Accidental Groupie: A Sweet Lesbian Romance

by Mia Archer

  “Well isn’t that nice? Since you seem to have so much free time you won’t mind going ahead and reviewing some of the numbers for me, will you? Then when you’re done with that I have a couple of other things that are ready to be sent up but need to be reviewed first.”

  I bit back a couple of comments that were forming in my head. She was the one who was supposed to give final approval for everything that was done in the department. That was a big part of her job, aside from assigning stuff out which she’d started foisting off on me six months ago. She’d never been this brazen before about trying to get me to run approvals. Damn it.

  “Whatever you say, Christine,” I said.

  As soon as she was gone I was back at my computer typing furiously, but it wasn’t for any sort of analysis. No, I needed to vent to someone, and Amber was the only person I could vent with even though she was on the other side of the floor. It was set up in a big square with Christine’s big glass office in the center. That glass on all four sides was part of the reason we knew she was in there playing games on social media most of the time instead of actually doing any work.

  Lord help us all if she ever decided to actually check the chat logs for her department. Lots of heads would roll that day. Lots more than usual, at least.

  An email popped up and I looked over more on instinct than anything else. Answering that ding was almost a Pavlovian response on this floor. If it was from Christine and it was urgent and you didn’t answer it right away then you could be in deep shit.

  I sighed when I saw who it was from. Not Christine. It was from someone who should be a shining beacon out of this shithole. A headhunter. The only problem was there was at least one person who’d been canned for responding to a headhunter using their work email. So I deleted it like I always did, might as well have a record of being loyal for the IT people to look at, but not before looking at the email.

  It was familiar enough. I’d seen it enough times that it was burned into my head. This lady must not be very good if she was desperate enough to keep pinging people, and on their work email no less, but I’d seen her name and email, Janet Yeager, often enough that it was memorized. I’d even forwarded one of her mails to my personal account in my early days before I knew that was strictly verboten around here.

  I sighed. I was sorely tempted to respond today, but no. Better a crappy job than no job, right?

  Whatever. I got back into the groove of things and tried not to think about Christine. Of course not thinking about Christine and how unfair it was working under a dragon lady of epic proportions naturally set my mind to thinking about other things, and it seemed that the one thing on my mind more than anything else was that girl I’d seen in the lobby. I wondered what she was doing here. She could’ve been going anywhere. Sure there were young people who worked here, I was still technically in that “young” category even though I’d been with the company for five years since graduating, but there was something about her that kept pushing her to the forefront of my imagination. An imagination that was going to some particularly not safe for work places the more I thought about her.

  I was in the middle of thinking about a particularly wild frat party I’d gone to my junior year where I made out with a girl to get the crowd going, though to be honest I’d been a little excited at the excuse to have some fun with a friend who I thought was pretty damn hot. Only in my imagination it wasn’t the girl from my memory I was kissing. It was that girl from the lobby.

  Well now that was odd. Not that I was thinking about girls considering my experience. Just odd that it would come up now. Sure I hadn’t exactly dated much, work took care of most of my spare time, and so it felt a little odd that I was suddenly thinking of any sort of dating, let alone dating a girl.

  I was pulled out of my reverie by a ding, but not the sort of ding that meant I had a message from Amber or someone else on the floor. No, this was the sort of ding that immediately filled me with a sense of dread because it meant an email, and an email usually meant Christine needed something.

  I hated it when Christine needed something. Why couldn’t that girl from the lobby need something? Yeah, I’d love taking care of her needs. Only the hot thoughts of the sort of fun I could have with her if I’d had more than a moment of staring at her dumbfounded from the other side of a closing elevator door were dashed when I saw the message. From Christine.

  Damn it.

  “In addition to your work on those approvals I’m also going to need you to go over the schedule for the next month and make sure we’re not missing anything,” she said.

  I rolled my eyes and this time I let out a small groan. She expected me to do scheduling for her on top of everything else? That was her job, damn it. She was sitting in there playing games and having a grand old time collecting her huge salary and meanwhile I was sitting here doing her job and not getting paid anything extra for it. It was pissing me off. It was enough to make me do something drastic.

  Like open my chat window with Amber and shoot off a message complaining. Hey, I wasn’t going to do anything too crazy. Talking back to Christine could be a career limiting move. People still told the story of poor Patrick, a guy who’d given her the finger in the middle of a meeting and walked out after he’d had enough of her bullshit. She’d given him a bad reference even though that was against company policy and the poor guy ended up having to move across the country to get a job considering how tight-knit the community was.

  Tight-knit enough that Christine’s counterparts thought she walked on water. Not tight-knit enough that they knew what a raging bitch she could be. Mostly because she kept everybody strictly under her thumb and no one ever got out to spread stories at other companies.

  “I can’t believe she’s trying to make you do that bullshit,” Amber said.

  “I know, right? I’m already doing her damn job. Isn’t that enough for her?”

  “Nothing’s ever going to be enough for her. Remember Patrick?”

  I hadn’t actually known Patrick, his epic departure happened well before I started working here, but I thought of him on the regular.

  “I have to do something about this, but I’m not sure what,” I said.

  “Maybe if you try something other than flipping her the bird in the middle of a meeting?” Amber sent back.

  I sighed. She did have a good point, even though something told me this was going to end in disaster even as I flipped back over to my email and started drafting something. The fact was there just wasn’t a chance I was going to be able to take on anything else without working even more ridiculous hours than what I was already being forced to endure. We’re talking the sort of hours you hear about medical interns or young lawyers who think they’re going to make partner pull. Not the sort of hours someone pulls when they’re stuck in a department with no hope of advancement because they’re stuck in a Catch-22 with a boss who will ruin their career whether they work hard or quit.

  Damn it. I was starting to get mad. I was starting to feel something I hadn’t felt in awhile. Backbone. Just a little, but it was enough to make me draft a response.

  “Christine, I would love to take this on but if you’re going to do that then I’ll have to request that you do the approvals or take some of the other work that you’ve given to me as I won’t be able to do all of it in a timely manner.”

  I hit send and immediately regretted it. God that was a stupid move. I found myself wishing we had one of those email systems where you could recall an email as long as it hadn’t been opened yet, but of course that wouldn’t have mattered in this case anyway. No, the response came back almost immediately.

  “My office. Now.”

  A feeling of dread came over me as I stood and made my way towards the giant glass ice cube in the center of the floor. I suppose whoever designed the damn thing thought it was supposed to look all cool and modern, but for everyone who worked here it had become a symbol of the constant terror that was this department.

  I sighe
d as I opened the door. I thought I might make it through a morning without yelling at her. Not for the first time I thought back to a voicemail I got a couple of weeks ago from a head hunter asking if I was interested in other opportunities in the area. I hadn’t responded because I knew Christine would torpedo any chance I had with another department as soon as they called to verify employment.

  “Glad you could make it Nicole,” she said. “I was worried you wouldn’t have time to talk with me what with your busy schedule and everything.”

  “What do you want Christine?” I asked. Surprisingly there was some heat to my voice. She arched an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. I kept waiting for the explosion, but nothing. What was going on here? This was nothing like the Christine I thought I knew. The one who was the terror of the seventh floor. If anything that had me more worried than usual. A mellow Christine was a plotting Christine, and I didn’t like the idea of being the one in her cross hairs while she was plotting.

  “I think I’ve found an assignment that is worthy of your time. Something that a busy person like you could really appreciate, and it might help take some of that load off,” Christine said.

  “Oh?” I said, trying my best to keep my voice neutral. This seemed too good to be true. Too good to be true was usually exactly that where Christine was concerned.

  “Of course! I wouldn’t want to overwork my best asset, now would I? Corporate just told me we’re going to be getting a new intern. Getting ready for their last year of college. I’m sure you’ll be able to show them the ropes and find time to do everything else on your plate, right?”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. Sure enough here was the other foot dropping right down on top of me and making me completely miserable. A new intern? Sure in a perfect world that would mean I had someone to help me out with everything, someone to give some extra work to, but the reality was that training someone who knew absolutely nothing about our systems, bringing them up to speed, and trying to keep an eye out for mistakes would easily eat up more time than it would take me to just do the damn work myself.

  Something about the smile on Christine’s face told me she knew that.

  I gave the door a jolly good slam on my way out. Some of the glass rattled and I even saw a couple of people popping their heads up over their cubicle walls which was usually something to be avoided at all cost. It wasn’t safe to draw undue attention to yourself working in this department. It was just my bad luck that I seemed to draw all the attention just because I could get things done on time.

  I headed back to my cubicle. It was going to be a long day, and there wasn’t a chance in hell I was getting done by five at this rate. There was already too much I had to do, and if I had to start training some idiot business major in how our system worked and get everything going tomorrow then I wanted to make sure I had as much of a head start as possible.

  Oddly enough as I got to work I thought about that girl one final time. It really was a pity I didn’t get her name or number or something, as inappropriate as that would be. Then again it’s not like I was going to have any time for a social life for the near future if things kept going the way they were.

  I was trapped. I needed a change. I just didn’t know how the hell I was going to pull that off.

  2: Family Tradition

  I sighed as I moved through the massive rotating door into the lobby. I tried to think of a time when I was actually happy to be stepping into this building. Maybe when I was younger. Like, really young. Before the accident. Before dad withdrew from the world while at the same time seeming to think that the weight of the world was now on my shoulders because I suddenly became the only heir to the Zeidner name.

  I felt terrible for thinking that was worst than losing my mom and older brother in one fell swoop thanks to a private jet with a malfunctioning phalange, or whatever the hell it was. I wasn’t an aircraft mechanic. I wasn’t going anywhere near anything that flew higher than five feet, for that matter.

  Yeah, maybe I’d felt good about coming in here when I was a little girl going to see daddy at work. He’d been all smiles then. These days going to see daddy at work was a chore, though. It meant that I was going to feel that weight of the world, of ZeidnerCorp, settling on my shoulders again. One nice thing about going off to college was that I could just be me for a little while and forget about everything that was waiting for me when I graduated and got out of school. Even the summers used to be a fun distraction from the bullshit, but now with this stupid internship I had a feeling the real world was about to come crashing down around the perfect college bubble I’d built for myself in a major way.

  Damn.

  There was a reception desk at the front with a guard, but I didn’t bother to stop there. Sure I was supposed to act just like a regular intern showing up at the building, though that was a little ridiculous considering I was going to be interviewing with the owner of the company rather than some middle manager. Not to mention that the internship was a shoe-in considering my name was on the building and I stood to inherit it when the old man finally kicked it.

  I jabbed at the button on the elevator with perhaps a little more force than was strictly necessary, but it’s not like the elevator was going to feel it and I needed something to take my anger out on. I knew it was ridiculous to pull the poor little rich girl routine, but at the same time I couldn’t really help myself. Sure I actually liked all this business stuff, I was my father’s daughter after all, but at the same time it galled that no one had ever bothered to ask me what I wanted to do. No one ever checked in to see if I really wanted to take over rather than just taking my inheritance and doing what I wanted. It was always assumed that I was going to be the good little scion.

  The elevator doors opened and I stepped in. Hit the button for the top floor, but it didn’t light up. Whoops. I always forgot that I needed my card to get up there. A guy wearing a cheap suit who had “middle management” written all over him stepped in right behind me and chuckled before I had a chance to bust out the card. I turned in time to see him look me up and down in a way that really annoyed me and impressed me at the same time with the way he was able to combine a dirty old man looking at a young woman with someone who thought they knew the ropes at this company laughing at the young girl obviously making a mistake.

  “You need special access to get up there honey,” he said, and I bristled at his tone of voice and comparing me to bee vomit. Whoever he was, he had casually condescending down to an art form. “Are you here for intern interviews? If so they’re doing those on twenty.”

  “No, I’m actually here for a meeting with Mr. Zeidner,” I said, fixing him with my sweetest smile that definitely didn’t match the cool tone. I pulled out my key fob and tapped it against the elevator controls. They beeped and I hit the button, enjoying the surprised look on the guy’s face.

  I turned back to the elevator doors and my breath caught. There was a girl standing on the other side of those doors and she had me feeling weak in the knees. She looked about my age, or maybe a few years older. I wondered if she was here for the internship program or if she worked somewhere in the tower. I wouldn’t mind working under her, if you catch my drift, though that would probably annoy the man to no end. Not because it was with a woman, that was something he’d been surprisingly fine with when I finally worked up the guts to tell him, but because she worked somewhere in the tower.

  He wasn’t a big fan of interoffice romance between the owner and the help unless we were talking about one of his secretaries. And unfortunately being the future owner didn’t grant me any leeway when it came to that sort of thing.

  Still, this girl was nice to look at. Blonde hair cut short enough that it had me wondering if she might swing my way. A gorgeous face with blue eyes I could lose myself in. She was wearing a work outfit that looked like it wouldn’t be out of place on a runway somewhere, and the way she filled out that button down shirt and the skirt underneath that went just down to her knees and the edge of the c
orporate dress code policy for that sort of thing had me wanting to unbutton that shirt and see what happened as I was running my hand up her legs and…

  I shook my head. I shouldn’t be thinking things like that. Not when what I should be doing is steeling myself for doing battle with the old man. Still, that girl was just so fucking gorgeous. She had a casual beauty that said she didn’t even realize how hot she was, and I fucking loved that. I wanted to pull her into the elevator with me and kick old condescending cheap suit with his bad cologne out so we could have a little fun.

  I moved back up her body one final time and my heart skipped a beat. She was staring at me. Pretty fucking intently. That was the kind of look that made it absolutely clear she was interested. And then the elevator doors were closing and I sighed.

  It probably wasn’t to be anyways. Someone working somewhere in the building dating the heir to the company fortune? Even if I did manage to figure out where she worked there was a good chance she wasn’t into girls despite the way she’d been staring at me so intently that I thought my clothes were about to catch fire. And of course there was the old man’s hypocritical rule about dipping your wick in the company ink, even though I didn’t technically have a wick to dip.

  “So how did you manage to get that access anyways? Are you one of the old man’s new secretaries?” cheap suit asked.

  The guy reached into his pocket and handed me a card with a smile on his face that managed to be at the same time smarmy, condescending, and more than a little sleazy. It was a wonder that a man could fit that much snaky charm into one look, but I dutifully took his card even as I couldn’t believe he was talking to me like this! Then again it’s not like he probably knew who I was. It’s not like I’d spent much time at the tower since I was a little kid, and the company was big enough that I could walk these halls mostly anonymously.

  “If so maybe you could stop by my office when he’s done with you. He gets tired of his secretaries pretty fast, you know, and I’d be happy to see how well you take dictation. Maybe give you some more long-term career prospects as long as my wife doesn’t find out.”