9. Loren
9
LOREN
T he second Thursday into my job at Richards Consultation, Tom upped his approach and asked me out as a team meeting wrapped up.
“I was wondering if you’d like to get dinner with me tonight, short stuff,” he said as we all got our things gathered up to leave the conference room.
I paused in standing up to look at him.
Stop. Calling. Me. That!
“No thanks, Tom,” I replied instead, smiling to keep the rejection polite and friendly.
“What about tomorrow?—”
“Leave her alone,” Matt warned as he exited.
But Tom didn’t leave me alone. For the next week, he kept at it, flirting, teasing, and just being in my face. Sure, we had to work together, but the man just would not stop.
The aggravation of warding off one man while being loathed by another really wrecked my sanity. I was tired, so, so tired of the drama, and I wondered if it was time to go to HR.
I damn well couldn’t go to my boss, my direct supervisor. If I broke down to ask Matt for help in telling Tom to lay off the flirting, he’d take that not as my boss but as a former lover. Since he had already accused me of being some sort of female distraction, I was intimidated to approach him.
If I went to HR, I worried they’d ask why I didn’t tell Matt, and then I’d need to lie about why I wasn’t a fan of talking with him. Besides, I’d be a hypocrite to tattle to HR that Tom was overly flirty with me when I still harbored a secret crush on Matt, residue from our torrid and wild one night together. I couldn’t reject one coworker but lust for my boss.
In short, I prayed Tom would actually hear me when I told him to please give me space and to back off. Over and over, I told him that I wasn’t interested, but he just didn’t listen.
By the time Friday rolled around, I yawned and stretched at the front of the conference room. It was another late evening in the office, but I felt good about the progress we’d made. Getting Matt to agree on colors and fonts was a whole other animal, but between me, Brad, and even Matt, we were getting a solid grasp on the Gammon mission statement and how to tweak it to this specific rebrand.
“So if we skip the traditional pink and blue themes,” I said, pointing at the screen, “and go with the trendier neutrals, we’d align with what the majority of younger adults would be interested in.”
“The neutrals are too plain,” Matt argued.
I groaned and let my head drop back. Rupert, Brad, and Eli did the same, equally exasperated with Matt’s color input. The man did have an eye for the aesthetics. And he was familiar with the color wheel, like a walking Pantone agent.
It still tickled me that he not only recalled the color of my eyes but could be more specific than green , calling them jade instead.
“Anyway…” I said, wrapping up my portion of the presentation. Another yawn escaped me as I finished. Eli did the same, the next in the contagious line of yawning.
“That was a great presentation,” Tom praised.
“Thanks,” I replied without facing him. I tidied my papers, feeling like I was dragging my feet. And I still had to walk home.
“How about we relax over dinner now?” he asked.
I sighed, looking him dead in the eye. “No, Tom. I’m not interested.”
“How about?—”
Brad laughed once, the wise ass of us. “Damn, man. Can’t you take a hint?”
“No, he can’t,” Eli teased.
“Loren’s not interested,” Rupert said, the trio of them seeming just as annoyed as I was to constantly tell Tom to stop hitting on me.
I glanced at Matt, who remained quiet.
Because of course, he did. Other than that one time he told Tom to leave me alone, he didn’t speak up.
More than once, I'd wished that he’d step in. That he’d intervene and ward off Tom like he had with that drunk at the bar. He hadn’t hesitated to stand up for me then. But now, he seemed not to care at all if I was peeved with his worker. Actually, it seemed like Matt abhorred me, not in any mood to be my savior again.
Because Tom’s harmless, right? He wasn’t groping me or being overly lewd. Eventually, my rejections and lack of interest would speak loud enough for the message to sink into his head.
As I headed home, though, I wondered if it would always be like this, in one way or another. A grumpy, elite, rich guy for a boss and a forward, pushy coworker hoping to mix business with pleasure.
I liked my work. I was enjoying myself with the tasks I completed. Whenever we had an a-ha light bulb moment as a team with a new idea coming to us because we approached something at a different angle, it was the best reward.
But the men here? I debated whether I was cut out for pushy men in the city.
I yawned—again—as I unlocked the front door to my building.
Back home, everyone knew everyone else and there simply wasn’t any motivation to try hard with the same old. Only when someone new moved to town—which wasn’t often—did anyone get aggressive with their attention and try to flirt.
I was a people pleaser at heart. It was both my blessing and curse. When I wanted to find volunteer work, it was a great connection, but when it came to my parents and my sister, it was a hex, the feeling of being obligated to make them happy.
From day one, I struggled to appease Matt. He was determined to see me as the enemy, always there to argue with. Convenient to bicker about details with. Available for him to glower at.
I had no idea why he had to hold a grudge against me. It couldn’t have been because I was bad in bed. He’d enjoyed himself that night.
It wasn’t because I slacked on the job. I put in long hours and never quit.
At first, the surprise of seeing each other on that first day caused some awkwardness. But almost a month later, he was determined to keep me squarely in the category of women he couldn’t stand.
And the worst part of the conundrum was how badly I wanted to get his approval. Deep down, it had to be another element of my people-pleasing effort. But when I compared the one-night stand, sensual, and needy Matt with the stern, rigid, hard ass boss at the office Matt, I couldn’t reconcile between the two.
I thought about him in my downtime. I dwelled on what I could’ve done wrong when I ate dinners by myself. And I worried and fussed about what was so horrible about me to deserve that cold of a shoulder from him.
Because I miss you.
It was so dumb to yearn for what had only lasted hours, but the longing to have Matt grew more intense every day that he dismissed me. He’d made me feel so treasured, so worthy and special that one night, and I wished I could experience bliss and peace in his arms again.
After I prepared my leftovers, I stared at the plate of Chinese takeout and felt my stomach turn. It tasted wonderful last night, but now, as I willed myself to eat something, nausea filled me. Cramps gripped my stomach.
I can’t let this damn stress get to me.
I couldn’t allow Matt the power to ruin me like this. It was supposed to be a random fling, for God’s sake. I wasn’t supposed to have the chance to get to know him in another setting, even if he was a hard-to-please authority there.
Ever since I started on his team, I felt more and more tired. A general, inescapable fatigue took over me daily and nightly now. While I could chalk off being more tired than usual to the stress of moving, settling in, and getting my grounding at a new job, I wished it could settle.
“Oh, it’ll pass,” I muttered aloud as I set my food back in the fridge. I highly doubted it’d be any more appealing tomorrow, two days old, but I wasn’t in the mood to push myself to eat right now.
Maybe I can add some antacids to my diet?
Because it didn’t matter how tired I was or how funky my stomach felt. I would power through this. I had to, because I was determined to prove them all wrong. I would not fail in this opportunity to show that I could strike out on my own and make my life a good one.
I’d show Matt that I wasn’t some new girl on the team who’d wind up distracting them all. I’d convince him that I was there to focus and work, not be an “issue”. Tom was getting too persistent, but I was confident that not giving him my attention was the most honest way to let him give up hope on me.
And I’d be damned if I let my exhaustion and stress get the better of me to the point I’d consider surrendering and moving back home. That was the very last possible resort, and I wasn’t veering in that direction at all.
I would show my parents that I wasn’t a failure waiting to happen. That they could tell their friends their daughter was a high-level specialist for a company in New York. I would never give up the chance to show Becca that this wasn’t a prank or a bluff or a lie.
I spent too many years going nowhere back in Hamming. After I graduated high school and worked at the local diner, saving up for college, I had to give up my savings to “support” Becca for her wedding. That was what a good, loving sister would do, according to my parents who damn near browbeat me into going along with that plan. Then her wedding was postponed, and she needed more things added to it, more expensive items.
Because I assumed she would pay me back, or Dan would once they married, I went along with giving up my self-earned college savings. My parents blew the college savings they’d set aside for me on Becca’s wanting to go in and out of countless programs. First, she enrolled in cosmetology school. Then some kind of medical coding program that was “too boring” for her. And on and on. She used up all that my parents had saved, leaving none for me.
Once I ponied up my money and realized I might never see it again, I buckled down to volunteer and work two jobs to save up for college. That was why it took me so long to graduate. I started late.
And it was all for this—total freedom from my sister. The complete lack of responsibility to give anything to my family when they didn’t care about me in return.
I couldn’t screw this up, and I vowed not to. Especially at the big meeting next week. We’d been preparing and coming together as a team for a month now to structure a preliminary presentation for the Gammon people. Our first direct meeting was coming up soon, and instead of being nervous, I embraced the giddy excitement of action.
This would be my first professional presentation, the initial time I could show my skills and how I could handle this corporate world of marketing and PR.
“It’s going to be fine,” I coached myself as I headed to bed.
I’d keep my head up high and avoid all this drama at the office. Matt could go on being a grump. Tom could keep flirting with me, and I’d dismiss it like I had been.
Come hell or high water, I would not fail. All I needed to do was focus on the job and get it done.