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I reluctantly follow her and close the door behind us.
She sits at the edge of his desk and points to the two chairs in front of her. I feel like I’ve been caught doing something bad and I’m in the principal’s office, only it’s my friend who is looking at my boyfriend, our boss and me like we’ve been hiding a major secret. Oh wait, we have.
QUINLAN
I’ve been pacingmy office all morning.
I knew that our relationship would come out one day, but I was hoping that I would have been a little more prepared.
I wasn’t and I specifically did not speak about a relationship, nor did I hint at one. I made sure the living room was sparse when the reporter came by, but there was a sweatshirt, that I passed off as mine and no one mentioned that it said UCLA, instead of Columbia.
But the reporter managed to get his hands on photos from the charity dinner we went to in New York, now our relationship is out there. And the office is chattering about it. I saw the business section when I stopped to get breakfast, witnessed the whispers once I walked in, and had emails congratulating me on the new romance in my inbox from all over.
I figured that I would have an angry Sidney coming to my office, I just didn’t realize that she would be accompanied by her friend Olivia.
Who is currently glaring at me as if I’m being scolded by the school principal for cutting classes.
“You two have a lot of explaining to do.” Her hands are balled on her hips and she looks back and forth between Sidney and me sitting on the edge of my desk.
“Actually, as your boss, I don’t—”
“Forget that you’re my boss, just for five minutes. This is one of my best-friends and for some reason, she did not tell me that she’s been in this relationship, and now I’m worried about her.” Olivia points at Sidney.
I look over to Sidney and smile.
“You have nothing to worry about, I would never take advantage of Sidney; our relationship is consensual, and I have nothing but respect for her.” I say slowly.
“It was my choice to keep our relationship secret. Quinn wanted to go public, but I asked for us to not,” she adds.
“Quinn, Mr. Montgomery, John—whatever you want to be called—with all due respect, this is going to look really bad.” Olivia says shaking her head. “Sid. wants a promotion and suddenly she’s with the boss. Now that will ruin her image around here or make everyone think that she’s climbing her way up and forgive me for this—but fucking the boss.”
“No, it won’t.” Sidney interjects.
“Bullshit, people are going to think that you’re getting special favors or something. Isn’t there something about this kind of stuff in the employee handbook?”
“No, there’s not.” I shake my head.
“It doesn’t matter. While I wish this article didn’t come out with a photo of us, it’s not going to matter for much longer,” Sidney says butting in persistently.
I turn my gaze to her, what is she talking about? She locks eyes with me, and I feel like I should sit down even though I am. Is she breaking things off? I thought we were in a good place.
“I’m giving my two-week notice to HR today, I was offered a Creative Director position and I accepted it.” She confesses with guilt in her eyes.
Olivia’s mouth drops, just as mine does at the sudden news.
“Excuse me, what?” I ask, just as Olivia asks ‘what’.
I stand and open the door, “Olivia, would you mind giving us a few moments, please?”
She nods and scurries out of the room as I close the door behind her, then turn towards Sidney.
“Sid. Why didn’t you tell me that you were officially interviewing? I feel like this is one of those things that we definitely should discuss.”
“I didn’t want to jinx it. I wasn’t even sure that it was going to pan out. I gave it a whirl, and aced the interviews, then they called the other day and well, surprise, I quit.” She gives me the jazz hands as if she’s on stage. Yet her tone is still unsure.
“Definitely a surprise. And congrats, but I would have assumed that this would be something that we talked about. I thought that we agreed to no more secrets.”
“I know, and we did. I just wanted to make sure that I had everything finalized before fully talking about it. When I was interviewing, I wasn’t feeling completely confident about whether or not I had the job. Then I wasn’t really sure whether or not I would actually take one of the jobs. Then the meeting ended so horribly that it basically determined what my next step was going to be.”
