7. Chapter 6
Chapter 6
Elsie
March 14 — 10 Weeks 5 Days, Lime
M arshall wasn’t kidding about the barnacle thing.
The first few days after he moved in on Sunday were cute, and his attentiveness was almost... nice? But now it’s Thursday, and I’m pretty sure my assistant wants to strangle the man more than I do now.
“He has to go,” Oliver says, storming into my office, nearly slamming the door behind him and cringing when it does. “Sorry.”
Every day for the past week, Marshall has come into the office to be “helpful.” Thus, my assistant’s current look of frustration.
I sigh. “He’s a lot.”
“It was cute. It really was. And I do like sending him for coffee...”
“Which you won’t let me have,” I grumble, cutting him off.
“It’s for your own good. You should have stopped a long time ago.” He says, waving me off. “But the man is going to drive everyone to quit. He needs a real job.”
“He has a real job. That’s the problem.” I sigh. “He leaves in 17 days. Then he’s out of our hair for twenty-eight days.”
“And when he’s back? He goes back to following you around the office like a puppy dog?” Oliver whines, then dramatically collapses in one of the chairs in front of my desk. “I can’t live like this.”
“ You can’t live like this? The man literally sleeps across the hall from me now. He never leaves me alone .” I say, my composure cracking. “I just want one god damned day away from this man, like it was before... you know.”
Oliver doesn’t miss my gesture to my stomach.
“He is a really good cook, though,” Oliver admits. “The enchiladas he brought yesterday were to die for. I still need to say thank you for sending me home with a tray for my family.”
“He won’t stop feeding me,” I smirk. “You think it’s some kind of kink?”
“Nah, with how often that man put his hands on you and your belly? That man is more obsessed with you being knocked up than anything.” Oliver says with a chuckle.
When my door swings open dramatically, I’m not even surprised to see a very furious-looking Selene standing in the doorway.
“He has to go.” She says desperately.
“Ah. I’m so glad everyone is in agreement.” I say.
“He’s got my staff clinging to the end of their sanity. He asks so many questions .” She complains.
Looking around the room at my two closest friends, I drop my head into my hands and begin to cry .
“Oh, my goddess. Babe. I’m so sorry.” Selene starts, rounding my desk and kneeling beside me with a hand on my thigh.
“No.” I cry. “It’s not you. I’m just... overwhelmed and emotional.”
“My partner did the same thing when xe was pregnant,” Oliver says, grabbing for a tissue from the box on my desk. “It comes and goes.”
“I just don’t know what to do. He’s driving me up a wall.” I fret, trying to gather myself as I wipe my eyes with the tissue Oliver passes me. “Last night, he insisted on making dish after dish because either I couldn’t stomach the idea of eating them or he would make something, and the smell made me gag.”
“Oh. That’s kind of sweet.” Oliver coos.
“No. It’s really not. He made a mess of my kitchen and gave me a headache with all his banging around.” I gripe. “Then this morning, he woke up early and bought about forty different supplements he says I need to be taking. Now he’s asking when my next doctor’s appointment is because he has questions for her.”
“Okay, the doctor thing is reasonable, you must admit.” Selene contributes, to which I frown.
“Not when he wants to ask about whether or not it’s safe for me to have sex.” I scoff, thinking of the uncomfortable conversation we had driving into work this morning after he shoved his way into my car and refused to leave. “I want to scream.”
“At least he’s thinking about sex.” Selene shrugs, standing up and going to the free chair next to Oliver. “I’ve heard once the morning sickness goes away that you become horny as hell.”
“She’s right,” Oliver says with a far-off look and a smirk .
“I want to scream,” I admit. “I want to run in the opposite direction. Just quit everything and escape to a country with no extradition treaty.”
Selene and Oliver share a conspiratorial look, which makes me frown and wonder what they’re up to.
“The man needs boundaries,” Selene says with a devious smile.
“Clearly.” Oliver agrees, a grin forming on his face as he watches Selene carefully.
“You should make a list of rules.” Selene suggests, giving me a small shrug as though what she’s suggesting isn’t that big of a deal.
“Rules,” I repeat, trying to follow the silent conversation going on between my two friends.
“Ooh. I like that idea,” says Oliver. “The do's and don’ts of being together.”
“We’re not together,” I interject sharply.
“Fine,” Selene says in a soothing voice that’s somewhat out of character for her animated personality. “In which case, think of it as like roommate rules then. That’s what y’all are, right? Roommates? At least for the time being.”
“I can live with that.” I agree, slumping back in my chair.
“Then we make a list for him to review and agree to,” Selene says.
“I’m loving this idea,” Oliver says, standing and strolling out of my office. “I’m grabbing my computer. I’ll take notes.”
I sigh. “Y’all are ridiculous.”
Only for the next hour, Selene, Oliver, and I work on creating a list of rules that Marshall must agree to in order to save my sanity.
When Marshall walks into my office promptly at five p.m., I silence my co-conspirators .
“I’ll print off a copy of this for you to go over later,” Oliver says as he rushes out of my office.
“Good luck!” Selene cheers as she leaves with Oliver, but her voice turns cold when she addresses the newcomer. “Marshall.”
“Thank you,” I yell after them as Marshall settles into one of the chairs that my friends just vacated.
Silence builds between Marshall and me, the only sound in the office being the clatter of my coral typewriter-style keyboard and the hum of the air conditioner blasting through the vents.
When Oliver returns to drop off the folder with our list of “rules” for Marshall, I thank him again as he exists.
“You know, Oliver and Selene are the only people here that I’ve seen you be outright kind to,” Marshall says, finally breaking the silence. “You don’t say thank you or please to anyone else in the building.”
I look up at him sharply, trying to gauge his motivations.
“Your point being?” I question.
He shrugs. “You could stand to be a little nicer to your staff.”
“My staff are here to do a job, Marshall. A job which I pay them handsomely for.” I assert. “I shouldn’t have to coddle them into feeling warm and fuzzy to do their job.”
Silence passes between us before he speaks again, his voice gentle. “Did you know you made an intern cry after your finance meeting yesterday?”
My head whips over from my computer screen to look at him.
“No.”
“You asked her for her opinion on something in the meeting and shut her down when she responded.” He says. “She left the meeting and cried in the bathroom for ten minutes. ”
“How do you know this?” I ask, my voice growing softer with each word.
“You have genderless bathrooms.” He shrugs. “I waited for her in the lounge area by the door and checked in on her.”
“You stalked my employee,” I say, my voice hardening.
“No. I checked on her, which she seemed to appreciate.” He replies more defensively.
“Not that it’s your business, but everyone who works for me is treated exceptionally well here. They are all asked to create a flexible schedule of thirty hours a week, either working remotely, in person or some combination thereof. They all receive full benefits and six weeks of vacation time. There are six months of paid parental leave for every employee who is expanding their family, whether they’ve been working here for four months or four years. Interns receive very similar treatment, including the option of either being paid for their work or being offered course credit through their universities.” I snap, frustration growing with each syllable uttered. “My team is treated well and compensated more than fairly. There’s no reason for them to be crying in bathrooms.”
“That doesn’t mean that they feel emotionally safe and secure in their work environment.” He says, holding his ground against me despite my growing annoyance. “Not everyone handles your sharp edges well, Elsie. Sometimes, people need a leader to be soft. They need to see you be vulnerable in order to feel comfortable doing the same in their work.”
“Are you saying I’m a bad leader?” I ask defensively.
“No. Not at all.” He sighs, shaking his head in exasperation. “I’m sorry. I just mean to help.”
“Well, stop helping. It’s not needed.” I say through gritted teeth .
“Elsie! Responding to other people’s needs is like 90 percent of being a parent.” He says, glancing down at my still-typical curvy belly. “You’re going to have to adapt at some point.”
I look down at my body. I know change is coming and that things will have to shift when the baby comes. But that’s an issue for later, and I don’t need to worry about that right now.
“I have time,” I murmur.
“Change doesn’t happen overnight.” He says.
“It does when you become a parent,” I reply with a little too much sharpness. “I was preparing to do this on my own from the beginning, Marshall. There’s no reason for that plan to change.”
His eyes grow wide, and his face falls like I’ve genuinely hurt him.
“Except that I’m here. I’m here and asking to be a part of this, Elsie.” He says, getting up from where he was sitting on my couch to come stand beside me at my desk.
With the gentlest of touches to my chin, he lifts my face to meet his own piercing brown gaze.
“I want this, Elsie. Don’t deny me the chance to be a part of my child’s life.”
His voice is so tender, and the look he’s giving me is so open and honest that I can’t push down all the tears that want to come up.
Stuffing the emotions down, I shake free from his delicate touch and reach for the folder Oliver left on my desk.
“Here,” I say, my voice a little too shaken for my taste. “Read and sign.”