Olly
The weekend had been brutal.
There wasn’t much of a concept of a ‘day off’ or a weekend when you were in sports. Sports happened at weekends. There was no chance of me taking time off in the week when all the sponsors and CEOs were at their desks.
There were not many days I could cross off my calendar.
The weekend was a chance to fit more work in and meet with as many people as possible from my list. It was a chance to show my face at games and make sure the world knew we weren’t worried about Ridley.
A chance to head out and scout at college games and keep an eye on the competition.
But Keaton wasn’t scheduled for work on weekends.
He had said he would work with me whenever I needed him. He had promised to stay late and come in early. But the contract he had signed said five days a week and I couldn’t overstep that mark. Not when it was the cause of at least half of my previous secretaries folding.
I still remembered the look on my first secretary’s face when he quit.
Andy had been with me from the start. We had grown the company from a tiny thing into something bigger. We had been fresh out of college back then. Young men with no other commitments.
But then he met a woman. Got married. The final straw came when he had a child.
“I just can’t do it anymore, Olly,” he’d said to me. The last secretary I allowed to call me by my first name. “I don’t see my wife awake. I missed my daughter’s first steps. I’ve changed about five diapers, total.”
I had frowned at him. “You want to change more diapers?”
He’d sighed and said he knew I wouldn’t get it. That he was leaving and there was nothing I could do to stop him. The workload was just too much for one human being. He said there was no way anyone could keep it up for an extended time.
He had been wrong. A decade later and I was still going strong.
But his words hung in my head whenever I looked at Keaton. I knew it was true. Every one of my secretaries who had not been fired for incompetence had quit. Almost all of them said the job was too much.
I didn’t want Keaton to think the job was too much.
I’d work every weekend without him just to keep him a little longer.
This had been a weekend fraught with tension and heavy with apologies.
It felt like I was under attack on all sides.
Every client and every sponsor wanted to know if we were losing our grip.
If our star player was about to go fully off the rails.
If we were going to have enough time to spare for them.
Reassuring each and every one of them personally was a mammoth undertaking. But it was the only way they were going to believe that they weren’t about to take a backseat.
I was a tired man. Almost a broken man. But I wasn’t going to give in. I wouldn’t let our saboteur get the better of us. I was going to find out who it was one way or another.
I was a determined man.
That was the man who waited for Keaton when he arrived on Monday morning. When he appeared like a balm for my soul. The one thing I had wanted all weekend but had not been able to grasp.
“Sir,” he said. There was something odd about his manner from the second he stepped into the room. He didn’t go to his desk. He stood in front of mine. He didn’t take his messenger bag off over his head. He didn’t take off his coat.
He just stood in front of me.
His hair was slightly wet from the rain outside. I wanted to reach out and push it back from his forehead. Stop the water from running into his eyes.
“Keaton,” I replied. I narrowed my eyes. I had been so busy all weekend that I had done a successful job of not thinking about it. Seeing him in front of me again made my mind go right back to that moment.
The feel of his body in my arms. The overwhelming urge to pull him closer. To use his fall as an excuse to kiss him. The sheer disappointment of knowing the right thing was simply to set him back on his feet.
“I… have something…” he said. He seemed to not know quite what to say. Then he reached into the pocket of his coat and brought out a white envelope.
A small rectangular white envelope. The kind that you would buy to enclose a sheet of A4 paper folded in three across the longest side. The kind that you would use to hand over a resignation letter.
He held out the envelope and I took it. I glanced at the front. My name was printed across the front in neat block capitals.
Well, not my full name.
Just Mr. Harvey.
It was a resignation letter.
I handed it right back to Keaton without opening it. I looked back at my computer screen as if nothing had happened.
“Um, sir,” he said. There was a hint of frustration in his voice. “Sir, this is a letter for you.”
“Fine,” I said. I held out my hand again. He placed the letter into it carefully.
I turned and deposited it into the feeder for my shredder. Keaton yelped in indignation but I had already turned it on. It disappeared into shreds in a matter of seconds.
“Sir!” he exclaimed. “That was an important letter!”
“You’ve only worked here for a couple of weeks,” I said calmly. “Is that all you’re going to give me?”
“I…” Keaton hesitated. He opened and closed his mouth. “I didn’t have a probation period, so I had to decide for myself when the right time to leave would be.”
“Can you not cut it at this level?” I asked. I knew I was allowing him to get to me too much. Rising to a level I shouldn’t. Antagonizing him on purpose. But if it paid off…
“It’s… it’s nothing to do with the level of the work,” Keaton said. “I just – I’m not really – I don’t want to –”
“If you cannot give me a good reason to leave,” I said. “Then you should reconsider your decision.”
“I have a good reason to leave!” Keaton exploded. “I wrote it down! It’s in the letter!” He gestured at my shredder with such sudden ferocity that I almost laughed. Why was he so much cuter when he was angry?
Why did I feel like I had just discovered a very dangerous piece of new information?
“I haven’t seen your resignation letter,” I told him dismissively. “You can’t resign without a formal letter.”
“I-!” Keaton stared at me furiously. “I wrote you a letter!”
I spread my arms wide and looked around my desk as if confused. “I don’t see it.”
“That’s fine,” Keaton snapped decisively. He lifted his chin. “I’m going to write and print you another one.”
I leaned over casually and grabbed the cable for the printer. I pulled. It came out of the wall.
“The printer’s broken,” I explained to his incensed look.
“This is ridiculous,” Keaton said. He pressed a hand against his forehead.
“Look, if you’re worried about being left in the lurch, you don’t have to be.
I spoke to Helen – your last secretary. She said she would be happy to come back at any time.
I know you fired her, but at least you can have someone to fill in the gap before you find a new candidate. You’ll be fine.”
I looked at him and knew that I would very much not be fine if Keaton Dunbar quit and I never saw him again.
“I cannot accept your resignation without a formal letter,” I repeated stubbornly. “You have to give notice in writing.”
“No, I don’t,” Keaton huffed. “I don’t have to do anything. I could just walk out of here right now. What are going to do about it? Fire me?”
I looked at him evenly. “You wouldn’t break protocol like that.”
Keaton obviously knew I was right. He made a frustrated sound and yanked his bag up over his head. “What do you expect me to do? I don’t want to work here anymore!”
Those words were like a dagger to my heart. I didn’t let it show on my face. I had earned my reputation as a negotiator for a reason. You didn’t let the other side see how weak you were. How close you were to folding.
“You’ll have to resign tomorrow,” I said. I hesitated. How much did I dare allow to creep into my voice? “Give me until tonight.”
“Tonight?” Keaton folded his arms across his chest. He was… hot when he was like this. Demanding and fierce. “You mean six o’clock, my actual shift end time.”
“We’re working late tonight,” I said automatically. “There’s a meeting.”
“There’s nothing in your calendar,” Keaton countered.
“There is,” I said. “You put it in there.”
He thought for a moment. “Crowhill Crows?”
I nodded.
“But I thought that was a personal appointment,” he said. “You said it was…”
“It’s a business dinner,” I told him. I looked him in his furious face. “Have dinner with me.”
His neck and ears went pink.
“What?” Keaton muttered. He suddenly seemed very uninterested in meeting my eyes.
“Tonight,” I said. I turned back to my laptop. “It’s settled. You should start the day’s work.”
I did not smile when he turned back towards his own desk. I did not raise my hands in a victory salute when he took off his coat. I did not dance with glee when he sat down and started typing.
But I remained keenly aware of his presence for every second of the rest of the day.
He was mine. Keaton Dunbar. He didn’t know it yet.
But I had decided.
He was mine. Maybe he was just my secretary. Maybe he was something more. But he was mine in either case.
There was no chance I was letting him go without a fight.
In exchange for what – Helen? There wasn’t a chance in hell.
Keaton Dunbar was mine.
And tonight he was going to know it as well.