AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Jess inches even closer to the camera. Her lashes are so long they almost touch Jack’s face when she bats them. “Wait… is this about the talk show? That was MTV, right? Is this the execs?”
“Jess… no, this is not MTV executives.” Jack pushes his hat back far on his brow.
“Hey, guys,” Jess says into the camera before looping her arm over Jack’s shoulder. “I just hope you know you have a friggin’ superstar here, on your work team or whatever. He was asked to be co-host on an actual television show.”
Jack rubs his forehead.
Jess waves happily, then finally backs away. Now, there are three faces on the screen, which is how it should have been from the start.
I am doing my best to stay here in my seat, staring at my desktop computer, but what I want to do is get up and walk away. Cross the living room, open my apartment door, and step outside.
Maybe a few gulps of fresh, crisp, ice-cold air would make this sick feeling go away.
I am in New Hampshire, land of the snow, while Jack is in sun-drenched Utah with his beautiful, perky ex-girlfriend…
Raymond shifts again. “Alrighty, folks. We have limited time for this discussion, so I suggest we get right into it. Hazel, I had a look at the policy you forwarded over to me. Thank you for that.”
“No problem,” I manage to say.
My eyes linger on Jack’s image, and I feel distracted.
This is the first time I’ve ‘seen’ him since we parted ways at the resort. I left for the airport before him, so we said goodbye outside the lobby. I remember how he kissed me tenderly and how I promised to text him when I landed.
“...which will work in your favor, I believe,” Raymond says. “The more specific a policy is, the easier it is to get our feet on the ground, so to speak.”
“Hm?” I say.
“Then again,” he goes on, “some of the vague policies that businesses have these days leave a lot of wiggle room, and that sure can help, too. Let’s dive in, shall we? I’ll pull it up so you can read along.”
The Buzzy Digital Marketing company policy fills my computer screen a moment later.
“So.” His cursor moves, and he highlights keywords as he talks. “Here you can see the policy names consensual romantic relationships, and of course, we have this clause about supervisor-subordinate relationships, in which one person has authority over another. That’s very common to see that lifted up.”
“Makes sense,” I murmur, even though I’m barely keeping up.
Raymond nods. “At this point, I’d like to ask you both: where are you within the company’s hierarchy?”
“Equals,” I say.
Jack nods. “Equals. We’re both Sales Leads.”
“Wonderful.” Raymond props himself up again, bracing against his armrests. “Really, that’s very good. You can’t imagine how challenging this gets when one person is higher on the pecking order than the other. Now…”
He drones on.
I struggle to keep up with him as he reads through several paragraphs of very technical, scary-sounding regulations.
When he wraps that up, he whips out an expensive-looking pen and removes the cap. He poises it over his legal pad. “Let’s explore your version of what occurred. Hazel, you mentioned Hawaii. That’s when this policy breach happened, is that right?”
I nod, feeling numb.
He must take it as a sign I’m ready to talk. “Great. Good. Let’s get into it. Tell me about your time there. I don’t need details, just a brief overview to understand what we’re working with.”
My tummy dips.
Hawaii…
That magical week.
