5. Noah
5
NOAH
O n the plane, I resisted the urge to ask Maddy what was wrong. I was her new boss, not her friend. It wasn’t my job to babysit her.
Maddy and I were settled in seats on either side of the aisle, to give me enough room to spread out with my laptop and paperwork. At least I was settled. Maddy couldn’t stop fidgeting. Between the heavy sighs, bouncing leg, and humming, it was becoming clear to me that she was a nervous flier…even though we hadn’t even left the tarmac.
I gave in. “Are you okay, Maddy?”
“Who me? Yup, I’m great,” she answered brightly.
When she looked at me I could see the fear in her eyes.
“First time on a small plane?” I asked. As much as I didn’t want to get into a long conversation, there was no way for me to ignore her nerves.
“Um, yes?”
“You’ll be fine. It’s really no different than flying commercial.” I paused to consider it. “Well, except for the food, staff, comfort, and lack of waiting.”
“Oh, is that so?”
Her leg was bouncing so fast that it sounded like a jackhammer. I tried not to notice the way her calf looked. She was wearing a navy dress that had slipped up her thigh, exposing a lot of her leg. I hadn’t selected the clothing, but the personal shopper had done a hell of a job with the options. Maddy looked every inch the competent PA, aside from the jitters.
“Once we’re airborne you won’t notice a difference, trust me.” I booted up my laptop to prep for the meeting.
“I… uh, I’ve never flown before,” she said in a quiet voice.
I glanced at her and realized the poor girl wasn’t just nervous, she was petrified .
“Are you kidding me? How is that even possible?” It slipped out before I could stop myself.
“Hey, not everyone gets the opportunity to travel,” Maddy said, defensively. “I mean, I’ve always wanted to. I had so many plans…” She trailed off.
“Well, what happened?” I clicked through my emails. “What stopped you?”
“My dad got sick.”
I was such an idiot. I’d expected to hear some tragic story about needing money, or a jealous boyfriend unwilling to let her go. But I remembered reading about it in the news when her dad passed.
I turned away from my laptop so that I could completely focus on her. “That’s terrible. I’m sorry.”
She nodded. “Yeah, it was hard in a bunch of different ways. I was about to move to DC for an internship at CNN when he was diagnosed with melanoma. Obviously, I dropped everything to be with him. He fought as hard as he could for two years, then I lost him.” Her bottom lip quivered.
“That must have been so difficult for you,” I searched for words. They all felt clumsy on my tongue. “Did you have support? Your mom?”
Maddy let out a strangled laugh. “She’s not a part of my life. She left when I was young.”
It was hard to believe that this upbeat, can-do young woman had already dealt with so much pain and loss. To give up her dreams to take care of her father? That kind of dedication wasn’t something I ran into often. You were supposed to spend your twenties working hard and partying harder. Not grieving a loved one.
The steward interrupted us to ask if we needed anything. Maddy shook her head and gave him a brilliant smile despite everything we’d just been discussing.
“Actually, yes, we could use a glass of liquid courage for her, thank you,” I pointed to Maddy, and her eyes went even wider. “Something like a Laphroaig or Macallan, before we take off.”
Maddy watched the steward walk away. “That’s not necessary.”
“It is for me,” I said. “I don’t need you terrified and clutching my arm when we take off. We’ve got plenty of time before the meeting for the effects to wear off.”
The steward was back with a glass of amber liquid before she could protest. Maddy held it up to me. “Here’s to smooth skies and signed contracts.”
I was about to add to her toast, but she downed the thing and launched into a coughing fit. “Maddy, that’s a sipping drink, not a shot!”
Honestly, kids these days.
“Now you tell me,” she said, fanning in front of her mouth as tears filled her eyes.
She finally settled down and I went back to my emails, which seemed to have multiplied during the few minutes we chatted. Her frenzied whispers started as the familiar series of chimes signaled that we were getting ready to push back.
I thought of the text I’d gotten from James an hour ago. I think she’ll be a great hire for you, so don’t be an ass to Maddy. Unlike us, she’s a nice person. Don’t do the thing where you expect people to act like professional robots.
I looked over at Maddy and saw that her eyes were closed and she was whispering “it’s okay” over and over.
Maybe James had a point.
“Hey.”
She opened her eyes and looked at me.
“Do you want to sit here?” I pointed to the empty seat beside me.
“Yes please.” Maddy nodded and her face relaxed a little.
I cleared off the area and she scooted past me then plopped down in the seat. I caught a waft of vanilla, sweet as a cupcake.
“It won’t always be this scary,” I reassured her. “You’ll get used to it.”
She nodded wordlessly as the plane started moving.
I thought the scotch was doing its job until the plane started picking up speed to take off. Her eyes were trained out the window, and the second the nose of the plane banked up her hand shot out to grab mine.
I stared down at our joined hands in surprise. I’m more used to my employees being intimidated by me rather than reaching out to me for comfort. It felt a little inappropriate. But as much as I wanted to untangle our interlaced fingers, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Maddy looked like she was hyperventilating as she stared out the window. I don’t think she even realized what she’d done. It was up to me to set the standard of our working relationship, but the next thing I knew my thumb was stroking her skin, and I couldn’t stop.
It’s just that her skin was so soft. It had felt great to wake up touching her, but that could have been a fluke, more the result of a forgotten dream than anything to do with her. Our handshake had been brief enough to keep up that lie. But this wasn’t brief.
I hadn’t realized how much I’d enjoy holding her hand.
She needed it for now, so I’d allow it. There would be enough time once we were on the ground to put some necessary boundaries in place. And boundaries were necessary. It didn’t matter how attractive I found her, she was so young. And more importantly, she was a new hire. I wasn’t about to cross that line with a woman who hadn’t even had a chance to read our employee handbook.
I went back to answering emails with my free hand. I told myself it wasn’t wrong to hold her hand, as long as I didn’t let myself fully enjoy it.
When we finally leveled off, she seemed to shake herself out of her fugue state to realize she’d been attempting to cut off my circulation.
“Oh! I’m so sorry,” she said, shaking her hand free. Her face went bright red.
“It’s fine. I still managed to answer a dozen emails.”
“What else needs to be done?”
Good. She was taking initiative. Even if I got the sense it was partly because she needed a distraction from flying.
“This would be a good time for me to outline the specifics of your position,” I said. “What I expect of you.”
She reached into her bag to grab her notebook and pen. “Okay, I’m ready.”
“Job number one is managing my calendar. It’s nonstop. I’ll also need you to run front on my phone. There are times when I’ll forward my calls to you. You’ll be responsible for all of my travel, but I can already tell that won’t be a problem for you.”
She grinned. “Why, thank you. Glad you noticed.”
“You’re going to be in most of my meetings to take notes. That’s absolutely critical, because sometimes there are disputes about pre-contract terms. I’ll also need you to do player research, but again, that doesn’t seem like it’ll be a problem, thanks to your previous job and your family background. I might ask you to do some shopping for me, if I need a thank-you gift. And I do speaking engagements now and then, so I hope you’re proficient in presentation software.”
I was still in shock that she was taking down everything I was saying. I’d dealt with Zoe’s bullshit for far too long.
“One last thing.” I waited for her to look up at me. “You need to be invisible in my meetings, okay? I know you’re familiar with this world, but I can’t have my assistant contributing to negotiations.”
She chewed her lip.
I found myself wanting to know what she was thinking. “You have a problem with that?”
“No, I… well, yes.” She squared her shoulders. “At my old job, everyone wanted me to keep my mouth shut. If I’m honest, I had higher hopes for this job. What if I have intel that you might not know about?”
I winced. I didn’t like being compared to a crappy paper that paid her shit and wouldn’t let her write.
And she’d already demonstrated that she could problem solve and closely followed the sports world.
“Your job is to give me all the information you have before the meeting. Everything you know about the players, I should know. Even the ridiculous social media gossip. But once we’re in front of the clients, you’re silent.”
She nodded. Clearly, she didn’t love my answer, but she could live with it. “Got it.”
“And speaking of, let’s talk Garrison. You’ve got the female perspective on his appeal, so I want to know more about that. How is he portrayed on social media? All heartthrob, or do his stats come into the conversation as well?”
Maddy launched into an overview of the lighter side of my potential new star. There were indeed insights I’d missed. She knew all of his stats, but she also knew things I’d never considered, like the hashtag #makemeMrsGarrison, where women professed their love for him doing something called “thirst traps.” It was a new world, but the more she talked about it the more I realized I needed to understand it.
“He’s a momma’s boy, too,” Maddy said. “I love that about him.”
I grumbled, “Don’t I know it. He doesn’t make a move without her buy-in. She’ll be at the meeting as well.”
Maddy swept her eyes up and down me. “Are you a mom guy?”
I frowned. “Excuse me?”
“Can you make moms like you? Because if you can do that, I guarantee he’ll sign.”
I flashed back to a time in high school when, trying to be friendly, I’d made the mistake of asking my girlfriend’s mom when the baby was coming. I’d gotten better since then, but not by much.
Yeah, I wasn’t a mom guy.
It had come up in the past, but not very often. Most young athletes were eager to be taken seriously, to handle the negotiations themselves. I’d gotten very far by focusing on my relationship with the guys. Players like Garrison were the exception rather than the rule—but surely he wasn’t that different from everyone else. If I made him a good offer, he’d recognize that, no matter what his mother said.
“Of course they like me,” I responded quickly. “But it’s his signature I’m looking for on the dotted line.”
“Okay,” she said agreeably, but I sensed some doubt in her.
Maddy pulled out her phone and I jumped back on my computer, angling it slightly away from her as I searched Matthew Garrison hashtags. She was right; there was an entire subculture I’d missed. By the time we prepared to land, I was feeling better than ever about my prospects with Garrison. I was ready.
Her leg started bouncing up and down again as the air pressure in the cabin changed. She reached for my hand again, then stopped herself.
I told myself I didn’t feel disappointed.
“It’s normal,” I reassured her. “We’ll be safely on the ground in a few minutes.”
“I actually forgot we were flying, for a while there,” she said, clutching her armrest. “Now I’m stressed again.”
“No need to be, the hard part is over. You did great.”
She snorted. “You’re lying. I was a mess. And haven’t you ever heard of a crash landing?”
“Look out the window,” I said. “We’re fine.”
And sure enough, the jet glided onto the runway without as much as a bump, coming to a smooth stop. I couldn’t have asked for a better landing for a first-time flier.
“I did it!” she exclaimed.
“Sure. The pilot had nothing to do with it,” I said dryly.
“Oh, shut up,” she said.
As we collected our things I caught myself looking forward to our return trip. Maybe she’d need to grab my hand for security again.