I went to my desk and got back to my real job even though I could feel it whenever he glanced at me. I did NOT look at him. Not once. Because I was a goddamn professional.
But then I had to look up when a paper airplane sailed through the air and landed perfectly on my desk. I snatched it and shot a glare in his direction but he was pretending he was busy with something.
I unfolded the paper, which turned out to be the Code of Conduct that I’d written earlier.
It was pretty lengthy, and added to my verbal list from earlier, greater defined what was off limits. He’d signed it, but folding it up into an airplane kind of defeated the purpose of that.
I slid the paper back and forth on the edge of the desk to smooth out the creases and then took it and held it up for him to see while tore it in half and then tore it in smaller pieces and then shoved it in my paper shredder, hoping the sound carried to his desk. Then I pretended to dust my hands off and went to get some coffee, my chin in the air.
“You didn’t think you were going to get off that easy, did you?” He was close, but not too close. Still, my skin shivered in response to his voice. Like I was a robot programmed to react to him. How had that happened so fast? The sex probably had a little something to do with it.
I turned slowly, holding my coffee in front of me as if it could protect me. As a last resort, I could always throw it in his face, but that would probably result in a lawsuit.
“Look. This,” I motion between us with the hand not holding the handle of the coffee cup, “can’t happen. Period. It’s best for both of us to just pretend nothing happened and move on. So, how are you coming with organizing those reports?”
He leaned against the counter and crossed his arms.
“I’m having a little trouble with some because they’ve been updated and I don’t have access to the folders where they’re stored.”
See? We could do this. We were talking about reports and I didn’t want to rip his pants off and mount him at all.
Well, maybe just a little. Or a little-lot.
“Hm, let me see what I can do about that. You’re still technically in training until your three week review and then you can ask for additional access, but maybe I can fast track that. I’ll talk with Mr. Clarke and see what I can do.” I always called my father Mr. Clarke in front of other people. I’d been doing it for so long that I was used to it.
“Thank you, Miss Clarke, that would be fantastic.” He sounded completely unenthused.
“Good. I’ll get right on that for you, Mr. Blaine. Now if you’ll excuse me.” He stepped around me and went for the Keurig without another word. Ugh. I wanted to smack him in the back of the head, but that wouldn’t be very professional, so I went back to my office and dialed my father’s extension.
“Hey sweetheart, how are you?” I will always be my father’s little girl.
“Hi Dad, I’m good. I’m actually calling you on official work business.”
I proceeded to tell him about the issue with Mr. Blaine’s access issue.
“Hmm, I’m not sure what I can do to speed that along. The auditors would have my hide if we didn’t follow our written procedure. Let me speak with Laurie and I’ll get back to you.” Laurie was basically the Chief Rule Follower and it was her job to make sure we all followed the bazillion rules that we had to follow to stay in business and not piss off the government.
“Okay, great.” Despite working just down the hall from one another, we sometimes went an entire day without seeing each other.
“So how is your new sidekick working out? It must be weird having someone other than Sal at that desk. I know it’s strange for me.”
Oh, Dad. If you only knew.
“He’s been great so far. Quick learner and he finishes everything before I even know I want it.” Mind out of the gutter, mind out of the gutter . . .
“I’ve been meaning to have a chat with him myself, but I just haven’t gotten around to it. Why don’t you send him down this afternoon?”
“Uh yeah, sure,” I answered before I thought about how bad an idea that was. Hopefully Mr. Blaine could keep everything on the down low.
“There was one other thing I wanted to ask you about. Oh, remember how I asked you to look over those reports?”
I had looked at them in any spare moment I had, but hadn’t come up with anything earth shattering. But, to be honest, I hadn’t looked all that hard. It had been low on my priority list.
“Yeah, I haven’t found anything that stuck out.”
“Hm. Okay. We’ll talk about it later. Listen, I have to get to a lunch, but I’ll see you later. Bye, sweetie.”
“Bye, Dad. Have fun.”