by Mia Mills
I open my computer on my desk and check the stock market, it's all collapsing, just as Lily said. Even I can't predict what's going to happen next.
"This can't be real." I look at Lily, the phones ringing in the background have become white noise and my senses are being overwhelmed by what's happening, "What did the higher-ups say?"
"Nothing as of now. They're also trying to keep their clients calm. They were actually waiting for you to offer solutions to the situation." She shuts the door behind her when she sees that my eyes are focused on what's happening outside.
My attention is back to my monitor, trying to see just exactly what kind of avalanche has hit Wall Street so I can take measures for our clients. I spot something odd. Everything seems to be crashing except for one particular type of business. How long has this been like this? Has my mind been away from work for too long that I didn't even notice this?
"Lily, check the investors that invested in real estate." I have an inkling of what's causing this whole mess. But I don't want to say anything until I'm sure.
"There's a lot of investors for those, is there anything specific we're looking for?" She opens the door and waits for me to say something.
I close my eyes, "Check if the bigwigs invested in those and if their companies are going through the same shitstorm we are."
There's a pause before she responds, I feel like she knows what's in my mind, "Alright. Got it."
When Lily's out of the room, I check back on the latest news and answer some calls. I'm trying my best to reassure clients that we can get back whatever amount they lost, but even I'm not confident that it's possible. I've been distracted for so long that it feels like I've been disconnected from what I do. I hardly understand what's going on and what the next step should be. Perhaps being demoted was a blessing in disguise, I need to find my footing once again before I can retrieve my position.
Going through previous files, I try to jog my memory about how I used to handle things in an effort to—at the very least—convince myself that I can do this. I've gone through worse shit, this should be nothing. Sure, the whole market's crashing, but at least it's not all going to be blamed on me. I didn't cause this.
Unless my instincts are right. In which case, I definitely indirectly contributed to this. And if my superiors knew, I'd be fired. Hell, Wall Street would spit me out. I'd never get a job involving finance ever again.
Lily peeks through the door, her expression grim, "Zoey, I checked. The bigwigs didn't invest in real estate."
"Are they in this mess too?" I wait for her answer, I desperately want her to say no.
"They are, actually. After reviewing it further, it actually seems like they're in the center of this whole mess." She frowns, "It's why Wall Street's crumbling down. Four key players are all in the shithole."
I shake my head, "Fuck. Okay. For now, we have to hold onto whatever it is the four of them didn't invest in, just for leverage. If we can manage to survive until tomorrow, we'll be past the crucial part."
"Do you want me to get you a cup of coffee?"
I force myself to smile, "Yeah, I think I'm going to need one. Thanks."
Lily nods and then shuts the door again. I hold my head in my hands and try to calm myself down. I caused this. Wall Street is in a state of pandemonium because I got too involved with the four of them. How many companies have gone bankrupt in just a few hours because of me? How many people have lost their jobs?
What am I going to do? What can I do? It's not like I can hire all those workers just because I feel guilty for indirectly causing their unemployment. But what do I do with myself? How can I live knowing that I caused this much pain?
My thoughts keep rambling on and I can't keep up with them. It's like I'm trying to take all the words into my arms and they keep slipping through my fingers and splashing onto the floor until the puddle turns into the sea that I'm trying to rise in. I struggle to breathe, everything seems to be looming over me and I feel like I'm losing all control of the situation.
Lily's voice cuts through my thoughts and I flinch when she yells, "Zoey!"
I lick my lips, "Yeah. Sorry, were you saying anything?"
She places the cup of coffee on my desk and sits in front of me, "Zoey. I've been trying to call your attention. I called your name five times before you realized it." She looks worried, her eyes have bags under them, "Is everything alright with you? I'm sorry if it's too personal. I know I'm just your assistant, but it's just...you...you just don't seem like yourself recently."
My chest squeezes and I feel like I'm about to break down in tears. I've forgotten how it felt to confide in another woman in the industry. It's always me trying to show men I'm strong. I forgot that it's okay to not be strong all the time.
"I...I've been spending time with the four of them. With Jonah, Gavin, Wyatt, and Ryder. And it's been so amazing." I smile just remembering all the time we've spent together, "They've been so great to me and I just...I like them."
Lily waits for me to continue, I gather my voice again.
"But I don't know if it's okay. If it's alright to have this relationship with them." I laugh a little and a tear threatens to fall from my left eye, "I don't mean emotionally, of course. I mean for the sake of the market. I don't know if it's healthy that they're all going out with me like this."
"But you love them? Is there love? Or is it just sex?" I watch as Lily's thumb brushes over the handle of her mug of coffee.
I take a sip of the cup she gave me, "I can't help but love them. I wish it was just sex."
"And you don't know if it's selfish to keep the relationship as the whole financial world suffers?" Her words hurt, but I know she's just asking things that are important.
"I don't know what to do. I'm torn between my private life and my professional life. And I don't want to have to choose." I close my eyes and steady my breathing as much as I can, I don't want to cry. This was supposed to be a fresh start.
"I'm not sure what to tell you, Zoey." She admits, "I've never been in that situation where my private life threatened to destroy my career. But I will say that it seems like you actually know what it is you need to do. You're just afraid. And I get it, it's not easy finding romance in our world. I mean, that's why a lot of us stick to one-night stands and online dating."
She takes a moment before adding, "Do you think whatever you guys have is worth giving up your career over? I mean, there will always be other men. But are you sure you want to give up your dream job for the kind of relationship you guys have?"
"What do you mean? That the relationship is unsteady? That it's not going to work?" I almost raise my voice, but manage to stop myself at the last second, "Do you really think I have to give up my career to pursue them? Why? Because I can't balance the two?"
She eyes my monitor and shakes her head, "That's not what I'm saying. What I meant was that relationships end at some point. Your job can only go up. Relationships are like waves that have ups and downs. How are you so sure that those ups and downs won't affect how you handle things?" She sighs, "I may be out of line for saying all of this, but Zoey...the last few days you haven't been performing as strong as you did before you met them. And they obviously aren't doing that good either. That's why we're all in this mess."
I realize the truth in her words even when I hate it, I hate that she's right.
I hate that I knew and yet I hoped that maybe she'd comfort me and argue about how I can make things work. I feel so weak for trying to believe that I can juggle things and that I'm unable to accept that I've failed, in more ways than one.
"Zoey?" She smiles, "Are you going to fire me for speaking my mind?"
I stare at the cup of coffee in my hands, watching the liquid settle, "No. I'm not. I needed to hear it from someone else, I guess." My eyes drift towards her and I smile sadly, "Thanks."
She nods and nods to the side, "I have to go help them outside. Call me if you need anything else."
I take a deep breath and
sit up straight, "Yeah. I will. Let's fix this."
When Lily's out of the room, I feel all the weight on my shoulders get to me. It's like my ribs have caved in on me and I have no air to breathe in. I have no choice but to let them go. I'm not going to let myself down this time. There's no way I'm going to disappoint people again.
Even if it means letting go of the best men I'll ever meet in my lifetime.
Gavin
There's so much paperwork that I can barely see my desk anymore. Online, several people had pulled out stocks and investing elsewhere. I've helped most of my clients off of the dangerous waters easily but it's only a matter of time before the ones I haven't gotten to are swallowed up by the waves.
I probably would have finished much quicker if I had fewer clients to worry about. And more clients who stopped whining and actually listened to my suggestions instead of doing their own thing. The problem with some of them is they think they're masters at what they do and assume that when things turn bad, they can point fingers and it'll be the fault of another party.
When I woke up the morning everything fell apart, I hadn't expected that the day would turn out to be so much of a hassle as it had become. I mean, I'm still trying to fix things days after it occurred. I can only imagine how it must have been for the others who have fewer employees.
But I don't even have time to worry about them. I have to try and save as many accounts as I can before time runs out. I've lost a few investors but I managed to reel them back in before they signed with another company. Things have been falling quickly, the ones who have been waiting for this moment are taking all chances to steal our clients. And they're fast, but they're not fast enough to outbid me. What? Did they expect me to give up and sit in a corner to cry my troubles away?
I'm not called the hotshot of Wall Street for nothing.
All of a sudden, my office phone buzzes, my secretary's calling from her desk. I press accept and resume my work as I talk to her.
"This better be important. If you didn't know, I'm still in the middle of a crisis." I say as my hands type e-mails to send to vital clients.
"Sir, you have visitors here, they say that you've got something to discuss?"
I mentally run through my notes and my calendar, unable to recall scheduling anything for the day, I don't bother looking up from my monitor because I can't risk making a mistake. But before I can open my mouth to decline the glass doors swing open. My hands freeze and my eyes glance upwards to see who walked in. It's Jonah and Ryder, I look behind them but I'm unable to see Wyatt.
"We have to talk." Jonah strides towards me as Ryder looks through the bottles of bourbon near my door.
"We're talking right now. What seems to be the problem, Goldberg?" I don't have time to pause, but I'm fairly good at multitasking so I decide to entertain their visit.
"It's been a week. We haven't met up with Zoey or talked to her in a whole week." He's pacing. I don't like it when people pace. It's a pointless thing to do, just a waste of energy.
"You could try calling her. Just like how you could have told me this over the phone." I try to focus on the task at hand while Ryder examines the bottles more.
"I did. She's not responding. And don't tell me she's busy, her company's no longer in boiling waters. They're in the clear for the most part, just a few unhappy investors who pulled out and no way of explaining what happened."
"Sounds like she's busy to me." I look up at him and pause, "If investors pulled out, her company would want a report as to what she's been doing to fix this. Obviously, she didn't do a great job at convincing them to stay."
I get up from my seat and button up my suit. "Would you guys like a drink?"
Ryder nods without hesitation, and when he sees that I've raised a brow at this, he shrugs and says, "It's been a rough few days, I think I deserve to get hammered."
I chuckle, "We're not getting hammered. Just...friendly chatter with drinks on the side."
We begin walking towards the elevator, passing by several people. Every now and then I have to stop and sign an important document for processing. But other than that, there aren't many things interrupting our conversation.
"So you guys are worried about Zoey?" I shove my hands in my pockets as we walk around the office.
Jonah looks at Ryder and they both nod, "We think she's cutting us off. Maybe out of guilt. I don't know."
I look at him, puzzled. This prompts him to explain further.
"She might be thinking that she's the reason Wall Street got into trouble. That she used up our time and the whole system crumbled from the top down."
I go through the idea in my head and strangely enough, that might actually be the reason why this whole catastrophe happened. But it's in no way Zoey's fault. The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that the four of us damned Wall Street into hell.
I can see that Jonah knows I'm thinking this, and I know he knows I'm right.
Ryder joins in on the discussion, "We should probably ease her worries. There's no point in her getting stressed over our irresponsibility."
I find myself agreeing with him, "Right. That, we should do. But before that," I turn around abruptly, causing them to almost bump into me, "we're missing someone. Where's Wyatt?"
Ryder scoffs, "Maybe he got tired of the mess and decided to go solo again."
"All I'm saying is that if it's Zoey we're going to be talking about and helping, all of us should be present." I shrug and we make our way to the elevator.
Jonah shakes his head slightly and laughs, "He's probably on his next side bitch. I always did doubt that he deleted all the contacts of girls on his phone."
"Who do you think it is this time?" I jab Jonah's side lightly.
He looks up to think, and then he snickers, "It's probably your secretary, right?"
"No. I just hired her. They haven't even met." I laugh.
"That's what you think. But Wyatt has an antenna for single new girls in Wall Street. Kind of like a built-in Tinder app in his head." Ryder chimes in.
We all laugh along at the idea. Although it is disappointing, I don't think any of us are surprised that Wyatt didn't stick with us until the end.
Wyatt
People rush into and out of the building I'm heading towards. My eyes look up and take in its size. I feel like Gavin really wanted a building that screamed for attention, and he got it. It's one of the tallest buildings in the district, and that's saying a lot because the buildings around here are almost all skyscrapers.
When I get in, the atmosphere is completely different. People walk to and fro in a hurry, but they don't look like they're rushing anything. It just seems like their world operates at a faster pace than the world outside.
I head towards the front desk and ask where I can find the elevators. From the look on the woman's face, I feel like she recognizes who I am.
I wonder if she knows me from a tabloid paper or if she knows I'm one of the top-tier players on Wall Street?
She gestures towards the left and I give her my thanks before making my way through the crowd. There's a long line at the elevators, that, I can see even from afar. But then the doors open and I spot three familiar faces get off from the lift.
I'm still making my way towards them. Ryder is the first to notice my presence, he whispers something to the other two and they laugh in unison.
Well, at least some of us are having a grand day.
"Look who decided to finally show up. We thought you'd gone ahead and stopped caring for Zoey. We tried calling you a ton of times but your phone was never available." Jonah pokes fun at me. If I didn't know any better I'd have thought he was trying to pick a fight, but by now, I can easily tell when he's joking.
They don't bother to stop walking, I have no trouble keeping up with them.
"My phone's been busy from work, too many people have been calling me. And no. Actually, it's the complete opposite. I still care about Zoey." I sigh, "I should have paid more attention to her
when I found her at that bar."
"The one you told us about?" Gavin's expression turns serious quickly, I'm glad he knows when to tone down the jokes.
"Yeah. I should have probably helped her talk about it more. I brushed things off too quickly when she said she was fine." The guilt eats up at me again and I have to take a moment to steady myself and push it back down.
"And I'm guessing you have a plan? Otherwise, you wouldn't have gone here in such a hurry." Ryder raises a brow and tilts his head to the side when asking the question. I nod.
"My limo is parked outside. Let's go, when we're there, we can talk about what to do to help Zoey." I lead the way and they follow not too far behind me.
It's a relief to know that there's proof they actually care about her. I had been sure about Ryder, but I could never really ascertain if Gavin was just in it for the competition. And then there's Jonah who I assumed to just be too naïve to know what he wanted.
The limo is parked not too far away from the building, we get inside and I ask the chauffeur to raise the partition for some privacy. After the partition clicks shut, we pour ourselves some scotch and begin to assess the situation that Zoey's in.
"So what exactly are we dealing with here?" Gavin leans into the car seat and takes a sip of his drink, "I mean...all I know is that Zoey's blaming herself for ruining Wall Street."
I lean forward, my drink in hand, and begin to brief them on what I know, "Let's go back to what we're sure of. We know she got demoted, so she's been having two bad weeks in a row. We can't blame her for feeling like she caused the collapse because inadvertently, whether we like it or not, she did. In a way, she caused the whole market to fall apart. And that's because she caught our attention."
"That doesn't make any sense, why would she be in trouble for something we did?" He crosses his legs.
Ryder's the one to answer his question this time, "Because no one knows why we've been spending time with her. All they know is that she's a market analyst and that we're the key players who also happen to be in the center of this whole thing."
