked pouring himself a glass.

  “Yes that is all. Are you insinuating I’ve slept with him?”

  “I didn’t say anything.” he shrugged as he took a sip of the whiskey. “Want some?”

  “No, and if you must know, that’s all we’ve done. He’s fun to hang out with but I don’t mix business with pleasure.”

  “Good for you, keep telling yourself that.” he answered and sat down and lounged on the couch in his office. “I just hope you know you technically agreed to go to the basketball game with me on Saturday.”

  “I did not.”

  “You didn’t deny it either. Which is a technical yes and the way I see it, if Luke finds out you didn’t actually go with me to the game, he will be even more upset and you wouldn’t want that now would you?”

  “You are so annoying and no I wouldn’t.” He had a point, I was stuck with Trevor. “Fine. We’ll go but don’t you dare see it as anything more than what it is.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t.” he smiled. He was so smug. I hated when he did that. “Don’t forget to give me your number and address so I can pick you up.”

  “Fine.” I wrote my information on a random piece of paper on his desk, huffed and exited his office.

  “See you Saturday!” he called out.

  Ugh, men.

  Chapter Eight

  TREVOR

  It was Friday evening and almost nearing midnight. I usually would be out partying with some woman that I had met that very evening or with my boys in some club but for some reason I wasn’t in the mood. A few hours ago, I gave my parents a call and told them how I was fairing at work. I’m sure they already knew, and I didn’t doubt that Vince updated them on occasion, either that or they probably pumped him for information.

  They were shocked that I called them when they were sure that I would be out and not at home. They thought it was even more of a shock when I told them that I just wanted a quiet night in. I never laughed so hard as I did when they dared to claim that working there was changing me. Right. That’s funny. This job didn’t change me in the least bit and as soon as my time was up, and I had my money, I was going to be out of there. Clients or not.

  As waited for my late night, delivery Chinese food fix, I popped open a bottle of Irish Ale and absentmindedly started checking my work email account that I had the IT department connect to my cell phone that mo
rning. One by one, I was getting new email alerts.

  “What in the hell?” I muttered aloud.

  I refreshed the screen and saw email after email coming from Beth. Her first email stated she came up with more ideas for the Employee Wellness Program and was going to forward me everything she found and what she’s come up with so far.

  The doorbell rang, it must have been the food delivery I had been expecting, “Coming.” I called out as I opened the door and was to smell the aroma of greasy vegetables, beef and noodles.

  “Hey, how’s it going?” the man asked.

  “Great. I pulled out a twenty from my pocket and handed it over as he traded me the bag of greasy takeout. “Keep the change.”

  “Thanks man. Have a good night.”

  “You too.” I said as I shut the door. I was starving.

  I set the bag down on my coffee table and turned on the television to catch a recap of the games that aired while I was at the office when my phone beeped again. It was Beth sending me another article she found on the internet. I decided to text her.

  Me: Why are you up so late?

  Beth: Can’t sleep.

  Me: Figured you’d be out at the very least.

  Beth: What are YOU doing up so late? Are you out? Am I disturbing you?

  Me: No, I’m not out. Just watching game recaps with lots of greasy Chinese food. Why can’t you sleep?

  Beth: I don’t know, I have a lot on my mind. It happens a lot. That might be overstating it a bit but it does happen sometimes.

  Me: I can see how having a lot on your mind would keep you up. So, what’s going on?

  I really wanted to know and hoped that she would tell me. Fortunately, she didn’t hate me too much because thirty minutes and a couple of beers later, we spoke and not texted about it. I insisted we do it that way no matter how much she resisted.

  She went on to tell me about the past year she’s been having trouble sleeping and how she thought it might be partially to do with the fact that everyone that she was close with has started to settle down and she was the last one who hadn’t yet. She knew other people who were still single like her at her age but she wasn’t close with any of them.