Agency_A #MeToo Romance

by Jason Letts

  “You see, there are things about both of them that I really admire,” I told Dr. Alex. “They each have a commanding way about them that’s a little bit different. Keenan learns fast and takes input from the group, which I really like, and can make decisions. Seth is practically fearless in the way he takes risks, as if his bulletproof confidence will always be enough to reach whatever goal he’s striving for, except apparently when it comes to me he gets a mental block or something. Meanwhile Keenan depends on me so much as an employee he can’t look at me as a girlfriend. It’s a mess.”

  Dr. Alex, unflappably kind, was probably wondering why she got all of her degrees if all I really wanted from her was to sort through issues with men. But she never let on that it was bothersome or compelling to her.

  “And what do you feel takes precedence in your life, the romantic or the professional side of it?” Her question further rankled me.

  “It’s kind of the whole point that neither of them does. I gather from the ring on your finger that you’re married. You get to be married, have your job, and I’m guessing the one doesn’t ruin the other. Why can’t I have that? It just gets hard when the person you’re romantically involved with is your boss and suddenly the sacrifices you make in your relationship turn out to be work sacrifices as well. It’s like there’s no right move to make, not as long as Keenan would be tied to me around the clock and Seth only wants to noncommittally fool around.”

  Dr. Alex brushed some of her curls out of her eyes and tapped her pen on her clipboard a few times with some confusion on her face.

  “If you don’t mind can we back up here a moment? To be clear, are you really attracted to both of these men and you’re equally open to a relationship with either of them?”

  I shook my head, squirming a little at the implication of what she was saying.

  “Not exactly. They’re both very attractive men, but my affection for Keenan is so much deeper. I care about him a lot, and that’s why I feel so strongly that it wouldn’t be good for either of us if there was never enough oxygen for us both to breathe. As for Seth, I don’t really believe a relationship is on the table with him. As best I can tell he doesn’t have relationships. He just has partners. But if my career is with Keenan’s company and Seth was more open to sticking around, maybe that would work out better for me,” I said, trying not to feel embarrassed about saying things that didn’t sound that great but were honest to a counselor.

  “What you’re looking for in a relationship is some kind of advantage, right?”

  “Yeah, the advantage of it fitting into my life. That’s not so bad, is it?” I asked.

  Dr. Alex hastily shook her head.

  “No, of course not, but the situation is leaving you at the mercy of their decisions. That’s inevitable when talking about a relationship that the other person gets to have a conscious say in the matter, but when these two company founders are so used to saying things and having it done to their specifications it leaves you with less room to negotiate with them, so to speak.”

  I nodded, trying to think about that. I had friends who found getting into relationships easier because they were willing to go along with whatever the other person was doing, but it was never going to be like that for Keenan or Seth.

  “So you think just because they have that running-a-company mindset they’re not going to be any different in their personal lives?”

  I looked into Dr. Alex’s face and saw the surface of a pond without a single ripple.

  “What you call a mindset is a big part of their personalities. This is who they are. That kind of leadership quality can be very appealing, but it’s not something that can easily be stepped out of.”

  I took a deep breath and sighed.

  “I think the trouble is I’m kind of like that too. It’s really been eye-opening, working for Seth, because you can really see how it all gets made up on the spur of the moment. There’s no magic hiding where it all comes from or how he got to be where he is. One day he just said he was going to start a company and it continues to exist in the world only because it keeps coming out of his mouth. I’m not sure I could ever have such an unflappable belief in something to make it work.”

  Dr. Alex looked at me with a kind of gentleness that I never once got from my mother.

  “Of course you could, and you do all the time. The belief you have is in yourself and the way you want your life to be. The thing you have to do is be honest to yourself and others about what you need in a relationship.”

  My friend Jenny, the art school grad student, had a different opinion while I was chatting with her on Facebook that night from the claustrophobic’s nightmare I call my apartment.

  “If neither of these guys are giving you what you want, go out and find someone else. They aren’t the only two in the city,” she said. It was a good point, but I was so wrapped up in my work that there weren’t a lot of good chances to meet new people, especially when work was even gobbling up Friday nights with the upcoming announcement party.

  I’d initiated the conversation with Jenny in order to invite her to come, overcoming my misgivings about BitCoin by telling myself that this service was months away or more from ever even existing. And free drinks were free drinks. But it was still a struggle over who to tell about the event. I wasn’t eager to see Keenan, Lena, and the rest of our Mouse Roar staff watching me tout some other business, and that left old friends and casual acquaintances who were less likely to actually show up.

  Seth hadn’t realized how much time planning this event was going to take or how much it would cost to have it at a reasonably popular place. I was able to talk Malarkey’s Irish Pub into it, which seemed a good choice since they were probably still riding high after St. Patrick’s Day. But the more people who were going there anyway, the better it would look for me since I was in charge of packing the house. To play it safe, I even ran some Facebook ads to try to get a few more people to the door.

  Having more people there might even give me space to disappear and figure out what I was going to do with my life and who I was going to do it with.

  CHAPTER 10

  As Friday arrived and the party loomed large in front of us, I noticed Seth acting even moodier than usual. He was there with his laptop, but instead of crushing the keyboard with his fingers he was staring at the screen with his brows furrowed in what appeared to be stress.

  I wasn’t sad about this being my last day working in the YMCA lobby, which hadn’t even afforded me time for one workout, but I didn’t want Seth cracking up over this new venture either.

  “Hey, this is going to work out, and we’re going to have a blast tonight,” I said, putting my hand around his shoulder and giving him a squeeze against my hip from his seated position. Seth immediately shook his head and got to his feet. The cavalier smile was there, but it seemed forced.

  “Of course it is. What makes you think it wouldn’t? I don’t have anything but complete confidence in any of this. But if it does fail, it’s not really any skin off my back. I’m already rich,” he said.

  I nodded, wondering if he ever gave the tough guy routine a rest, even for a minute. The fact was he took on a big risk by buying into my idea. I didn’t want to see people lose by listening to me.

  “I don’t have to tell you that with any business things can go south for any number of reasons, but the thing I wanted to tell you is that I respect you for having the guts to make a move that involves trying to be more inclusive of women. You have the tenacity to make this work as long as you get some good help,” I said.

  Somehow this did more to put a chink in Seth’s armor than anything else. His furrowed brow returned, and this time he was looking at me with big, brown puppy dog eyes. He tried to shrug it off and smirk, but I could tell something had gotten through to him.

  “I know what you’re doing. Trying to butter me up in the hopes for some special perks upstairs in my room. Good thing I’m not flattered easily and have a nasty streak of professionali
sm,” he said, acting suave.

  “Uh-huh. Curse my luck,” I said with sarcasm. “But look, by the end of the day the other guys on your team will have a document with every idea I’ve got for the site and how it should operate. All that’ll be left will be judgment calls about design stuff and any workarounds necessary if the programming doesn’t pan out as expected. I’ll be rooting for your success.”

  Seth cleared his throat and gave me something of a bashful look.

  “Alright, time to get back to work then. Enough flirting with the boss,” he said. I was probably more sensitive than anyone to comments related to sex while at work, but because I felt like he was using them to cover for something important I somehow wasn’t bothered at all.

  But the looks he gave me throughout the day told me something was coming. It started raining late that afternoon, and I went home for a while to get ready for the announcement party, even putting on a light-purple long sleeved dress I’d ordered that would match the OurCoin company logo’s color.

  On the way to Malarkey’s, I was wondering if the rain would keep everyone away or if the minimal decorations would make it seem like a flop. But when I got there around seven the pub staff had come through exactly as we’d asked them. Purple balloons were everywhere, which actually seemed to fit nicely with the place’s usual green decor, and a banner up along the wall didn’t look like it was something cheap strung up for a high school prom.

  There were a lot of people around, including Jenny and some other friends, which made it seem like if nothing else I could coast through the night with them even if the OurCoin stuff sort of flopped. I greeted them with big smiles and hugs before squeezing in to take a spot along the bar. If anyone deserved a free drink, it was me.

  Seth joined us about ten minutes later, and he had about ten guys with him who I later learned were friends and even a couple of his employees that lived in the surrounding area. He was all smiles and looked for all the world like he was ready to be the life of the party.

  “Hey, look at these lovely ladies here! If the drinks aren’t enough, how about these free hats? Now you’ll have something later on if you can’t remember anything that went on tonight!”

  His group began passing out purple baseball hats to everyone, and I folded the brim and put one on. Everyone was cheering and as soon as the guys had drinks we all raised a glass for a toast.

  “Here’s to a vision of the world where money doesn’t hold you back, it empowers you. Everything about the way we buy things is going to change, and I have Sarah to thank for it. You want to add anything?” Seth asked with his arm tight around me.

  I felt like I was riding high and ready to shout it out to the world.

  “If we want things to be different, we have to build something different!” I yelled out. Cheers, applause, and drinking ensued. The screens in the pub played a video presentation on a loop that urged people to go to our website, and other than that there was nothing else to do but kick back and have a good time.

  Although Seth was lighting the place up with stories and laughter, I noticed that he carried the same drink around with him for more than an hour. It was lucky I realized it, because I’d already had three and stopped myself from getting a fourth. He seemed to keep noticing me too. Whenever I glanced over my shoulder, he was sort of facing my direction even as he was talking to other people.

  My group and I had the crazy idea that we wanted to play darts and risk impaling someone in the eye with our terrible aim, and on the way over I happened to cross paths with Seth, who leaned in toward me.

  “Hey, make sure you come and see me before you leave. I want to talk to you,” he said.

  “Alright,” I replied, suddenly glad he hadn’t been drinking more for an entirely new reason. I had a feeling telling him that I was really only looking for a serious relationship would go down better if he weren’t drunk. The reasonable thing to expect would be that he’d thank me for helping him and wish me the best of luck back at Mouse Roar, but all of his odd behavior made me think that wasn’t going to happen.

  But the party was great, awesome music was playing, and more people kept filing into the bar. Jenny was catching someone’s eye and I decided to mill around and see what else was going on. That’s when I heard a loud voice from over by the tables.

  “If you think that one was good, listen to this,” Seth said, standing over a group of guys and girls seated at a table covered in beer glasses. “In high school I worked at a Little Ceasar’s Pizza making like six dollars an hour, and the manager was pure human excrement. You have no idea. Every pizza had something wrong with it, the floor was never clean enough, whoever was at the register didn’t up-sell enough. He’d chew us out while leaning against the front counter in his favorite spot. One time we found a container of sauce that had been stuck under the cabinets by the oven and had turned to this rancid moldy sludge. He made me wipe it out with my bare hands.”

  Sounds of disgust erupted around the table.

  “Then one day this lady walks in wearing a short flowery dress, complete knockout from head to toe, like she came straight out of a Coke commercial. We were all drooling, but my manager decided to send me away from the register so he could take a shot. She ordered a pepperoni pizza and he started trying to impress her with how he was going to business school at night and other junk. I quietly slid the pizza over but left the top up. He was in his favorite spot and was so engrossed in this woman that he set his forearm right down into the pizza when he leaned toward her.

  “The woman gasped as he saw his arm was dripping in cheese and sauce. I said, ‘Hey Aaron, I don’t think curly arm hairs are listed as one of our toppings.’”

  The raucous laughter from the table echoed all around the bar, and I couldn’t help but snicker a little.

  “He fired me and that was the last time I ever worked for anybody else,” Seth said, mostly to himself at this point as those at the table were busy laughing and drinking.

  I was leaning against the wall by an antique telephone watching Seth carouse with the other attendees and thinking he wasn’t such a bad guy when I glanced around a bit at some movement and happened to notice Keenan walk through the doors looking a little damp from all the rain.

  My eyes widened. How did he find out about this? I certainly hadn’t told him. I found myself walking to him before I could even think whether or not it was a good idea. He saw me and had a warm smile as he tried to brush out some of the water from his hair with his fingers.

  “Hey, this is a surprise,” I said once I got within earshot. “I wouldn’t think this would be something you wanted to do. Can I grab you a drink? Free.”

  Keenan shook his head a little. His eyes were all over the crowd.

  “Nah. But you neither. You’re dressed for the occasion though,” he said with a raised eyebrow.

  I suddenly felt embarrassed about my OurCoin shirt and hat. I tried to be casual about slipping the hat off and hiding it in my hands behind my back.

  “We’re announcing the division I was helping Seth create. This is it though. I’ll be back to work on Monday,” I said, suddenly aware of a large presence by my side. Seth swept in with his arms raised.

  “Old Roomie, nice of you to join us!” The call had a healthy dose of sarcasm. “It’s good you’ll get a chance to see what we’ve been working on.”

  “It seems like a healthy business…‌for the bar,” Keenan said back.

  Seth shook his head and grinned.

  “That was always the trouble with you, no sense of fun. If you don’t take a moment to revel in the big moments, they don’t mean anything. We’re at the start of something special here, and Sarah has been an instrumental part. We’ve really been grinding it out this week. It’s been sweaty at times, but that’s what it takes to get a good completion.”

  I shook my head at Keenan at the implication that I’d slept with Seth. I felt like there were dozens of ways this conversation could’ve gone nicely, but neither of them had any
interest in that.

  “I don’t think that’s it,” Keenan said. “I think you just like the spotlight and can’t stand anybody else being the center of attention for a nanosecond.”

  “Does anybody want a drink? How about we play darts?” My suggestions went ignored.

  “Why you gotta say things like that? Everybody here is having a good time, and it looks like you just showed up to try and dump on everything,” Seth said. I was again very glad he’d only had one drink.

  Keenan squinted with a condescending grin.

  “I think you wanted that and that’s why you invited me here,” he said, as I took a deep breath. “It’s not fun for you unless you get to shove it in somebody’s face. You don’t think I know what you’re doing?”

  “We’re just celebrating to get some buzz, and it’s almost over anyway,” I said.

  “No,” Seth said to me before turning back to Keenan. “Please enlighten me about what I’m doing. Because we both know I don’t spend hours pointlessly thinking things over like you.”

  Keenan nodded and cast me a bashful look.

  “This might be even worse than the fight with the baseball players,” he said. “There was always a sort of competition between us…‌about women. I’d find somebody I liked and we’d hook up, and the next thing Seth would immediately come up with some other girl who was supposedly hotter and parade her around the suite and around campus to try to show that he was better than me. When that got old, he’d mix it up and just straight try to steal the girls I was seeing. He’d figure out the minute they were alone and then worm in with muscles flexed and dangling car keys.”

  I cringed but Seth seemed to find it funny.

  “Oh, come on, you’re leaving out half the story, of course. But who can blame you for trying to avoid incriminating yourself. Just shove it all onto me and hope it never comes up that you were going through a girl a week anyway. What were their problems? Too tall? Too talkative? Not slutty enough? Too slutty? You were tossing away great people over nothing, and most of them knew you were about done with them even while it was going on. That’s why it worked so often when I tried to move in,” Seth said.